The new doctor visit is fraught with anxiety, aging body parts unreliable, like levees in a hurricane, hidden weaknesses ripe for breaching or dependent on an upstream dam threatened with its own fissures. Dr. G's office fit the norm and befit his stature as a specialist: waiting room large enough for the acolytes of five doctors; two white clad receptionists behind a chest high partition topped by a sliding glass window against a backdrop of floor to ceiling file cabinets with their crazy-quilt of color-coded files. Why did they need such a barrier? Were we dangerous? An assortment of business cards confirmed that only Ears, Noses and Throats were welcome. It is too bad you can’t just pop off the offending parts for review. I’d developed odd throat clearing noises, sounding like someone demanding immediate attention or my voice cracking like a teenage boy’s, often deserting me entirely. My own research skills (thank you Google) supplied a variety of possible nastiness that prompted a specialist review.
The girl behind the partition barely looked up from her computer screen as I approached and pointed to a sign-in sheet on the counter that asked for your name, doctor and the time, and politely told you to sit down. I complied, scanning the few other patients, all of us avoiding eye contact, as though sharing an elevator. The glass slid aside, my name was called and a clipboard emerged. I knew immediately what was coming and fervently wished I’d had that second cup of coffee.
In his State of the Union speech in 2005, George W. berated the medical industry for its lag in using technology for medical records, claiming that the mythically bad handwriting of its practitioners caused deaths. A friend brags about her clinic where scheduling appointments, accessing prescriptions and test results, and asking simple questions can all be done online and by the patient. Obviously this office hadn’t caught up. My own primary doctor’s medical file, a careworn folder unchanged in twenty years, is stuffed with every lab test, outside report, annual physical questionnaire plus the forms filled out every visit: verifying medication, recording blood pressure, height and weight (looking for shrinkage I suppose) to which my doctor adds her notes. Sometimes she needs to check something and surprisingly, after lots of page flipping, usually finds it. But I really could use a new folder.
Despite deep distrust of George W and memories of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist, as I looked at the form with its closely spaced columns of boxes to be checked and lines to be filled, I wished I had that card like my friend’s, its magnetic strip encoding my medical information and sparing me the emotional trauma of filling out yet one more medical history. Isn’t it bad enough I could be dying? Couldn’t I wait to have my life flash before me? The nurse/receptionist was busily making entries in the computer. History told me that was probably my bill which would be ready before I left.
The health information form was divided into three categories: family history, health history and current habits/etc. Father, mother, spouse, partner and one sibling are dead so that part went quickly, though how the cause of a spouse’s demise relates to my health is unclear. My children (live births as they are called) are next; their high blood pressure and alcoholic propensities a genetic gift from their father; allergies can be blamed on both parents; recovery was their own idea. I sighed audibly, garnering a few curious stares.
The health section had 30 or so categories and maybe 10 blank lines to explain any I admitted to ever having. Say no to weight change? Or, in that mysterious life phase doctors call the “Well, you know, at your age...” knee pain, arthritis, eye problems, hearing loss, shortness of breath? I skipped explanations. Hospitalizations and surgeries were tricky, dates doubtful and “procedures” vague. Leaving out having a migrating wisdom tooth removed, I hoped it wasn’t a clue, being so close to the ear and nose neighborhood. The current habits section was easier, more than one glass of wine makes me sleepy, and I always lie about exercising regularly. I left the Nine Flavor Tea herbs off the meds list and ignored the last question, “Do you have any physical limitations?” There wasn’t nearly enough space for an appropriately sarcastic response. And of course, there was the obligatory form to sign where I relieved the doctor of all responsibility for my treatment and gave him carte blanche with my information. Which I was fairly sure he hadn’t read and probably wouldn’t.
As I knocked on the window and slid the clipboard over to the unsmiling young woman, I wanted to pull a Reagan and holler “Take down this wall.” I watched as my 87 year old history with all its misleading and irrelevant information was tucked into yet another folder. In offices all over town -- the dermatologist, the orthopedist, the podiatrist, the neurologist, the ophthalmologist, the urologist, the radiologist, the rheumatologist, the psychiatrist I sit in similar folders.
Oh yes, my throat. In an exam of about four minutes and 32 seconds, mostly looking down my throat with a collection of tools, Dr. G. assured me that my throat was mostly okay, not great, he was quick to qualify, some flap’s edges a bit closer together than he would like, but “For someone your age, ……..” I picked up the prescription and waved goodbye to my file. Until next time.
I liked it. Had a couple of good laughs. I agree that the wall was off-putting. Some very funny and clever lines.
I love it!!!
Descriptions are so accurate a d give.a defined picture.