An Afternoon with Dr. Acidwash

As a direct result of my mistaken notion that a sprained ankle takes only slightly longer to heal than a paper cut, I have gone and elevated my injury from moderate to severe by going to work, going to the mall, going to the beach, and walking up and down the stairway fifteen times a day in a bid to keep to my household schedule. The foot began to feel like a live pincushion pierced with shoemaker's nails last Monday evening, and I only managed to get myself home from the office by propelling myself forward with a series of small hops and jerks. When my friends Nikki and Effie dropped by on Wednesday afternoon, they took me to East Avenue Medical Center, and I grudgingly submitted my foot for examination by the orthopedist on duty. When this doctor came sashaying into the clinic in a pinstripe shirt tucked in acidwash jeans, I felt like bolting and finding some other doctor with better fashion sense. I do know better than to size someone up by what he wears, but this was one of those rare instances when you find that you CAN judge a book by its cover. Dr. Acidwash had the bedside manner of a barracuda and all the refined good breeding of a wet market vendor beheading a live chicken. When we got sent off to have my ankle x-rayed, the people manning the department appeared to have been spawned from the same dark matter. A squat nurse whose white underwear was plainly evident underneath her white pants (the x-ray look, to match her assigned post) regarded the patients with a sour look on her face as she plodded back and forth on feet that echoed on the floor like a small pachyderm's in a circus enclosure. The two xray technicians kept roughly yanking my foot in different directions even when it was perfectly obvious I was in pain. One of those meatheads grabbed my toes and pushed until my face turned white. I was glad to get off that table when they were finished, but I pitied the other patients waiting for their turn. I understand that patients of public hospitals do not usually come under the category of well-heeled, and it's an observable fact that the hoi polloi are constantly in the receiving end of bad service, but when people are sick and in need of comfort, shouldn't a hospital, at the very least, supply this one simple thing regardless of their ability to pay?
When we made our way back to the orthopedist's clinic, I spotted an empty pizza box outside the door, lying open on the floor, five inches from a trash can, as if somebody had tossed it out the door, missed the can and didn't care. I picked up the box and stuffed it in where it belonged. We walked into the clinic, and there were the doctor, his secretary and a medical representative, helping themselves to pizza while watching tv. There would have been nothing surprising about this scene if we were at the waiting room of a provincial bus station, but at a physician's office that clearly states "Chief of Section"? Holy mother of god.
I did the best I could to stay polite, even if it was perfectly clear to me that this was a place where politeness was neither used nor appreciated. Dr. Acidwash ran a perfunctory eye on the xray plates, wrote me a prescription for Lumiracoxib, gave me instructions for hot compresses and a week's worth of staying off my feet, wrapped my foot in bandages, and said that if my ankle doesn't heal because I can't resist going to the mall, well, he really doesn't care what his patients do once they leave the clinic. Something does get lost in translation because it's really much more appalling to hear in tagalog ("Wala akong pakialam kung ano'ng gagawin ninyo pag umalis na kayo"). Ugh. What a complete troll. I'm supposed to come back and see him in two weeks if my foot doesn't improve, but I would rather get shot and fall into a tank full of piranhas rather than endure another afternoon with the reigning King of Crass.
I took my xrays home and I'm thinking of having them framed on both sides with glass; a memento of my brief but traumatic run-in with the hospital staff from hell. As of this moment, I've survived my first 24 hours of self-imposed incarceration. I'm a quarter of the way through "Harry Potter and the Halfblood Prince" (bought especially), I'm keeping my foot wrapped and elevated, and I'm religiously taking the salmon-colored pills that dull the pain but have a nasty side-effect of diarrhea. I'm already bored silly, but that's a small price to pay to get back on two healthy feet, and to never, ever have to set foot in that clinic again.

*** Thank you, Effie and Nikki -- if friends were credit cards, you'd both be platinum. ***