My Ace in the Hole

Trailing tissues behind, I burst through the clinic doors five minutes past my appointment time. The lady at the front desk directed me to three rows of blue chairs in the waiting area.

Nestling into the second row , I fished another crumpled tissue from my pocket just as “Peter Pan” started on the TV mounted above a rack of magazines. I hadn’t seen a good old Disney movie since the kids were slurping sippy cups and eating Goldfish by the pound, so I was kind of looking forward to the long wait for my name to be called.

A 1950s female voice crooned a lullaby during the opening credits, and names like Ted, Sammy, June, Clyde, Dick, and Milt flashed in Technicolor. Just as the animated characters were about to come alive in the first scene, “Lisa Molinari!?” bellowed from the back of the waiting room.

Dang, just when I was starting to enjoy myself.

I felt silly with my legs dangling like a child from the papered examining table. The doctor was a small wiry looking woman with stringy blond hair. Given the right surroundings, she might’ve been a strung out junkie, but in this setting with the white coat, I knew she was one of those doctors who is so busy with intellectual scientific thought that she forgets to do the things that the rest of us do like eat and wash our hair.

After the initial awkward greeting, she asked the all-important open-ended question: “Why are you here today?”

Now, I am one of those people who feel that all stories should be told properly. Even the tiniest detail can be essential in painting the right picture, conveying the correct tone, and maintaining complete accuracy.

“Well, Doc, it all started the second week of April,” I began. I told her all about how I never get sick, how I take my vitamins, what a beautiful spring we’ve been having, that I reacted to all the pollen, how my husband has been gone, how tired I’ve been, how I’m moving soon, that my ToDo list is a mile long, etc.

Much to my surprise, the doctor didn’t seem to be listening to me, and turned to fiddle with some instruments. As I was detailing the issues I’d been having with my mini-van’s brakes and how that has contributed to my stress, she asked with her back to me, “What color is your sputum?”

Why do they always ask that? Answering that question requires admitting to coughing up a big old loogie, spitting it into a sink, and closely inspecting it before washing it down. Or, blowing my nose into a tissue, and then spreading it open like a book to examine the gooey contents.

Everyone has done it, but do I really need to admit it? Can’t the doctor just take my word for it that I am sick? Assuming she needed another detailed explanation, I went on, “Well, let’s see, I blew my nose in church on Sunday, and wasn’t able to take a look until I got home, and…”

Halfway through explaining a particular shade of olive green, the doctor turned around and came at me with a reflex hammer, repeatedly rapping at my face with the pointed end.

“Does this hurt?” she asked between blows. For a split second, I pondered how one might answer such a stupid question.

“Hell yes!” was just too obvious, and asking “I don’t know, does this hurt?” and kicking her in the shin seemed too hostile, so I went for, “Is the Pope a Catholic?”

She seemed suspicious of my story and the reported color of my sputum, and stared at me with a skeptical look in her eye that could only mean one thing ÔÇô like many doctors, she operates under the fundamental belief that all patients are hypochondriacs, wimps and liars with nothing better to do than to spend hours in clinics feigning illnesses just so they can wait again in the pharmacy for antibiotics they don’t need, which will eventually result in the spread of antibiotic-resistant “super-bugs” that will soon infect and destroy all of mankind.

I knew this doctor needed concrete proof. As I began to snort and suck at the back of my throat in an attempt to bring up or down some kind of evidence to make my case, the doctor looked in my ear.

“Oh,” she seemed to say in defeat, “looks like you’ve got an ear infection. I’ll give you amoxicillin to treat the ear, and if you really have a sinus infection, it will treat that too.”

It was as if she had won. She didn’t have to buy my story that I had a terrible sinus infection that rendered me useless for the last couple of weeks. She found a loophole whereby she could totally discount my story and still maintain her Hippocratic Oath.

As I waited in the pharmacy for the amoxicillin capsules to be counted, I realized that every doctor’s appointment is a strategic game of poker and the doctor always thinks I’m bluffing. In this instance, she folded before she saw my hand because she knew the ear infection was my ace in the hole.

But I’m no good at poker. I don’t want to bring in sputum samples. I don’t want to get hit in the face with a hammer. I just want to tell the doctor my story and have her listen. Write me up a script for Smartie Pills for all I care, just act like you believe me and let me think you really give a damn. Is that so much to ask?

[Hey readers, sorry it has taken me so long to post something this week. This sinus infection (I swear I have one) turned me into the walking dead, and I am only now able to think funny again. Thanks for your patience!]