Saturday, 07 November 2009

• Best Before...

  Yesterday I had my weekly doctor's appointment. Because I have the flu, I called ahead, and they asked me to go in to emergency for my appointment, rather than obstetrics. The doctor would come down and see me there, they said; that way the other pregnant ladies wouldn't be exposed to the virus. I was happy to do this; to spread the virus to ladies in their first trimester would be to (possibly) cause brith defects in other people's babies - awful.

  So, I walked (read: waddled) into Emergency and took a number. 12. The nurse was closetted with someone in her office, asking the initial questions. The receptionist was asking someone else for their date of birth. I took a mask, sanitized my hands, and sat down. Time passed. I tried to see the number of the girl next to me. She noticed me looking at her, and gave me a blank stare, over her mask. I quickly looked past her, as if I was checking the time.

  The nurse released her patient back into the waiting area and called the next number. "Number ten?" I was close! I pushed the baby's foot out of my ribs and waited. "Number eleven." He didn't take long. And then it was my turn. The nurse interviewed me, took my blood pressure, which was higher than it's ever been, I would say (though still in the 'optimal' range!), and sent me back out to wait. "The doctor will come down to see you; it shouldn't be too long."

   I sat and watched the snow for a while - I love this part of winter. I walked around a bit; standing is more comfortable, sometimes. I played block-breaker, on my phone. Too bad this phone doesn't have tetris. I always liked tetris. The clock said I'd been waiting for over 40 minutes. I texted Kevin. "They're keeping me waiting as long as if I were a real emergency patient." I hit send, then grinned at how ironic that was.

    One hour and twenty minutes had passed before they finally called my name. "You can go upstairs," the orderly said, "to Obstetrics."
    "But I thought people with the flu weren't supposed to --?"
    "It's okay." he said. "You go down this hall, and then up in the elevator, and then..." He gave me a string of long, complicated directions. Obstetrics is in the 'old part' of the hospital, so even the floors were labelled differently. What looks like level 2 is really the ground floor, apparently.

    But I found my way there, and adjusting my mask, walked down the hall to reception. The place seemed very quiet. Lights were dimmed, or off. There wasn't a pregnant woman in sight. The place looked closed. I stepped up to the desk. The nurse and the receptionist gave me their undivided attention; something I had never experienced before. Obviously, the clinic was over for the day, and they had stayed just for me. That was pretty sweet. "Dinah? You can come with me."
    And five minutes later, my appointment was finished. I'm fine; the baby's fine, and they want to see me again on Monday, because the 'serve by' date on their container labelled "Horsman Baby" says 11/07/09.

   

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