bed side bad manners

I have been in and out of doctor’s offices, labs, and special practitioner’s offices all over the valley since last November. Its exhausting going from place to place and trying to remember everything that you need to bring or try to persuade another office to fax to the current location you need it at. I found out quickly that I need to make copies of everything possible so I could have it on hand or at least call someone before my appointment took place to make sure they had access to what they needed. Amongst my cane, that I have to bring with me everywhere, I have a list of items I carry around with me to each appointment.

Of those items is an eight pound binder, full of paperwork and analyses, is one of the many joys I haul around. Juggling a cane, a purse, the loathed eight pound binder (that I cradle to my chest like a baby), a mri films folder (that is as big as tv-dinner table tray), a placard with a time limit on it for parking, and my shaking debit card; held out reluctantly for the next abusive swipe through the very number-crunching-addictive key pad that demands my $40 co-pay for each appointment…even if they are in the same building…on the same day.

Though the painful testing, the restless nights full of questions, and the slowly growing bowl of knowledge that is passed from doctor to doctor like a party-mix, I find that there is something that is constant amongst the ever-changing procedures and unfamiliar hypotheses that I hear though out my visits, and that is the repetitive statements that are used by everyone in the doctor’s office no matter if they have met with you a hundred times or the first time when they pass you in the hall. I have a sneaky suspicion that there is a little man running around the office holding que-cards or speaking into a secret two-way-radio, giving the workers the same lines to say over and over.

There are things that I don’t want to hear when I go in for an appointment and yet they are the things that I hear numerous times no matter where I go. I’m sorry that I have to share them, because they are annoying, but I fear that if I don’t jot them down they will circle in my head, on a skipping repeat, like a broken record playing a Nickel Back song. (Which of course sounds the same from start to end anyways.)

I now type down some of the monotonous statements that crawl under my skin, hoping that they will be removed permanently and the little guy holding the two-way-radio will know that I’m on to him. Well little man, I am onto you! Please be more creative in the future than sticking with the following:

Please have a seat; we will be with you in a minute.
This may hurt.
Are you able to walk?
Who is your insurance again?
I’m sorry, I’ve been running late today.
Our machine broke this morning.
Please fill this out.
Please fill this out again.
We lost the paperwork.
I’ll need a copy of their papers before we begin.
You have so much damage we don’t know where to start.
I will need a copy of that.
Have you already had__ insert a test the doctor gave me last week here ___ test?
You will have to meet with Doctor__insert anyone else here___before you meet with me.
We will need you to have a follow-up appointment with me.
Does this give you more pain or less pain when I poke you?
You have a lot of weakness…that is just not a good sign.
This does not look good.
Do you remember any trauma before this happened? Any at all?
Your reflexes are not good.
Well that’s no fun, is it.
I need you to sign here.
Which leg is it again?
We are going to need to reschedule.
I’m going to advise that you see another doctor.

And last but not least…
It’s good to see you again, (doctor looks at my name on the folder of freshly copied documents) Sahara, what is troubling you today?