Barbara J. Hamby

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My Day as an Impatient Patient

Tuesday I spent about four hours in an “ambulatory surgery” facility. Sometimes when I’ve watched ER on television, I’ve thought it was pretty far out. I didn’t remember seeing many of the activities or extreme emergencies in my several trips to emergency rooms in my mother’s last few years.

However, the doctor who was scheduled to give me my “procedure,” a colonoscopy, had some “situations” so was behind schedule. After I was in the skimpy gown, on the gurney, had signed the papers and had an IV in my arm, I waited about an hour for the doctor. The curtains were opened around me and I was placed where a traffic aisle crossed in front of me. Also, two sets of doors opened and closed with people in all sorts of uniform combinations rushing around in all directions.

The entertainment and the cold air blowing around me kept me awake. Two different nurses brought me warm blankets that felt great. However, having not eaten for a day and a half had deprived me of the fuel that usually warms my body. Watching patients of all ages, shapes and sizes come in and go out, while hearing snatches of their conversations piqued my curiosity.

The conversation I enjoyed the most was one nurse (or volunteer, I’m not sure) telling another nurse how she’d tried to read the doctor’s instructions to a patient before check-out. “Do not dine or do not drive, I’m not sure which,” she read. She described how the patient’s face fell when she read “Do not dine,” because she was very hungry. She decided to check with the doctor to see exactly what he meant. “Do not drive,” he told her. She said it was definitely a four letter word and their was no “r” in it.

It brought me back to years ago when I had to read medical reports in legal files. Most doctors and some nurses are notoriously bad writers. I did get fairly good at translating both medical and legal personnel’s handwriting in those days.

I chuckled when I checked out. The computers were down and, rather than handwrite my instructions, the doctor found a very bad typewriter somewhere and typed them.