Mr. & Mrs. Old vs. The Industrial Medical Complex

We see the Olds’ Smart car swallowed up in in the vast ocean of a medical clinic parking lot.  They know as they click-lock the fob, that they will have trouble locating their tiny car once they are finished with this flavor-of-the-week medical event; this time it’s for Mrs. Old.  Mr. Old takes a picture of their parking spot and neighboring cars, as if it will have the same cars there when they return in three or four hours.  Then again, maybe it will.

Once in her medical wrap-around gown that encircles her three times and reaches her ankles, Mrs. Old shuffles herself to the prep room of the eye clinic to meet with the pre-op nurse:

Nurse streaks into the small room’s half-desk barely looking at Mrs. Old:  “So what brings you in today?”  Mrs. Old is sitting on the exam table wearing size 15 hospital skid-bottomed, parrot-green socks.  She has an X over her left eye, marked with a thick black Sharpie.

Mrs. Old:  “Well, I’m here for my hysterectomy,” she says, looking at Nurse, who goes rigid and whose head jerks from the digital screen she’s opened, to look at Mrs. Old, who now is grinning unseen behind her SARS mask.

Nurse:  “Is there something wrong with your hysterectomy?

Mrs. Old:  “No. Nothing, I’m not having one, I was just testing you.”  She snickers, fully aware how shockingly disrespectful and sarcastic this was to say to a professional who has a stethoscope around her neck and wears maroon scrubs that fit nicely and make Mrs. Old wish she could get a pair like that.  But she thinks Nurse deserves that remark, because there wasn’t even an introduction, just the beat-to-death standard, “So what brings you in today?” a blatant portrayal that patients are pies on the conveyor belt.

Nurse:  “Well, ma’am, you sure are a testy one, aren’t you?”  Nurse widens her eyes past the whites and comments on the X mark from across the room. “So it looks like you are getting eye surgery; is it cornea or cataract?”

Mrs. Old:  “You tell me, I can’t remember anything anymore.”

Nurse:  returns her attention to the screen, shaking her head — “….looks like you are getting cataract surgery.”

Mrs. Old:  “Yes, the eye with the X — thank God for the X.  And I wish I could  order my new contact lenses in lavender, but they don’t make that color.”

Nurse:  “What does that have to do with your surgery today?”  Now Nurse is clearly wondering if Mrs. Old escaped from the psych ward in hospital attire and put the X on her own face.

Mrs. Old:  “Nothing.  I just wanted you to fact check that for me before I go under and forget about asking, once I’m in the recovery room.”

Nurse:  “Mrs. Old, you won’t be in the recovery room.”

Mrs. Old:  “I won’t?  Am I not going to recover?

Nurse:  “You won’t need the Recovery Room and you will recover.  Beautifully.

Mrs. Old:  “Whew~ I’m pretty worried.

Nurse:  “This is a very common eye surgery — it is a simple procedure and only takes a few minutes, after which you will be on your way and feeling fine.”

Mrs. Old:  “No, not fine.  Letting someone slice into your eyeball, pull out something natural and insert something man-made is not easy or fine.  I’ve heard you even finish off by shooting the mistakes with a laser gun.  What if you sneeze?  I’ll be getting the lavender after all, but it will be made entirely of glass! Hope I can get the other one to match the glass eye.  In lavender.

Nurse:  “Mrs. Old, who told you these uncanny stories about such a safe routine procedure?”

Mrs. Old:  “The Google.”

Nurse couldn’t tell if this difficult patient was joking because Mrs. Old’s face only  had two eyes looming above an oversized SARS mask, color lavender, a shower cap and no eyebrows.

A male assistant entered the room without knocking.  “Have a minute?” he asked Nurse and the two of them abruptly left the room.  They could be heard through the wide crack of the unshut door:

Male:  “Houston we have a problem.”

Nurse:  “Make it quick, I’m with a lunatic who can’t be left alone.”

Male, speed talking: “Patient on op table woke up, started screaming that she changed her mind.  What should we do?”

Nurse:  “Where is the surgeon?”

Male:  “With patient. He’s a training intern. Doesn’t know what to do.  The patient must have heard him say that.”

Mrs. Old hears everything, how could she not.  She is scooting off the exam table, shuffling the flapping parrot socks across the room toward her fanny pack so she can call Mr. Old in the waiting area to come get her.

There is some hushed-down further exchange between Nurse and Male.  Mrs. Old can’t hear anymore, but that doesn’t matter because she’s heard enough.  Nurse returns.

Nurse:  “What are you doing, Mrs. Old?  We aren’t finished here.”

Mrs. Old:  “Oh we are SO finished here.  I heard that!  And I’m just going to forget this insane idea to trust you with my eye repair…I’ll get a Guide Dog For The Blind before I let your cadaver student prime-rib slice into my eyeball!”

Nurse:  “That was a volunteer program, an irregular procedure.  It has nothing to do with you. You shouldn’t assume anything about what you overhear.”

Mrs. Old:  “Volunteer?!  Well I’m not a volunteer!”

Nurse, raising her voice even louder as though it will help stop Mrs. Old’s bailing out.  “I can help you with your hesitancy about this.  We have relaxers we can administer to apprehensive patients, please let me give you some, you’ll find it calms down the ill-perceived fear some people such as yourself experience.”

Mrs. Old:  “Oh sure!   Well then, why didn’t cadaver boy administer some to his crash-dummy then?  Hmmmm?” 

Nurse:  “He did!”

Mrs. Old:  “Oh great!  That’s it!  I’m outta here.  Get out of my way Scrubs!” … spittle shoots out during the ‘k’ sound in the word “Scrubs.”  Nurse’s head rotates slowly in a circle like a knuckle-cracking wrestler before the fight.  She sucks in air and blows out the smoke of her frustration in a single defeated chest-collapsing word ‘fine.’  Just that…..and steps aside so Mrs. Old can reach her hot pink bejeweled cell phone and wildly start stabbing at the numbers, glancing up at the mad scientist person and back down again, like a stray dog waiting for the broom.

Mrs. Old:  “Oh my God! Leonard, this place is an experimentation lab!!  They might even try to euthanize me!  They even said that can you believe?  You need to go get my clothes from the change room because Dr. Houston won’t let me leave.  Take them to front desk, name Lindsey, she’ll bring them to me….hurry!”

Mr. Old:  “What?  I can’t understand you.  Take your mask off and say that again.”

“Mrs. Old:  “Never mind Leonard, I’ll do it myself!”….she snatches up her fanny pack, cradling it to her chest like a football, stretches her blocking arm out in front of her and plows through Houston towards the open door, cotton paisley gown nearly falling off her in the mad dash of it all.  The cluster of interns and staff that gathered near the door of the shouting-match room move aside with smirks and giggles as Houston returns to the nurses’ station without saying a single thing.

1/16/2025 by djl