Not the Pig Flu and Unwashed Humanity

I do not have the Swine Flu, or excuse me, our government wants it referred to as the H1N1 virus. They’ve requested that so that pig farmers aren’t unduly harmed by bad press. I think most of us know that little name change, at this late stage in the game, is going to be of little or no help to pig farmers so I’ll move on.

I am sick, but I don’t have Swine Flu. I have verified this with a medical professional after being asked to do so by my employer. Apparently, Springfield is rife with illness, given the full waiting room and the weary doctors at Urgent Care, but so far none of us has the Swine Flu. Its NOT the Swine Flu.

I am a frequent flyer at Cox’s Urgent Care. Having switched jobs and thereby insurance companies and thereby network providers, I have only just now secured a primary care physician … who can’t see me until May 19. Since making this appointment, I’ve required medical care twice.

Good thing Urgent Care is there.

So far this year, I’ve had to visit for asthma issues, a scratched cornea, a dizzy spell and now Not the Swine Flu.

The first time I ever visited Cox’s Urgent Care, I wasn’t the patient. A friend was sick and the nurse they assigned to her is, I’ll just say it, hateful. In my other sojourns there, I’ve had this nurse myself and I at first wrote her behavior off to having bad day. Now I’ve had three encounters with her where she has just been hateful, so yeah hateful.

Beyond that, though, the staff there seem courteous, knowledgeable and efficient. I was in and out today in about two hours and that was with a friend, who also has Not the Swine Flu, needing to get checked out as well. He’d never been and marveled at how quickly and how well things went.

As we talked further, he mentioned he was unable to get into his primary care doctor for the check out. It caused us both to wonder is this one of the things we’re coming to in the healthcare industry, one now only sees one’s primary care doctor for routine items. If you’re sick, they don’t have time for you just go to Urgent Care then follow up with your regular doc. Let’s them get two copays out of you in some cases at the very least.

In some cases, it saves the long drawn out visit to your regular doctor. I find usually the wait is longer than they tell you and what should take an hour usually takes two or three. For something a simple as needing to see if you’ve got sinus infection, Urgent Care is often more efficient anyway.

The waiting room at Urgent Care is also vastly more entertaining.

Today’s cast of characters included: Small Screaming Child,Tanorexic Woman with a bad case of overexposed midsection,Overprotective Mom, Really Sick Woman Who Just Should Have Gone to the Emergency Room and the Car Accident Victims featuring Billy Joe Ray Bob.

I can’t help it, anytime I’m confronted with colorful humanity I find myself sitting there writing back stories for all of them. I’m even guilty of eavesdropping to help fill in the colorful details. But today, I didn’t even need to.

Woman Who Just Should Have Gone To ER was in the back about five minutes when they called the ambulance. She came in and went back to a room about the same time I did, I was only back there fifteen minutes. When I came back out to the waiting room to wait for my friend, the EMTs we’re milling around waiting to transport her.

I settled in and watched as Overprotective Mom and Overprotective Dad tried to cram into the Triage Room with their ill daughter. The nurses convinced them no harm would come to their daughter the three point two minutes it would take them to take her temperature and blood pressure. Mom stalked back to her waiting room chair and seethed, while Dad just looked uncomfortable holding his teen daughter’s blanket and pillow.

I felt ridiculously sorry for the young lady. I remember when my parents were like that … wait, they still are. The only reason I got to go to Urgent Care alone today was because I didn’t tell them I was going until after I went.

Tanorexic woman was also there with her Dad. He just sat there looking glum while she frightened the rest of us with her Velour track suit and exposed midriff. She looked irritated by Small Screaming Child and the only thing seemingly wrong with her was a really bad attitude.

The Car Accident Victims are those people who making sweeping generalizations true. They are the Ozarkers that cause most of us to cringe when we hear uppity East Coasters talking about them. We all get that odd feeling of being angry at those folks who are picking on them and thanking God we’re not wearing blue jean shorts with suspenders.

That’s precisely what Billy Joe Ray Bob was wearing. He was also using his outside voice to talk to his Momma who was a whole foot away from him. In short order, I had heard the harrowing tale that was their fender bender, watched Sis begrudgingly be wheeled off in a wheel chair and left to listen to Billy Joe Ray Bob recount his version of events of Carl Edwards’ wreck this past weekend.

Urgent Care, NASCAR and Not Swine Flu, does it get more absurd than that?