So, what brings you here today? I am not good with repetitive stupidly, I try but I just can’t handle it. I can handle the average run of the mill every day stupid comment, I am not above releasing a good brain fart every now and then, sometimes it’s a daily occurrence but I am smart enough to apply self-corrective behavior, sometimes.
What I am referring to is doctor visits or should I say physician’s assistant visits when they ask you “So what brings you here today”. I don’t ever really complain about anything; debt, politics, poor service, bad haircut, gas prices, odors and pain, metaphorical or physical, all are all kept to myself. My belief is that, someone else always has it worse than me so I shouldn’t complain but rather be grateful for what I have. It could be genetic or self-taught because I never saw or heard my dad complaining, to him, men just didn’t complain. Men showed up to work no matter what. Right or wrong, that very well could be the reason why men in my family tend to expire long before the women, we are too stubborn to go to the doctor.
Like many of you, I am very uncomfortable going to the doctor for a host of reason’s and even more so now since the pandemic. I remember the good ole days when I used to just worry about catching the flu or the common cold but thankfully, those two afflictions have now been eradicated from society. I fill out the entry forms online before I even go to the doctor and I tried to be as explicit as I could. I didn’t hide any detail because I am trying to make the trip to the doctor’s office as fast and painless as I can, for both parties. I figure the more detail about my condition I can provide to them before the event, the more informed they will be, there is less chit chat that way. I’m lousy at chit chat.
Now, I walk into that doctor’s office thinking that I have been a top-notch patient by being so detailed in my online description of my ailment that I should be given the patient of the year award for being so thorough. I am quite confident that I will zip in and zip out, nope. The first question I am asked by the woman at the front desk who is speaking loud enough to be heard over the jackhammering noise across the street is, “so what brings you here today”? I frown and sheepishly give a reader’s digest version of my ailment, “my shoulder hurts.”
After I have dutifully served my time in the waiting room pretending to be busy doing super important busy stuff on my iPhone when in reality I am watching stupid videos on how to survive a bear attack while hiking in Alaska with two hunks of prime rib stuffed in your backpack. I am just about to the part where the backpacker explains how to curl up in the fetal position and protect the head and neck area when I hear my name… “Randy”. I quickly stand and close out my important busy stuff, while at the same time nodding at the other poor saps that have to remain behind. No one makes any lengthy eye contact in the doctor’s office so I am not sure if anyone saw my nod, apparently diseases can now possibly be transmitted by passive congeniality.
The nice person in well-worn scrubs and a mask that just summoned me holds the door and greets me as we walk into the secure hallway that leads to the cure for everything that ails me. “How are you today” is the complimentary form of hospitality as you enter the sacred halls of healing. By this point, I am not ready for lengthy conversations so I reply with “I’m good”. At this point, I am confident that each person I will see at a desk busily typing on keyboards and staring at computer screens have all read my detailed online description of my condition and they have had countless brainstorming sessions in preparation for my arrival.
First and foremost, the key element of my diagnosis will be to ascertain how much I weigh because body weight is a critical piece of information needed to properly repair my left shoulder that currently feels like it could fall off my torso at any moment. So, me and the nice lady that retrieved me from the waiting room chit chat about bear attacks and prime rib while I step on the scales. Obviously quality control needs to recalibrate their devices for I am much healthier than what their scale indicates.
As we enter into my own special private suite called room 4, the same lady that retrieved me from the waiting room, ushered me through the maze of tic/toc studios, tells me that I can sit “there” as she points to a lone office chair. I eagerly throw caution to the wind and place my dairyaire in the same chair that hundreds, maybe thousands have occupied over the last few years without so much as a quick sanitary wipe-down. As I am waiting to be cured, I quickly scan the room and take a mental inventory of any medical supplies that I might need at home. I don’t know how much black-market gauze and cotton balls are going for these days but I refuse to pass up a deal like that. According to my last medical bill, one small patch of cotton gauze cost the doctor 20$. I see a whole box of 20 sitting on the counter and if I am smooth and stealthy, I could walk out of the office with 400$ worth of black-market gauze! Just when I have plotted the greatest medical heist in the history of medical heist’s, the silence of the room is shattered as she scoots up the computer keyboard and says, “so what brings you here today.”
My first instinctive answer is not a nice one and could be deemed disrespectful or inappropriate so I settle for “my shoulder hurts.” She then launches into a series of questions; what medicine are you currently taking, do you exercise, if so, how much, drink or take recreational drugs? All of these questions she is slinging at me are on the chart that I filled out on line but for the sake of getting along I answer her as if I was answering my grandmother, “yes mam” to all but that last one and internally I am trying think of what a recreational drug is. She is typing away and really isn’t interested in the quality or accuracy of the answer, she is more interested in completing her portion of my doctor visit. When she is finished typing she says “the doctor will be in shortly” and looks around the room as if she thinks he/she/him/her/the/thou/they may be in the room with us (have to get those pronoun’s in there correctly). She and I never really make eye contact throughout the whole process but in fairness, by this point, I don’t make any real effort, I don’t want to catch anything. She gets up to leave and does a quick survey of all the medical supplies on the counter and even opens up a few cabinets to survey its contents, she is obviously on to me so I shelf the medical supply heist idea.
I am in the room alone again with just my thoughts so I pull out my phone again because I am very interested to see how that fetal position worked against the hungry bear in Alaska when I hear a knock on the door followed by a quick entry. I am not sure what the knock is for but I play along and yell “come in”. I see a woman, it’s hard to tell sometimes with masks and scrubs but in this case, she is clearly a woman. She is friendly, lively and looks me right in the eyes, I’m terrified and try to look away before any infectious transmission can occur. She slides the rolling stool up to the computer screen, scans her badge into the computer. She tells me her name as she pecks away at the computer and proclaims that she is the physician’s assistant for Dr. So and So, then looks back at me as she slides the stool close to me and says, “so what brings you here today.”
I keep my eyes pointed toward my feet and reply, “my shoulder hurts.” I am doing my best to try and stay positive and not just walk out and I would have if I didn’t desperately need her instructions on how navigate the maze of hallways out of this place. She peppers me with a few more questions and finally settles on a cortisone shot right in the back of my shoulder along with prescribing a pill to take once a day. “Now you should feel better in a few days, if not, come back and see us.” This has all been very anti-climactic, I was expecting to hear the words “get in here, stat!” or “we need a crash cart!” or something more dramatic than this but it was not to be. “Just follow the gray signs out to the lobby” was her parting instructions.
I make my way through the hallways, carefully reading the signs so as not to get lost. I have a bevy of thoughts running through my head as I see all the people still typing on computers and looking very busy and I conclude that I know exactly what they are not doing, reading my chart. I make the final left turn out into the lobby, I can see daylight through the lobby window, I can see freedom, I am just a few steps away from a jubilant mask removal when I hear my name again, “Randy”, I look around and see a friend I haven’t seen in quite a while and I am genuinely happy to see him until he stands up and says, “what brings you here today”.