A cascade that leads to Yay

Decades ago, when I started my job here in this little city I now live in, I switched from donating blood at the American Red Cross to donating blood at a more local blood bank. My reasoning for making the change was not philosophical, but merely pragmatic: the local blood bank donation center was a two-block walk from my office.  

When the local blood bank moved to a more distant location, I fell into habit and just drove the 3 or 4 miles there. When we moved to our new home in 2019, we were now yet another mile further away from the blood donation center. Although I only donate blood about every two months or so, it's probably one of my most regular have-to-use-the-car trips, and I haven't had a kick in the pants that I needed to switch this up until this recent, Rube-Goldberg-like, cascade of events.

• In May, I developed ringing in my ears which eventually led me to an ENT, who said it would be worthwhile getting me an MRI.
• Just before the MRI was scheduled, I had a visit from the Covid fairy, and had to postpone my MRI to a later date.
• Also, because of the visit from the Covid fairy, I had to postpone donating blood to a later date.
• I finally had my MRI, and the report came back full of confusing scientific words intermingled with multiple uses of the easy-to-understand word "normal".
• At my blood donation appointment 48 hours later, phlebotomists informed me that I actually had to wait 72 hours after the MRI to give blood, because part of the MRI includes an injection.
• Even though I didn't end up giving blood, the drive there and back through city traffic took 45 minutes, and it also of course, included using the car (because of course, that's what a "drive" is), reminding me that I wanted to find a closer place.
• Rather than reschedule with my local (but actually not as local as I wanted) blood bank, I looked for alternatives.
• I discovered that the hospital just 3 blocks from our new home had a blood drive on Tuesday, conveniently just past the 72-hours-after-MRI deadline.  So I signed up.

I didn't realize how fortuitous the timing of this all was until I was most of the way through my desanguination.  The phlebotomist who was poking and draining me explained that this location for blood drives was only open every 4 weeks, cycling nearly monthly: one month in the mornings, the next in the evenings.  I'd managed to land just perfectly in the beginning of what I hope will be an 8-week cycle of using this place on Tuesday mornings, as I'm heading back home from the soup kitchen to home, passing this particular hospital along the way.  This is going to be super convenient. 

And that's a summary of the cascade of weird health events that will lead to ditching the car even further, which is a big happy Yay for me.