A while ago, I wrote about The Irishman and his many injuries. He had just installed new lights on the front of our house without incident. I was so proud!
What an idiot I was. I should have kept my big mouth shut. Exactly two days later, we had an icestorm here in KC. To most, icestorms require that extra ounce or two of caution, picking and choosing their way judiciously prior to making a move, whether on foot or by car. To our family, icestorms mean certain disaster. For The Irishman, that is.
Call it fate, karma, bad luck, or just simply being a klutz. Whatever word you choose to identify it with, the outcome usually requires a trip to the hospital. So it was with very little shock that I received a call from The Irishman that day, saying he had stepped off a curb at work onto a thin sheet of ice, his feet flew out from under him, and he'd hit his head on the concrete. Because the "indicent" occurred at work, he was sent to see a specific Worker's Comp doctor, who promptly prescribed him large doses of Ibuprofen and sent him on his way, no x-rays or tests conducted.
Over the next several months, The Irishman was plagued by a headache on the right side of his head that was constant and extremely painful. He returned several times to the Worker's Comp doctor and finally last month, the doctor ordered an MRI. This was followed by a myelogram, and finally a pain block was ordered.
This past Monday, after a prior failed attempt to receive said pain block (the Worker's Comp office is notorious for rescheduling appointments and not advising the patient) I took The Irishman to the hospital for the procedure. The Sous Chef was with us, purely for time constraint purposes, and less than thrilled about the early hour at which he'd been made to drag his butt out of bed. The Irishman went to check in, he sat down, they took his information, and handed him a red laminated card that read "10A."
"What the hell is this?" I said as he sat back down to wait.
"This is how they identify me now. They said it's for privacy reasons."
"Seriously?" Seriously.
As we settled in to wait, I thought about what this meant, and what the ramifications of it would be. We weren't at the hospital for any type of mental disorder, sex change, or drug addiction. We were in the Pain Management section of the hospital, not the witness protection program. Was it really an invasion of privacy for the nurse to shout out our last name when it was our turn to go back? Does anybody really pay attention to the names, other than to shake their head in impatience when the name is not their own? Images of tattooed barcodes and inserted microchips started flying through my head. No names, no identities, just a number. That's what we've been reduced to.
"10A!"
We headed back through the large Push Button to Open doors in all the 10A-ness swagger we could muster and followed the nurse to the procedure room. The doctor arrived in a timely fashion (how often does that happen?) and introduced himself to us (using his real name, I assume doctor's are not allowed aliases), and I stood to shake his hand.
"Hello, I'm Mrs. 10A."
Turns out the doctor (when did the doctors start practicing so young?) was not a fan of this new identification method either, calling it unprofessional and impersonal, and urged me to write a letter to the powers that be admonishing this new practice.
The (young) doctor was actually fabulous, and finally had a diagnosis for The Irishman: Occipital Neuropathy. He explained the procedure he was about to perform, and wrote his initials on the back of The Irishman's head with a felt tip marker. Huh? This was new too. This nurse came in to prepare the injection and The Sous Chef and I decided it was time to make our exit (graduation practice).
As I walked out of the room and glanced at the wall beside the door, I noticed a piece of paper hanging there with "10A" on it.
I double checked my purse and smiled in relief. Tucked between schedules and sunglasses and keys was a red laminated card. I left the building with our new identification. I wanted no mistake made upon my return about who I was or who I was there to claim.
After dropping The Sous Chef at school, I quickly returned to the hospital and walked directly to the Push Button to Open doors, at which point I was asked who I was.
At which point I flashed my red card and said, "I'm Mrs. 10A, I'm here to pick up my husband, Mr. 10A."
