Band-Aids On The Run

The Waiting Room

Band-Aids On The Run

I've had some rough bouts of cold and flu lately. It's been so bad that I went to my doctor last week to see if anything serious was going on. Now, for me, that's one giant step. I avoid doctors like the plague, mostly because the only reason I'm there is to confirm what I already know, that I'm sick, and to be honest, I'm not a big fan of bad news.

Doctors are a little bit like car mechanics, with all their shiny metallic instruments and diagnostic equipment used to probe a little here and probe a little there, except that, in the doctor's garage, you can't just ask for the express oil change or the brake job special while you read a magazine in the waiting room. You can't just pat the old Chevy on the rear bumper and say, "Don't be afraid, now ... in you go ..." and then hightail it across the street to the Starbucks to kill an hour or two. No, in the white world of medicine, you get to be an active participant in the drama of deciding whether or not you'll live until next weekend.

I like my doctor. I really do. Of the three hours I spend between arriving at his office door and leaving with a handful of prescriptions, the ten or fifteen minutes that I actually spend with him seem pretty productive. What I don't like is what takes place for the other two hours and forty-five minutes.

I always arrive for my appointment on time. Sometimes, I'm even there a bit early, but not too early, because I really don't want to sit around in a small waiting room with a bunch of sick people. Unfortunately, the woman who runs the front desk must have studied metaphysics in college, because she has no idea about the nature of time as most of us know it in the real world.

In her mind, you don't really have an "appointment." It's more like you have a "disappointment," because nobody gets in at the designated time. To her, every patient is scheduled for a specific day, but certainly not for a specific hour. If you show up on that day, you get to see the doctor. Your name is added to a list, and when it's your turn, you get to go into an examining room. Sure, you can complain, but you'd be an idiot to do so. You can say, "But I had an appointment at 10:15, and now it's almost noon!" The reward for such whining is that you get to sit through her lunch break until the late hours of the afternoon before your name finally becomes a conscious thought to her and you're called to see the doctor.

Last week was no different from any other visit. I arrived at my appointed time and got past the front desk about an hour later. There I was greeted by the doctor's assistant, a somewhat sour woman, presumably a nurse of some sort since she was wearing green scrubs, and she quickly ushered me into examining room #10.

"Take off all your clothes," she said without so much as an introduction.

I chuckled slightly. There I was, standing in front of a woman telling me to take off my clothes, and I found myself saying, "I prefer not to."

"You have to. It's a new policy," she snapped back as she pushed a folded paper robe into my hands. "Take off all your clothes, and put this on." Then, as she hurried out the door to get back to her coffee and the latest People magazine, she added, "I'll be back to check on you shortly."

So I undressed and stood there completely naked, and I admit it all seemed a little unusual to be in such a strange and chilly room with no king size bed or even a mini-bar in sight. I unfolded my paper robe. It was white with blue trim, one of those marvels of health care fashion that sort of ties around the neck and then, even under the best of circumstances, falls from the shoulders in a way that leaves one's butt hanging ten, so to speak. That's under the best of circumstances. On this day, there had clearly been some confusion. The nurse had obviously mistaken me for a five-year-old, because the robe didn't fall much past my armpits. Instead of a robe, it was more like a bib.

"Great," I said to myself as I sat up on the wax paper strip down the middle of the examining table, "I feel like a ham sandwich ready for take-out."

When the nurse burst back into the room, I thought for a moment I saw her eyes flickering where they should not be flickering.

"That robe a bit small for you?" she snickered.

"Not if you're serving lobster."

With an almost smile, she handed me a small, empty cup. I took it and looked inside.

"Where is the melted butter?" I asked with my best bedpan expression.

"I need you to take that cup across the hall to the washroom and fill it half-full with urine."

"Is that the same as half-empty?" I mused with a smirk.

"Depends."

"On?"

"Whether you think the results will be good or bad. If it were me, I'd go for good." She bustled around the room and then added, "And I need the urine to be midstream. "

"Midstream?"

"Yes. Not at the start and not at the end. I want a sample from the middle or your urination."

I was dumbfounded. "From the middle?" I asked.

"Yes, from the middle."

"Sounds like it could be messy," I suggested. "You see, for men, peeing is a point-and-shoot operation. If I start messing around in the middle of everything and stick this cup into the stream, I'm likely to get splashed in the eye. I may go blind, or at the very least, need a shower afterwards."

"There are plenty of paper towels in the washroom. Just be sure to tidy up afterwards. And don't come back dribbling all over the place."

Suddenly, I felt diminished, almost insulted. "I am not a dribbler," I insisted.

She looked at me carefully, and I sensed a mind about to go mad in the room, but I just wasn't sure if it was hers or mine. I stepped off the examining table and began to walk to the door. Much to my dismay, my butt had warmed and sealed itself to the wax paper that I had been sitting on, and as I walked, I began to pull the paper off its roll, causing a large white streamer to trail behind me.

The nurse grabbed my arm and stopped me. "Turn around," she said flatly.

I turned to my left.

"Turn again," she said.

I turned to my left again, and the paper streamer had now completely encircled my body. She ripped the paper about three feet behind me and handed me the strip.

"Hold this," she muttered.

I took the paper in my left hand.

"There," she said as she looked me up and down. "Now you're more or less decent. Head across the hall like a good little boy, and get me that sample."

The rest of my visit went from bad to worse. When my doctor finally made an appearance, I was prodded and invaded in the most demeaning manner until he finally said those golden words, "You can get dressed now." I must admit I felt a certain elation at the prospect of getting away from the whole medical gig for another year. Sadly, just as I finished tying my right shoelace and was quickly pocketing a sample box of Sesame Street Band-Aids, the doctor stuck his head back in the room and said, "I want to see you again in a week. Be sure to make an appointment before you leave. "

And in that instant, in those eighteen words and assorted punctuation marks, my heart blipped and dipped with the dread fear of the follow-up appointment. Everyone knows that the follow-up appointment can only mean bad news, maybe even the worst news possible. The moment was electric to me, sort of like someone had held the paddles of a defibrillator to each side of my head, and yelled "CLEAR" just before zapping my brain with enough voltage to turn me into a soprano. So you shouldn't be surprised that, when the door closed behind my doctor, I was quick to squeak, "Ooooo ... I don't think so."

OK, OK. Yes, I'm in denial. Yes, I'm a fugitive dodging the long stethoscope of the medical machine, hiding out by the get-well cards in drug stores, buying vitamins and herbal remedies, and quizzing unsuspecting pharmacists about generic over-the-counter painkillers. Oh, I'm a mess, I tell you, an absolute mess.