The Dermatologist

​​I know how much all of you enjoy my timeline stories, so I have one for you today.  At my last doctor’s visit, I asked for a referral to a dermatologist.  In the terms of the medical profession, I have a “strong family history of skin cancer type thingees” on my mother’s side.  My mom had to have several things removed, as did my brother.  Her mom had a pretty large area removed from her arm.  Lots of skin stuff.  I’m not much of an outdoors person, but I have very fair skin.  (Pale)  So I have burned before, you know, growing up in South Florida (surface of the sun).  So I am nervous when I get weird spots and moles on my body.  I figured it was time to get them checked out.

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​​If you aren’t aware, there is a global pandemic (allegedly) rampaging across the … uh … globe.  So the medical community has put into place a lot of new instructions for patients to try to minimize the transmission of said (alleged) pandemic.  Here in South Cackilacky, we have had a bit of a time shaking the ole Rona.  In the words of Michael Corleone in Godfather III, “This isn’t what I ordered.  Who puts peas in fettuccine Alfredo?  Ahhh, Fredo.”  We keep thinking that our numbers are decreasing, and then something happens like, I don’t know, the local university reopens and all the college students prove why people think college students are stupid and irresponsible by going out and hitting all the bars and having Greek parties without masks.  Eight fraternities and sororities have had actions taken against them by the school due to violating Covid rules.  Allegedly.  The outbreak here has gotten so bad that it was on the front page of the New York Times!  It is so bad that they can’t continue giving saliva tests because they don’t have enough staffers to administer the tests!  It is so bad, that they can’t even shut the school down now because they would have to send over a thousand infected students home to infect their hometowns.  Anyway, for doctor appointments, you sit in your car until you are called in.  This is where we pick up our story.

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​​12:35pm:  An attractive man pulls his legendary Santa Fe into the parking lot of the Columbia Skin Clinic.  [Oh, by the way.  This car is cursed.  I know it is.  Last week, I got in the car and there was just a random six inch crack running up the windshield.  By that afternoon, it was eight inches.  After a week, It had run completely up to the top.  I wasn’t ignoring it; I had to wait for an appointment.  I looked at the window to see if something had hit it.  There was a crack running along the entire bottom of the glass.  It had just finally gone vertical.  When did that happen?  Is that from the accident? From the engine replacement?  The body work?  Just a random thing that Hyundais do?  As soon as I can, this sucker is getting traded in.  By then, it will basically be a different car with all the things being replaced.].  I had gotten there early for my 12:45pm appointment.  I knew I was supposed to wait in the parking lot until they called me in.  I wasn’t sure if they just would telepathically know that I was there, so I decided to call Columbia Skin Clinic to let them know I had arrived.  [Oh, another thing.  Isn’t skin another word like moist that is just icky?  I hate the word skin.  It brings all kinds of gross images to mind: chicken skin, peeling skin, Silence of the Lambs.  I guess you gotta give the practice props for just throwing it right out there in our face.  SKIN!]  I look up the clinic, call the number, select 0 for “other items.”  I am told my wait time will be five minutes.  Then two minutes.  Then two minutes.  Then one minute.  Then one minute.  Then one minute.

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​​12:44pm:  Someone finally answers and I tell them that I was checking in for my appointment.  She seems confused.  Probably used to work at Hyundai.  I said that we were supposed to wait down in the parking lot until we were told to come upstairs.  She looked me up and said okay.  They would text me when they were ready for me.  

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​​12:45pm:  My appointment time arrives.  I sat in my car, listening to the new SiriusXM U2 station (channel 32).  I have really enjoyed this channel, since I am a big U2 fan.  For the Labor Day weekend, they are doing the top 100 U2 song.  Well, the 100 songs that U2 fans “desire” most.  Clever.  Since they had a song named Desire.  Haha.  Fun.  

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​​12:55pm:  I’m trying to think of what my top 100 U2 songs would be.  That’s too tough.  Maybe my top 5 for the Desire feature where U2 fans pick five songs.  They usually have a theme.  Would I go with my favorite songs?  Or maybe best covers BY U2?  Or best covers OF U2?

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​​1:05pm: I text Heather and say that leaving us out in the parking lot seems to play into the whole “doctor makes you wait forever” bit.  She doesn’t respond.  She doesn’t like it when I insult doctors en masse.  Not sure why.

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​​1:15pm: I would probably do top five covers.  I’m a sucker for cover songs.  U2 has done some great ones over the years.  Satellite is really good.  So is Bono’s I Can’t Help Falling in Love version.  I think When Love Comes to Town must be a cover.  I need to check that out.

