Flying Elbows and Specimen Cups
Posted: Tuesday, January 06, 2009
by John Brazell
Scribbled in the margin of my new calendar is "Remember annual physical, February 10." That's a scant few weeks away. Yep, I agree, hand me the Martha Stewart Numbness Award . Back in August I took the "first available" appointment time. It didn't sound so bad then, but maybe I was having a heat stroke.
While munching on yet another holiday cookie, I ponder the extent of my judgmental error. I've still got Super Bowl fests and thirty or so college bowl games to go. Already the scales are screaming "no mas" and my arteries are packed tighter than Dolly's bustier. "Who in their right mind schedules a blood test after a two-month sugar-snockered binge," says the usually sweet and understanding little woman?
Doc is a great guy and I like him, but I'm not sure the feeling is reciprocal. He has admirable qualities, one of which is frugality, rarely found in the medical world. You don't feel quite so, ah, gouged when you leave. Others presumably feel the same as his waiting room resembles Luby's Cafeteria on senior discount day. A couple of years ago there was an accident in his lab which may explain why I can't get a prime time appointment.
I dutifully showed for blood work one week in advance of my exam. My name was called and I went meekly to the cold steel chair, extended my arm for the needle and wondered what O J thinks when he does the same. The plasma seeped into the syringe and I talked to it like a golf ball, "Be right, baby, be right." It was over quickly, she wrote my name on a paper cup and ordered, "Take this to the bathroom and leave a specimen in there. You're done. Next!"
It's a reasonable assumption that both Doc and his staff are spatially challenged. The bathroom turned lab is slightly larger than your hall closet and the only place for setting the filled cups is along the back edges of the lavatory. When I entered a thousand cups (an exaggeration by two) were sitting in a straight line like lemonade at a kindergarten party. Standing on end and tucked in the back corner of the lavatory was a roll of paper towels - a seldom, if ever, used roll of towels. The first cup was an inch away.
I carefully sat my specimen in the array and sighed, of course, a sigh of relief. With equal care, I washed my hands. My first impulse was to wipe them dry on my Dockers, but then wet and khaki don't match. I eyed the towels and thought, "Why not?" Bad - no really bad mistake. The end of the roll in my unsteady hand caught the first specimen and had I been bowling, it would have been a strike. Filled cups went in every direction.
Brain dead I grabbed the towels and began sopping up the mess. I contemplated squeezing the liquid back into the cups but had second thoughts. Imagine the poor souls who would get a urinalysis report, "Emergency Alert: Clear except for paper towel fragments." I straightened the empty cups, put the sopping towels in the trash and did the most prudent, albeit cowardly, thing. I found the back door and in my spattered pants beat a hasty retreat.
You can't un-spill something, can you?
Last year when I returned to the scene of the specimen caper, it was gratifying to see a number of practical changes. Tops were provided for paper cups and a small but adequate shelf sat in a corner away from the lavatory. Specimens were removed regularly and a towel dispenser was installed. A sign hung near the back exit, "Don't even think of using this door." Well actually it didn't but it should have.
I don't know if Doc ever determined I was the one who went bowling with his specimens or if that event has anything to do with why I can't get a better appointment date, like in August when cholesterol takes a sabbatical. He no longer takes new patients and I prefer not to press my luck. Plus, thankfully, he no longer does lab tests in his office. That's a step forward.
But the real step forward is to start eating sensibly during the holiday season. Well, that or carry a bottle of hand sanitizer in your pocket. Paper towels can get you thrown out of places.
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)hi john,this article not only had a story to tell, it was really both clever and funny.i enjoyed it. thank you for sharing.best regards,sue thomSue, thanks for your kind comments. I'm oft inclined to see the humor in life and if we can laugh at ourselves, then (I think) we're all the better for it. Doc is an exceptional person, concerned with healing at the least possible cost, but even the best laid plans . . . but we all learned.And best to you,John Brazell
Another great article, just love that sense of humor. I constantly do things like this and if i couldn't laugh at myself about it i 'd be in a nut house somewhere. Great piece of writing!Myla,I'm sorry but I don't think I ever responded to this post. If I did then chalk it up to faulty memory and know that I'm sincere, if not lacking in core storage. You're a dear to write these nice things and I appreciate it. Obviously I don't shy from the self-disclosing, self-deprecating stories. It should help my defense should I ever need to plea insanity and most certainly subject to a giggle.John
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