health

Thanks For Letting Me Prep You

~ Lee Swanson ~ 7 Comments

One of the many interesting experiences of getting older, along with sore knees and failing hearing, is the invitation from your healthcare provider (read “doctor”) to have a colonoscopy.

After declining the invitation several times, the emails became more insistent until one day the phone rang and a pleasant-sounding woman said she was ready to schedule the exam and would Wednesday work for me. Feeling like a trapped animal, I briefly considered which would be the appropriate reaction—fight or flight—but then fright set in and I meekly said Wednesday would be fine, I guess.

It’s likely that you weren’t aware I was having a colonoscopy, and I’m sorry about that, but the tickets sold out before I could make a general announcement. I’m told there was popcorn in the observation deck.

Popcorn is, of course, one of the many foods I could not eat in the three days beforehand. In fact, I was largely restricted to overcooked vegetables and bananas. I took it as an opportunity to lose weight. The day before, the instructions said to drink nothing but clear liquids, and particularly nothing red or purple. I stocked up on vodka, gin and tequila before I read the fine print.

There was also a video I was supposed to watch that explained what I would have to go through, and what would go through me. I avoided that too, until I got several reminder emails. I’d been assigned a code number and they tracked whether I logged in. Bastards. So I logged in and played the video while simultaneously solving the New York Times crossword. I knew just enough to keep the volume up so that I could click over and answer every time they asked if I had questions.

Wednesday of the longest week finally came and I went in to the hospital. A nurse sat me down and asked all the standard questions. I gave all the standard answers.

“Weight?” “205.” (Down five pounds from the previous week thank you very much.)

“Height?” “Exactly the right height for that weight.”

“Have you fallen in the last six months?” “Not while sober.”

“Have you been out of the country in the last six weeks?” “No, although the last couple days have been like drinking the water in a third world country, so had I know it was an option…”

Here’s something fun to try. Everyone you encounter in a hospital or doctor’s office asks for your name and birthdate. I always say “November 13, 1951, what’s yours?” Without fail, they get a little flustered, and then tell me, because they don’t know what else to say. It’s a bonding thing. Sharing.

Don’t worry, I will spare you the rest of the instructions and processes. I would have rather they spared me the preparation too. Think about drinking a gallon of warm, unflavored Gatorade, and not leaving the house for two days.  Suffice to say getting there is half the fun. In fact, that’s all the fun. The day of the exam they gave me an IV and woke me when it was over.

And that was that, until three days later. I got an embossed notecard in the mail from my health group (read medical conglomerate). Inside were little personal messages from the nurses who had been on my “team.” Now, there are probably hundreds of things they could have written, and may even have wanted to have written, but instead, it was, essentially, a thank you note. “Thanks for letting me prep you for your procedure,” was the most interesting. I didn’t know I had a choice. “It was a pleasure to take care of you today,” and “Thanks for letting me take care of you,” were the others. I imagined these overworked nurses sitting down with a bunch of notecards at the end of their shift and having to write to the patients they had wheeled around all day when all they really wanted to do was go home. If it had been me, I would have given a stack of cards to student nurses and had them write up a month’s worth. And perhaps they did.

There’s been not a word from the doctor who did the exam because, you know, doctors.

I don’t know what consultant came up with this idea, but I found it ridiculous if not hilarious. And let’s just say the notecard didn’t make it into my scrapbook.

Nobody Listens

~ Lee Swanson ~ 3 Comments

Odds are I spend more time in doctors’ offices and clinics than you do. Not that it’s how I really want to spend my day, but they keep inviting me back. Since I have this vast experience it seems only right that I share some of what I’ve learned about medicine.

The first thing to understand is nobody is paying any attention.

Here’s what happens every time I’m in a doctor’s office.

The receptionist hands me a questionnaire which must have something to do with a research project, since everyone gets the same questionnaire and none of the questions pertain to me or the reason I’m there.

It calls for yes-no answers, but I’ve decided not to let that deter me. The first question is, “do you want a chaperone in the room with you?” I check “no” and write “I’d prefer a doctor.” Does anyone want a chaperone, ever? I haven’t even heard the word chaperone since junior high school dances and we didn’t want them then either.

Next question: do you have trouble standing or walking? “Not if sober, which isn’t often, so that’s a Yes.”

Have you fallen in the last six weeks? “See question two”

Are you often confused? This is the only question I answer by just checking the box, and without fail I always check both yes and no.

I turn in the questionnaire when the nurse calls me to go from the big waiting room to the little waiting room, the one with the paper-covered table.  No one has ever asked anything about my answers, because quite obviously no one has ever looked at them.

The nurse opens the door to the inner sanctum and always smiles and says “hi, how are you?” That would be a logical question for a nurse to ask a patient, except that the nurse doesn’t care what the answer is. You can answer anything you want and she will nod and ask you to step on the scale. “I died out there in the waiting room.” “Mmm-hmm, let’s get your weight.” “I’m fine, why else would I come in for chemotherapy.” “Right you are, step up on the scale please.” I know it’s a throwaway greeting, but if anyone ever asked “how are you” and genuinely wanted to know, you would think it would be in a doctor’s office. If you don’t want an honest answer maybe you should ask about the weather.

So the next step is to get my weight and then ask my height. No one has ever actually measured my height. They just take my word for it. Big mistake. First I ask “how tall do I have to be for that weight?” and while the nurse fumbles for an answer I say I’m six foot two, or six foot three or six three and a half. I never give the same answer twice. They write it down on a scrap of paper but obviously never record it anywhere or someone would have noticed by now. “This is odd; you’ve grown an inch and a half since you were here a month ago.” But no one ever says that.  And isn’t it kind of a dumb question anyway?   Has your height really changed much since back in the days when you had a chaperone?   Mine only changes because I’m lying about it.  So I’m going to start really lying and see if anyone even blinks. “I’m five-four, do you think this shirt makes me look taller?”

An hour or two later the doctor finally walks into the room and does listen, some, now and then.  Most of the time he’s staring at the computer screen.  I think he’s playing Angry Birds.