I was talking to my friend Kari Fisher from the Missing Truck Driver Alert Network yesterday, and we were commenting on the sorry state of medical services available for people who actually live on the road, with no fixed address. (Side note: if you haven’t checked the MDAN page, go do it. They’re good people doing good things, helping families find their loved ones.) She mentioned that someone asked her what truckers who live on the road do when they’re sick and she told them that most of the time, they suffer.
Self-treatment on the road is the norm, you learn to take care of incidentals without the aid of professional care along the way. Unless your wife is a nurse, that is. Then you ask her what to do and refuse to do it while complaining about your ailment.
About five minutes after I got done talking to Kari, George called.
“I think I have an ingrown toenail.”
Nurse mode kicks in.
“What makes you think it’s ingrown? Is it swollen? Red? Hot to the touch?”
“It hurts.”
