Waiting in Waiting Rooms
The world has turned into a blur of greige
The tans and the grays blend together. Time slows down. Wait here. Take a seat. Make sure there is at least two chairs between you and the others waiting. Don’t make eye contact. Balance the clipboard on your knees and check boxes.
You get to the list current prescriptions. You open your purse where you have them all lined up because you can never remember the names or the dosages or even pronounce them.
A door opens. Everyone glances up. A nurse, usually a woman, calls out a name.
“James.”
or
“Tabitha.”
Look back down as person shuffles past and the nurse with a firm pleasant smile asks for a birthday.
Your hand shakes from too much coffee and this is just what all this waiting has done to you. One leg crossed over the other, your foot jiggles, too, so much that your flat is threatening to slide off.
You sign your name to the forms telling them to bill the good insurance you are lucky enough to have and bill the remaining to you. You sign the HIPPA form. You sign your life away.
You stare off into space, waiting. Another nurse at the door. Another name. Another birthday. You wait. You recheck your forms for anything missing. You think about writing down that time you felt that pain but don’t know if it’s related. Maybe it was a fluke. Maybe this whole this is a fluke. Maybe the beige walls will fall down to reveal Ashton Kutcher and a camera crew.
You study the art on the walls. They are almost always swooshes of bland color meant to depict water or a horizon or a landscape that is far away from this room. You want to desecrate them. A little broken glass or spray paint might liven them up.
You pull out your phone even though you brought a library book that needs to be returned soon. Books don’t belong here. Books require focus and attention. Here is just for waiting. You scoll scroll scroll. Glance up at the TV in the corner that is always programmed to the Today Show, no matter what time of day it is. Scroll scroll scroll.
Check email.
Check work email.
Jiggle your foot even more. Your shoe is dangling off your toes. Look at your watch for the time. You’ve only been waiting five minutes. Think about what needs to be done after this appointment. Mostly work. How you are missing work for this, but work really isn’t that important, not compared to your health but you need to make up the work you are missing now, so really, what is more important?
Finally, your name. You stand, gather your things, the clip board and the purse that is over-flowing with your life: a book, a notebook, an epipen, every prescription you’ve taken the last five months, receipts for copays paid, appointment cards, snacks, lost pieces of candy, rocks courtesy of your kid, Tylenol bottle, Advil bottle, lipstick you never wear, contact solution, sunglasses you haven’t been able to wear for months, your favorite ball point pens, scraps of paper with stupid essay ideas written on them. You heft this life onto your shoulder and walk over to the nurse who takes your forms and with that firm polite smile asks for your birthday. Like a password, you give it and you are waved through the door.
You are asked to step on a scale, where you refuse to remove your jacket or shoes or try to make yourself as small as possible, but you still avert your eyes. The nurse takes your temp, claspes that oxygen thing onto your finger. She comments on your manicure and askes how you are feeling. She leads you down another hall and into another beige room.
You look down at your nails, see the gel has grown out and your nails look like talons. You curl my hands into fists and take a seat. The nurse opens the laptop and rattles off her questions and rattles the keyboard with your answers. She takes your blood pressure and comments on how good it is. Soon she is gone with the reassurance that the doctor will be in soon.
You wait some more. You stare at the wall. You stare at a model of the spine. You stare at a corkboard that has domestic violence fliers next to a calendar next to an advertisement for a drug.
You check your email again. You check your work email again. You wait some more. You try to melt into this waiting, like a Savasanah at the end of a yoga class, but you think it would be a little weird if the doctor came in and saw you lying on the floor in corpse pose. Actually, it might raise an alarm. You stay seated and stare at the door. You wait some more.
You hear someone pause outside the door. You hear indistinct voices. You wait to hear the knock from the doctor but the person passes. Wrong room?
You tilt your head back and look up at the drop ceiling. It’s always a drop ceiling. What are those tiles hiding?
Finally, the doctor comes. Notes are taken. You give a lot of huhs and ohs and hmms. Constructing a narrative around yourself is hard. What is relevant? Where do you begin? A few months ago? Five years ago? Does this story have a beginning? Is this still the middle? Can we skip to the end?
You can’t make yourself make sense on the page; how are you supposed to condense this fleshbloodbonebeing into something the medical complex understands?
You leave with a stack of papers, a list of appointments to schedule, a follow-up in two weeks, more waiting rooms to visit. You’ll be the good girl and do her homework immediately. You want the word “compliant” written in your medical records.
You wind your way back through the hallways, following exit here signs and you’re back in the waiting room. Back to waiting.