ACROSS THE MILES

A Day At The Doctor..

I spent the whole day at the doctors office yesterday. It was an hours drive, exhausting, fighting through so much of traffic and finally we get there. This is a new specialist I am seeing for my back. He is located in Beverly Hills, thought there would be some star sighting but did not. Actually if it was night time I would have seen many stars because it was a clear beautiful starry night.

First you enter a large waiting room, sign your name in, my appointment time was 12 noon look at the list ahead of my name, and there are 5 names signed in for 1130 and 3 for 12 noon. So according to my calculation even if the doctor spends 10 minutes with each patient and 5 minutes chatting with the nurses that takes my appointment time to 2pm. Well there was nothing else to do but look around the room, pretend to be happy you are there and smile.
I settle myself as best I can in the big chair, I have a hard time sitting so I had to crunch my feet up, tried not to offend anyone and just leaned my head on "J"s big shoulders, actually I think it was his big arm because I don't think my head will reach his shoulders, I am only 5ft and he is 6'2". So you can get a picture of what it actually looked like.

Looking around the room I see many people, most of them appeared bored, few were irritated at the long wait. The only saving grace was that the chairs were comfortable, the air was cool and there was a plasma TV . One can only stare at the TV for only a short time, with only soaps being aired and no sound, you had to mouth read to figure out what was going on. Anyway we saw some of the soap stars that we had not seen since the last 15years, reminisced about how they appear to look the same, even the old people had not aged.( I personally think its plastic surgery and Botox.)

Finally I hear my name being called, I was all excited, I look at the clock it is 1.45pm. not bad I say to myself actually I am 15mins early even though my appointment was at 12. I go into this smaller room. You think you are going to be seen right away, but no, this is just another small waiting room, a private one. I lie on the exam table and wait, and wait and wait. I can hear the Doctor talking to the patient in the next room, I listen to his footsteps and take a deep breath thinking I am next, but he has gone past my room to another, so I just wait. I can see J getting impatient, and restless but finds comfort in a Newsweek even if it is one that he has already read.

In walks a little guy with a white long coat that looks like he is wearing a dress. " welcome " he says .I am Dr"A" I am going to ask you a few questions and then Dr "B" will be in. I figure this must be a resident or an Intern . He asks a hundred questions, twists my body into multiple positions, up and down, right side and left side, tippy toe and heel low. taps on my knees and hits on my ankles. Writes a few things down which I am dying to read, but I cant because he has his back turned to me.

Finally the famous Dr "B" arrives, with his long blond flowing hair and his English accent. He reviews what Dr "A" had written , explains that he has seen the MRI and he can help me back on my feet. I am thrilled hoping maybe they can take me in right now and have my surgery done, but my spirits were dampened when he said he needed another MRI and a Disco gram done. The Disco gram is going to be done on Monday and the MRI next week. So I have to wait for another two weeks to find out when I am going to have my surgery.

We leave the office, they even have Valet parking so that was nice, we stop and have lunch because we were starving, and try to figure out how I am going to get there on Monday. "J" may have to take another day off.

I was disappointed because there is still another wait, but it was OK. Even though it was a long day, I got to spend a whole day with "J". It was nice and I have another nice long day to spend with him on Monday. He was especially nice and said he enjoyed the day with me even if it was spent at the Doctors office.