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​​1:20pm: My phone rings (not texts).  It is the office asking if I had arrived.  Yes.  I called 37 minutes ago to check in.  Am I in the waiting room?  No.  You told me to wait and you would tell me to come up.  That’s what this call is for.  Great.  I’ll be right up.  

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​​1:21pm: No I won’t.  I’m going to go to the bathroom first.  They made me wait.  They can wait.

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​​1:22pm: I arrive outside of the office where a young lady is blocking the door.  “Do you have an appointment?”  No, I’m just here to see if you have any extra skin lying around that I can have.  [See?  That is disgusting!]  Yes, I have an appointment.  “Do you have a runny nose or any other symptoms that could be CovidRona?”  No.  “Have you been around anyone with CovidaRona?”  Recently?  No.  (Full disclosure: I left off the “recently.”  She didn’t seem to be into jokes, and I didn’t want to get sent home.  Also, I didn’t say the thing about extra skin.). “Do you mind if I take your temperature?”  Depends on the method.  I mean, yes.  I said yes.  She waves me inside.  I go to the counter and a lady with cool looking blonde braids looks me up in the computer.  Another patient is arguing with a different woman about the fact that her doctor stayed home to do virtual visits today because her kid was sick.  Apparently no one told the patient.  And apparently her previous (cancelled) appointment was when a different doctor called in sick.  So they assured her she could do the virtual visit from the office, which created the most bizarre incident that could never have happened before 2020.  A patient had a virtual visit IN the doctor’s office with her doctor who was at home.  My person seems befuddled by something.  I tell her that I called in at my appointment time and that I just had been beckoned up.  She sends me over to sit down.

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​​1:25pm: I’m taking in the waiting room.  There are groups of three chairs.  They have gone around and flipped every other one backwards.  If things had been going better, I would have sat in one of the backwards chairs and just stared at the wall.

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​​1:30pm: A cute older couple comes in.  The man is filling out the forms for the woman, who is in a wheelchair.  He asks her if she is currently breastfeeding as a joke.  I chuckle to myself and think about how that could be me and Heather in 30 or 40 years.  I start to text Heather to tell her about the cute couple.  The guy takes his mask off to read his phone.  Ummmm.  Is that like turning down the radio in the car to see the door numbers?  I also notice that he is much younger once I see his whole face.  Not a cute older couple.  Son and mom.  I go back to playing Subway Surfers. 

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​​1:35pm: The way they did the chairs doesn’t really assure six feet of distance.  They have one section with two backwards chairs and one front facing chair.  The next section has two front facing and one backwards.  In between each section is an end table and lamp.  So the sections with two front facing chairs only provide distancing the width of one chair.  Not six feet.  I think about pointing this out and demonstrating by laying on the floor.  

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​​1:40pm: Some guy comes in, talking on his phone through his mask.  See? You can leave your mask on and use the phone, sonny.  The braided lady calls him to the desk, but he ignores her to finish his call.  Then he walks up.  He is late and missed his appointment time.  He apologizes and blames somebody else about it.  They tell him to wait.  

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​​1:45pm: They are showing Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives on one of the televisions.  The one with sound.  I appreciate this.  Usually they have some repeating medical informational video that plays and makes you feel like a loser.  It gives tips about how to handle your issue, which you have no plans to do.  It talks about keeping your house in order, which isn’t going to happen.  It plays ads for medications you are taking that are not working.  One time at the Rheumatologist, the video had the father of a friend of mine from high school talking.  That was pretty cool.  Triple D is much better.  

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​​1:55pm: This one place in Bozeman, Montana makes some pretty cool breakfast and lunch options.  Their monte cristo sounds awesome.  Guy Fieri is impressed.  I’ve seen enough of these shows to know when he is really impressed.  He loves this place.  Reminds me of Shane Torres’ comedy routine about Guy Fieri and how everyone dogs him, but that his entire show is highlighting restaurants that could never afford the level of promotion they are getting from that.  He also lists a whole bunch of other things that Guy does to be a good, um, guy.  

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​​1:58pm: A lot of people have gone in ahead of me.  A lot of people have come after me and gone in ahead of me.  The son/mom couple has gone in.  Late dude has gone in.  This seems wrong.  If one more person gets called in ahead of me, I’m going to ask what’s up.  Isn’t it sad that we are so used to sitting around for 75 minutes for appointments that we put up with it?  I can’t show up 75 minutes late to my appointment and expect to get in.  Well, unless I’m that guy who showed up earlier.  If one more person gets called in, I’m going to go to the desk.

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​​2:02pm: One more person gets called in.

