Warning: Do Not Get Sick on a Holiday Weekend -or- How Latex Glove Balloons Saved the Day

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There are many things that possess medicinal qualities but are not listed in the journals of the AMA, stuffed into the cases of friendly pharmaceutical reps or discussed by Dr. Oz on afternoon TV.

Every ethnic group has specific remedies, herbs and techniques that they use to heal their sick. Garlic is said to be a natural anti-biotic, salt water works wonders for a sore throat and when I was little and had an upset tummy, my mother would run to Bernie's Candy Store and return with several squirts of coke syrup in a coffee cup to mix with water and have me sip for relief.

Hungarian penicillin

I, for one, always prefer a natural or home remedy if I'm unwell and am famous for having to be approaching death at a steady canter before I will go to a doctor. 

I make no apologies for having been raised in a home where an actual doctor visit was a last resort. Once I had my own children, I combined a bit of the old world with enough medical science so they know when to seek professional help and when to take care of business with herbs and chanting.

So, it was with great consternation and a sense of defeat that I recently accepted the fact that no home remedy would do the trick--I was sick and in serious need of an antibiotic.

It was, however, a holiday weekend and my choices were limited.

I could either visit the local ER or an "urgent care" walk-in facility a few miles away. Unpleasant choices both, but I opted for the walk-in, thinking the wait time would be less.

Ha.

After three hours of sitting in a packed, stifling, unventilated waiting room, surrounded by an assortment of horrible, phlegmy and flushed weirdos who all -- men and women -- appeared to be dressed like Stevie Nicks, I sensed I'd made the wrong choice. 

Could there have been some sort of epidemic at a Fleetwood Mac convention, I wondered as an endless succession of "Say Yes to the Dress" episodes mercilessly blared from a wall-mounted TV, its volume level set permanently at "wake the dead." 

I soon became seriously nostalgic for the assorted vomiters, schizophrenics and gun shot victims I remembered from past trips to ER.

Once I was finally ushered into an exam room (temperature, approximately 140 degrees fahrenheit--an ideal climate for the exponential proliferation of
bubonic diseases), I was interviewed briefly by a stupendously disinterested "nurse" and left to wait another 45 minutes before a toddler wearing scrubs came in, claiming to be a doctor.

While I wanted to shout obscenities into his stethoscope and wrap the blood pressure cuff around his head, I feared such behavior might cause more waiting (at the police station) so I acted sane enough for him to listen to my symptoms, thump me around a bit and promise a prescription.

And then -- surprise! --more waiting.

It appears that doctors no longer write prescriptions in your presence.

The moment of victory -- when they pull the little pad from their pocket, scribble a bit and tear off that little white paper square with a flourish, handing it to you as your prize for proving that yes, you actually are sick enough, is gone.

Instead, they disappear for another half hour to do God-knows-what...but I bet it might be something with the disinterested nurse based on their previous eye-contact. 

The prescription is then presented, not unlike the holy grail at the last supper, by someone in scrubs who, judging by her demeanor, could not have cared less if she had found me stone cold dead on the floor of the examination room.

I have to admit I kind of respected her for that...after all, who the hell am I, anyway? Just another annoying sick person seeking aid. Big wubs.

Unflated

I filled the last remaining increment of waitage by stuffing my pockets with latex exam gloves which I planned on inflating later to bat around with Seth once I felt better...plus as many "clean catch" sterile wipes as I could cram in with the gloves. I intend to make good use of those next time we go out for hot wings.

I had been feeling so lousy that Seth drove me but being rightfully terrified of the coughing, spitting and sneezing Stevies in that plague incubator of a waiting room, he chose to wait in the car....for nearly four hours.

Inflated

He was frozen stiff and starving by the time I emerged, prescription in hand.

Thinking ahead, I'd already blown up an exam glove and presented it to him in gratitude for his patience.

I sat, glassy-eyed, while he got the pills and felt better soon after.

While I strongly suggest that you do not get sick on a holiday weekend, we did have had lots of fun later tossing around the glove balloons.