Dear Doctor,
Hello- this is me- the woman in the waiting room (with the three small kids). I should be easy to pick out- considering the balance of the people waiting are 70+ years old and have broken hips, knees, feet, etc. Not to mention the fact that my children have set up camp right here in the corner with their blankets, cars, littlest pet shops, and actually are now hiding index cards all over their part of your waiting room. That would be a scavenger hunt- they made it themselves. It is fun- so they are laughing, giggling and talking rather loud (sorry!).
However, the happy sounds, in my opinion, far outweigh the previous cat fights my two youngest have been having. See- they both wanted the same chair. So whenever one steps out of it- the other makes a complete dive across whatever they must to get in it. Then there is the car- who everyone apparently wants. And the kleenex box, which I'm sure is a blessing to those who need one- but to a mother of small children it makes me sweat. Because I know someone is going to discover it- this time it was Emily- and they are not going to stick to the 'one per person' rule. But please don't worry, I have them in my purse and they will all be used- eventually.
And to the woman who is giving us all of the dirty looks. She can't be much older than me, but perhaps she does not or has never had small children. We're actually maintaining a fairly good composure this morning- so her dirty looks are actually hurtful. If she wants to see something worth a dirty look, she should have joined us at the library on Tuesday. That was painful. Please give her our apologies- actually, never mind. She got to come to the doctor by herself, so she can just deal with the small amount of noise she may have to put up with from our corner of the room.
See- we are late for everything. But this morning, considering we had an hour drive to get to your office and I had to wake all 3 of these children by 7:30 in order to get them dressed and fed and in the car, we managed to arrive at your office 10 minutes early. How nice is that. Not only for you, my service professional, but for me to not have to hang my head in shame for being 'late'. I have enough shame in my life- typically caused by the activities of my small ones- so this was a good thing.
I understand you are in high demand, and leaving for vacation for two weeks, and I also know that you are a fabulous man and I am trusting you with my child. My child, the broken one, I am trusting you with her arm. Her left arm. The arm that someday will have a golden ring placed upon it at her wedding. So if her arm is all deformed and crooked, that would be bad. So see- I am trusting you. And I am not trying to rush you. After all, you have a lot of people trusting you with their bodies. In fact, they are all sitting here in the waiting room with me. The waiting room where we have been sitting for 1 hour and 25 minutes. But not to worry- take your time, we will wait.
What is that- did she just call our name? Emily, get your shoes on, Sam, grab your blankie, Allyson open that backpack and I will begin chucking the 32 toys into it. 'We're here, We're here' I call, please don't pass us by. Sam- where are your shoes? 'We're coming' as I run around trying to gather all the index cards. Hot tamales- it's our turn.
I might take this opportunity to tell you, Doctor, that your exam rooms are immaculate. I know because we scoured every square inch. Thank you for keeping them so clean. 4 people, 2 chairs plus the spinning one- instant torture. I can solve that though- I will stand. Then the fighting over the spinning chair, which I always refer to the Doctors chair, began. Then I began screaming. Not to worry, I got control of myself- I spy I thought. That will do the trick.
Let me tell you, I know of every single blue, yellow, red and gold 'thing' in your exam room. We played I spy with them all.
Being as it has been another 25 minutes- only this time we have been confined to this 4X8 cell, oh I mean exam room- you can imagine that the only thing left to play with in my purse is a tampon, and even I have standards. So that being said- please put me out of my misery and GET IN HERE! For the love of everything good, GET IN HERE! Can you not hear us through these walls, do you not have one ounce of compassion, can you not just skip ahead 3 or 4 of the adults ahead of us- who are alone and able to browse all the magazines, pray or just think- and GET IN HERE with us and then get us out of here? Trust me, everyone in the building would be thankful. But not near as thankful as us.
Oh, and I will take this chance to ask your forgiveness for beating on the door with my tin cup- for a moment I forgot where we were.
I found it amusing when you opened our exam room door and said "Is it safe to come in?" Please know when I responded 'No', that I wasn't joking. You really took matters into your own hands there, but you are no worse the wear for it. I will say that I appreciate you not rushing in and out of our room- you sat down and let us ask our questions and were rather jovial with us. I might have really hurt you had you rushed us after all our waiting. Good choice.
Just a mere 2 hours after our scheduled appointment time, we were finished and on our way out. Perhaps that is good for your office, as the receptionist kind of admitted. I can hardly wait until we return in two weeks for our follow up- again. Goody. Just wondering, if you know that your current scheduling system is not working- as in you are typically 1 hour+ behind on the patients appointment time, maybe you should spend a moment and review the current procedure. I know I would have appreciated the opportunity to sleep for one more hour instead of spending it in your waiting room. But then again, what do I know. I did not spend the time in med school that you did, so I'm sure your system-somehow- makes sense to you. Better my time wasted than yours, right? I'm just saying.........anywho.
Not sure how much an xray machine costs, or even how to operate on, but I am going to check into it. It has got to be easier than what we just went through.
Oh- and by the way. Apparently we get to come back on Monday as a neighbor girl twisted Allysons fingers and brought her to tears with pain. Your nurse explained that rather than running to any of the 3012 facilities within minutes of our home for an xray that could be transmitted by the internet to you, that it would be better if we come down to your office, again, on Monday to have the xray done there. But she did warn me, you are typically behind so we may have to wait. She scheduled us at 9:20 so, she said, hopefully you won't be too far behind. Our appointment today was at 9:00. Oh Lord, give me strength.
See you Monday. I'll bring my checkbook, you try and stick to the schedule!
Sincerely,
Mom of many (and yes, they will all be in tow that day too)
PS
This time we are bringing a tent, hope you don't mind!
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