After experiencing thirty years of allergic reactions to felines, I finally sought help in the spring of 2000. Having not seen a doctor in nearly a decade, I selected a small practice located on the main street of the small town in which I lived. I visited my new doctor once, got on some heavy prescription meds, and didn’t sneeze for two years. Life was good, at least nasally.
In mid-2002 I received a call from my doctor’s office. They were contacted by my pharmacist, who’d asked the office to renew one of my scripts. The doctor’s office proactively reviewed my files and decided I was on “a lot of drugs” - the receptionist’s words to me. Never mind the fact that their doctor had done the prescribing - they were asking me to come in for a reassessment. I complied.
I was enjoying summery walk from my car to my doctor’s office, a few blocks away. I’d only been to this office one time, and that was more than two years earlier, but I was pretty sure of the location. I recognized the old orange brick building, knew I was approaching my location, and rounded the corner, looking for the entrance.
My brain has reduced the following moments to short bursts of image and sound: My hand, folding sunglasses, sliding them into my jacket pocket. A woman’s pale, fleshy legs splayed out before me. Doctor, white coat, light teal scrubs, holding the rubber triangle-hammer tool. The woman’s voice, kind of screaming, kind of gulping.
Actually, I didn’t fully round the corner. This particular building, which wasn’t the most modern in style, had the corner lopped off at a 45° angle. In the little corner alcove was a modest door and a few drop boxes for medical testing companies. Had I gone a few feet past this alcove I’d have seen the building’s true main entrance, a few hundred feet down the building’s side. But seeing...
• a door
• medical-related things attached to the door
...provided enough visual information to make me feel like I should enter. I did.
My brain has reduced the following moments to short bursts of image and sound: My hand, folding sunglasses, sliding them into my jacket pocket. A woman’s pale, fleshy legs splayed out before me. Doctor, white coat, light teal scrubs, holding the rubber triangle-hammer tool. The woman’s voice, kind of screaming, kind of gulping. My voice, sludgy and halting, “I sorry, I... made mistake. I thought... this door... was the one.” My feet, leaving the examination room, back on the sidewalk.
What had happened, I later worked out, was simply that the door had not been locked the night before. I waded my way through the office’s actual reception room and was able to see the same doctor an hour later. I apologized to him again, more coherently this time, and for a moment he paused - he had managed to forget that I walked in off the street, into the tiny examination room, literally in the path between him and his patient, mid-checkup. The doctor casually mentioned that “the girls put samples in the drop boxes at night, and they keep forgetting to lock up after themselves.” What? Is that normal? Shouldn’t they want to protect all their drugs and thermometers? Isn’t that worth the effort of turning a deadbolt on a door, maybe even throwing on the chain? Come on now, Doctor - smarten up a little.
Though I haven’t been back to the office since that visit, I am still technically a patient of that practice. And while that incident really freaked me out, it was surely much worse for the woman I intruded upon. If only I’d been able to free up a synapse or two at that moment, I could have tried convincing her I was a visiting medical student. Or something.
