A February Visit to the
local Urgent Care
So. Last night I took my
10 year old daughter to the local After Hours Care. After spending 4 hours, on
and off, trying to get through to our pediatrician all day, and receiving
nothing but busy signals, or the outgoing "do not leave a message"
announcement over lunch hour, my kid and her sore throat demanded a trip to the
local Health Emporium for America's Healthcare Rejects. This is where people go
who a) cannot afford to take off work to go to the doctor, b) have no doctor
and rely on clinics and urgent cares, c) have state-funded medical as opposed
to purchased health insurance, and d) people like me...moms who have a kid who
is sick and just can't wait another day to try to get her into her overworked
pediatrician.
We walk into a packed
waiting room. Somewhere between 20 and 30 people, many of them miserable, sit
in a large circle where they are forced to either stare at their phones, stare
at each other, or try to wrangle tired, cranky, often sick children and convince
them that they really DO want to sit still.
After waiting 5 minutes
for an overworked nurse to appear at the little window and check me in and
inform me it was a 2.5 to 3 hour wait, I quickly discover there was nowhere to
sit. A kind family had 2 of their school age daughters share a chair so that I
would have somewhere to sit. I thanked them and took my seat, and my daughter
squatted on the floor next to the coffee table that floated in the middle of
the room 5 feet away from the closest chair. (What is that table's purpose? It
holds no magazines or books. It's too far away from anything to put a cup of
coffee on, or a book....there are no child-sized chairs for the kids to pull up
and maybe color....or heaven forbid, work on the homework they are neglecting
while they sit for hours and wait to see the one overworked doctor who is on
call tonight).
Next to me is the family
who kindly provided me with a place to sit. Mom is exhausted looking, trying
her best to keep it together while she waits yet another hour to get in to see
someone for her abdominal pain and nausea. She assumes she has stomach flu. Her
oldest, a10 year old daughter, goes to school with my kid, so they somewhat
know each other. The girl is doing her best to help distract her baby brother,
about 3 years old and one of THOSE kids - you know the ones. He’s happy in a
frantic sort of way; sweet as pie, with a devilish gleam in his eye; bored to
TEARS and so ready to DO something, and not afraid to unintelligibly share that
with the room at large...and run around the room just out of reach of his
traumatized mom in the process. The middle kid seemed almost resigned.
Across the way is the one
healthy-looking woman, seemingly the only one there by herself. I can't help
wondering at her presence - what could POSSIBLY be bad enough to warrant a trip
to this hell-hole? She's well dressed (i.e., not in pajama pants) her hair
isn't greasy and matted like she's been subsisting on cold medicine and bed
rest for 3 days. She doesn't have a child dripping unidentifiable fluids from
every orifice and whining about how BOOOORED they are. When she is the next one
called in to see the doctor, I find myself gazing after her with a mixture of
jealousy and insane hatred. How DARE she be unfettered and healthy-looking!!!
The manic 3 year old has
now discovered my crocheting. Evidently it's Waiting Room Protocol to allow the
3-year-old to paw at my project, yank on my yarn, babble nonsense at me, then
run screaming back to his mom after the 200th time she says DYLAN DYLAN GET
BACK HERE DYLAN STOP TOUCHING THAT!!!
I guess I'll be washing
this baby blanket twice. with disinfectant.
Next to Perfectly Healthy
Woman is the Snoring Family: 3 women, all looking approximately alike. The
youngest is taking up 2 chairs so that she can sit sideways and keep her iPhone
6 plugged in while she surfs the internet. She’s not the one snoring, but she
looks like she might nod off at any time. She's wearing pajama pants. She's not
the one who is sick. Grandma is sick. She's snoring.
The 3 year old's aunt and
uncle walk in. From forcibly overheard conversations, it's clear Mom has called
them to ask them to come help with the kids. I think, YES! They're going to
take these poor bored kids away with them, get them some food (they're
starving...it's 8 pm by now and they've been here since 5:30), maybe take them
home and let them go to sleep. no. they scrunch up together and sit down. They
decide to go to their car to see if there are any toys the boy can play with.
The mom doesn’t have any toys in her car.
Wait. What? Who has 3
kids, one of them a 3 year old boy, and doesn't have a SINGLE toy in their own
car?
The 10 year old offers to
go look. She comes back with a ...
toy xylophone.
CLANG CLANG BANG CLACK
CLANG GIGGLE!!!!
oh. my. god.
The temperature in here
is by now approximately that of molten lava. Too many people, most of them
running fevers and sniffling, 2 or 3 of us suffering the periodic joy of hot
flashes.....
