Precipitation: 50%
Sitting in the oncologist’s waiting room is like watching the weather report.
May 2016
Deciphering the ER Triage Formula
I want to know what the formula is. I’m speaking, of course, of the formula that gets one person back into the emergency room to be seen, while another waits and waits with the sick, cranky, disheveled masses.
Desperate for Change
It is a mild Sunday afternoon in October, and I am standing in front of a closed reception window, desperate for change. It is the early 1990s, and we don’t yet have cell phones. I have already exhausted my supply of coins, making calls on the public phone hanging on the wall in the ER waiting room.
Hope
Who knows how many voices created the cacophony that filled the waiting room that night? Words, wails and whispers gave sound to the gamut of human experiences and emotions. But as I listened, I heard one clear, unwavering note that floated above the clamor.
Green, White and Sterile
The young, black-haired waiting-room receptionist, in a voice that is pleasant and professional but too loud, instructs those of us who are waiting–grey-haired and balding, strangely like me–where we should go for the next phase of our lives. So many are told to go to the critical-care waiting area that I worry that young black-hair knows no other destination. I have an urge to educate her about the “everything’s fine, no need to worry” waiting area and to speak a little more softly, but I think twice about it since, like all the people working here, she seems so powerful, and we, right now, are just weak, worried wait-ers.
“Hug Lady, Pretty Dress, Crying?”
I am sitting in the all-too-familiar waiting room of my local emergency department on a Saturday night in July. I am here with my daughter, Ashley, who is nineteen but could pass for a typical twelve-year-old—until she starts to talk. Ashley has a rare genetic disorder. On the good days I laugh and say that she will make a great ventriloquist because she talks without ever moving her lips. This is not a good day. She has a fever, a wet cough, and she snuggles up against me.
The Comfort of Strangers
Mind your own business, I say to myself. It’s like being in a crowded subway car: avoid eye contact, and give these people their space. Try and focus on that sappy family drama that’s playing on the TV.
A Simple Song
When my mother doubled over with belly pain, my girlfriend and I insisted on accompanying my father to the emergency room. There in the waiting room we sat, deep into the night, waiting for news about my mother.
Seeing is Believing
For months I spoke, but no one listened. Not my dad’s primary care physician. Not the physician’s assistant. Not the nurse. I described the “attacks” my ninety-six-year-old dad was experiencing: loss of awareness of his social and physical environments; inability to stand on legs that had turned rubbery; skin that looked pasty and felt sweaty. “Give him orange juice,” I was told. “His sugar has probably dropped a bit. And don’t worry.”
Time Bomb
A lot of waiting goes on in hospitals, and not just in the so-called “waiting rooms.”
I lie in bed waiting for the next day to arrive. It is a small room with an eraser board where, on the next day, I can mark the estimated gestational age at twenty-four weeks and two days, far short of a normal forty-week pregnancy. The bleeding that brought me here has stopped, and now I’ve started my “count up” ritual toward the day of delivery.
I start the next few days with a good attitude. I plan to use this forced bed rest to study for my board recertification and to catch up on friendships. It is hard to understand why each day ends with tears, feeling crazy and watching QVC, thinking that makeup is the thing I need to survive this maternity ward.
Crying Booth
The waiting room is bad enough. But it’s what comes after the waiting and after the appointment that can be worse. I think there should be a second waiting room–I’d call them “crying booths.”
Waiting for Godot
The Scene: The crowded waiting room of a busy, university hospital dermatology practice on a day when Mohs surgery and other treatments of skin cancers have been scheduled.
As a patient, you go to one of the business-like receptionists. After giving your name, date of birth, and insurance information, you are told that you can now sit down. No information is available about waiting times.