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​​2:03pm:  I go to the desk.  I say that I had an appointment at 12:45.  “TWELLLVE forty five?”  Like I said the wrong hour.  Yeah.  12:45.  I’ve been sitting over there.  Both ladies at the desk look panicked.  The lady with the nice braids asks “TWELLLLVE forty five?” but with her voice going higher when she asks.  [I wasn’t checking out this lady.  She just had cool looking hair.  You know how when you see that stereotypical Swiss woman in pictures with the thick braids and the light blond hair?  That’s what it looked like. Plus it makes for easier identification.]  Yes, 12:45.  She says, “Oh, I see.  You didn’t check in until 1:22.”  What?  No, that is when you called me to come up here.  I had already sat in the car for over 30 minutes when you called.  “Well, you didn’t check in until 1:22.”  Okaaaay.  But I called in and said I was here and they said they would tell me to come up.  1:22 is when they told me to come up.  “There is a different phone office for those calls, so we didn’t know you were here.”  Who cares?  Even if I didn’t check in until 1:22, I’ve still been waiting for 40 minutes.  Stop making this my fault, Heidi. (Didn’t say that.)  They get on the phone with the back and I hear “yeah, 12:45.  I don’t know.”  They tell me to sit down and they’ll call me right back. 

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​​2:06pm: They call me back.  I go into the exam room.  A red curly haired female nurse is talking to me.  She looks Irish.  [This is to differentiate from the blond braids. Apparently they only hire people who look like stereotypical European women.]   “I will be in here assisting the doctor. I need to you take your clothes off.  The doctor will be doing a full body exam as a baseline.”  Say what now?  There are several concerns I have with this course of action.  First, I came in for wart things on my FACE.  FACE.  F-A-C-E.  I figure he can see those by me taking of my mask.  Second, why are you going to be in here?  Are you going to be in here now, while I am disrobing?   So many questions.  I go with “my shoes and socks too?”  She smiles, no just my shoes for now, since I have to walk around.  Also, I can leave my underpants on for now.  “For now” seems very ominous.  She leaves.  

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​​2:11pm:  I wish I was still sitting in the waiting room.  I’m not, though.  I’m sitting in a chair in an exam room with the following items on: glasses, mask, underwear, Shakespeare socks.  

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​​2:16pm: I look around the room.  There is a big picture of a lioness who looks like she is judging me.  Seriously.  I took a picture just to prove it.  There is also a small picture of an ostrich.  I have no idea where they fit into the whole SKIN thing.

​​2:18pm: Doctor shows up.  He does a very thorough exam of my body.  He deserves having to see all of it.  Makes me wait and then this disrespect.  He freezes two things on my face.

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​​2:25pm: We are just chatting away here.  He grew up in Florida, went to USF for med school.  We have so much geography in common.  My wife is doctor.  We talk about that.  He’s a nice guy.  Very friendly, good bedside manner.  Almost made me forget about having to lay back and let him check everything out.  

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​​2:27pm: I’ve been here for an hour and 45 minutes.  I’m hungry.  My stomach is grumbling.  I thought it was hunger.  It was not.  My concern now is not the doctor seeing every pasty inch of me.  My concern now is to not pass gas when he is in that vicinity.  That’s where he is finishing up.  You know how there are times you say to yourself, “Don’t say anything about this particular thing.  That is a sensitive topic.”  Like “Don’t talk about tomatoes around Phil.  His dad was killed when a tomato truck fell over on him.”  And then five minutes later, you’re launching into a story about this mountain of tomatoes in the grocery store and how it almost fell on someone.  I am increasingly afraid that my encouragement to “not fart” is actually making it more likely that I am going to do just that.  I mean, it is 2020.  I feel bubbles.  This isn’t good.

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​​2:28pm: “We are all good!  I don’t see anything worrisome.  It was good to come in.  Your skin is actually in great shape.  Keep an eye on things…..”  [You thought I farted on him.  Didn’t you?  It was touch and go for a minute there.]  I can go check out with the front desk.  The doctor told me to come back in a few years or if anything troubling comes up.  The nurse wrote 1-2 years on the paperwork.  When I emerged fully clothed, she asks for the paperwork and scratches out 1-2 and writes “as needed.”  

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​​2:30pm:  I certainly hope they don’t want me to make an appointment for a year from now.  The lady at the check out counter is confused by the instructions.  “It says here 1 year, 2 years, and as needed.”  I explain.  All good.  “That will be $187.”  Awesome.  I think doctors should have to give you discounts depending on how long you waited.   And extra discounts for how long you had to wait while naked.  

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​​2:35pm:  I pull out of the parking lot and head off to wait at the pharmacy.  I guess it was nice to have some solitude.  Not exactly what I would have requested.  The peace of mind of knowing I’m not harboring any nefarious skin issues was worth $187.  

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​​2:37pm: Stuck in a Moment and You Can’t Get Out of It is ranked way too low.

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