They take the toy away. They
find a matchbox car. VROOOOOM
Meanwhile....two other
things are happening all this time. In the middle of the room, kneeling at the
little table, my daughter is playing Pokemon Go on my cell phone. The 7 or 8
year old son of another family is watching. and helping. He leeeaaannns in closer....she
leans a little away. He reeaacchhhes over her shoulder to touch the
screen....she scoots over a little more. Every time I look up, she's moved down
a little further along the table. Eventually she's gone about 3/4 of a full
circuit of the table, and he's still limpeted to her side. She's handling it
well, and I don't interfere. If she wanted help she'd ask me. His parents
appear to see nothing wrong with this either, since they also do nothing.
But I suspect one reason
they say nothing is because the kid's dad is too busy being brain sucked into
his own cell phone. He has 2 little girls limpeted to HIS sides, so maybe this
is their normal personal space parameter. Who am I to judge? Their mom is....
Ok. Their mom. She is
That Woman. The Loud Talker. The Loud Talker On Her Cellphone. In a crowded waiting
room. A waiting room with signs plastered everywhere saying "Please turn
off your cell phones. Thank You!" She is having a conversation. We are all
part of her conversation. I think the doctor in the back is part of her
conversation.
She's here because she
has a UTI. "A UTI!!! you know, a Urinary Tract Infection! They keep givin'
me dose antee-bye-ot-ics and dat jus' gimme a yeast infection. I keep TELLIN’ dem dey don't work none, but dey
keep givin' dem ta me!!! I itch SO BAD! I went ta da circle K up on state? yeah
I went ta get me some benadryl? for da Itchin'? - the bottles is too 'spensive
so I went ta get me one of dem single packs? yeah! Dey was $4.49!!! I said
LLAAWWWDY I ain't payin' dat! so I just gonna itch. It's like a FIRE down
dere!! mmm hhmm!!"
shoot. me. now.
THE NURSE COMES OUT AND
SAYS A NAME!! YAY!!! there's a visable stir!! it's Mom to Manic 3 yr old!! She
heads back.
The lady On Fire is now discussing
That Time With The Bed Bugs.
Demon Boy is now bored,
and no longer happy. He's mad. He wants to GO!!!
The lady On Fire is now
googling silver fish "cuz you 'member dat time dey sayz we gots
silverfish?? what ARE silverfish anyway? I'm'a gonna google it. hang on. oh. OH
MAH GAWD DEY IS NAAASTY!!! GROSSS!! WHY I DO DAT TO MAHSELF!!"
Lady On Fire's battery is
dying. "i gots 2%!!" phone dies. blessed. wonderful. silence.
Then she starts talking
to her kids. <sigh> OH HALLELUIA SHE'S CALLED IN NEXT!!!
silence. oh, except for the 20 other people sniffling, coughing, wheezing, and Antiques Roadshow on the television.
The nurse is back at the
door asking for the family of the Mom to the Demon Boy. They take the aunt
back.
Hmm....this doesn't look
good.
A few minutes later the
aunt comes back. Enforced intimacy of proximity - tells her husband to go out
to the sister's car and get the car seat and move it to their car. Don’t know
where the keys are. Why do we have to do this? What are we gonna do with him?
What about the girls? And, right there, in front of the 3 year old demon child
(not paying attention) and 7-year old not-quite-there girl, and 10-year-old way
too grown up girl...she says "they're calling an ambulance to take her to
the hospital. they think her appendix is about to burst."
The two little girls are
staring at her in horror. The aunt is paying NO attention. She's arguing with
her husband about car seats, and trips to school, and the kids' dad who refuses
to come get them cuz they're HER kids to deal with, and work schedules, and a
broken down car, and I can't miss work....and the two little girls start
silently crying. No one says "it's
going to be ok. your mom is sick, but they know just what to do, and they're
going to make her better." They
say, abruptly, "your mom's going to be fine." and go back to arguing.
My daughter is looking
over at them, with pain on her face. She doesn't know what to say or do.
I finally tapped the
middle daughter on the shoulder and motioned her over.
"Do you know what an
appendix is?" says I.
Shakes her head. Looks at
me only glancingly.
"It's this little
piece of organ, right here in your belly" <I touch her lightly on the
abdomen with one fingertip>. "Our body doesn't use it for anything, and
sometimes it gets angry and makes us sick. but the doctors know how to take
care of it. They will take her to the hospital and give her special medicine.
Then they will probably have to give her a very simple operation. After it's
all done, she will have this wicked cool little scar right about here"
<touch her lightly again on her abdomen> "that she can show off."
out of the corner of my
eye I can see her sister, sitting on her uncle's lap, sitting straight-backed
and silent. I can tell she's listening too.
"Don't worry. It's
very easy to fix. Your mom will be all right. ok?"
she nodded at me again,
and walked back to her sister and leaned in to her. They whispered back and
forth to each other for a few minutes, and then they both calmed down.
Eventually we got to see
the doctor. we were the next to last people in the waiting room, at 10:00pm.
I hope the lady with the
hot appendix is ok. I hope her daughters are ok. I hope everyone is ok. even
the Lady On Fire.
