Portrait of the Author as a Young Satanist
A friend of mine, Lana, and I have developed the custom of treating each other to a pair of movies on our birthdays. This year, when we met at the theatre to celebrate her birthday, she asked me if I was okay. I said I was, and we saw the first film. After, she suggested in the strongest possible terms that I go to the hospital, because there was something seriously wrong with my eyes. They were a little itchy, but I didn't think that was serious enough to require a hospital trip. To be sure, I went into the theatre's bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror.
There's no polite way to say this: I looked like Satan.
I have a round, bland face with a bushy goatee that contains more white hair than brown. Not especially memorable. The face that looked back at me in the bathroom mirror had blood red eyeballs. I'm not talking about the kind of streaks of red you get when you haven't slept in a long time; the whites of my eyes were pure red. They didn't glow, but they were scary enough.
We walked over to Mount Sinai hospital. Happy birthday, Lana.
For those of you who haven't been in a hospital lately, before they let you into the intake ward, you have to wash your hands with a special lotion that dries on its own, and you have to wear a mask. I found the mask substantially stifled my breathing. After half an hour or so, Lana pointed out that I had put it on inside out. Unfortunately, correcting my mistake didn't make breathing through the mask any easier.
After completing the paperwork, there was nothing to do but sit and wait. Lana, who apparently is a big fan of operation shows, regaled me with stories of medical procedures. A couple of hours later, a young woman was signed in, flanked by two rather large police officers. Lana and I wondered what she had done. The three of them sat behind us, and I recall hearing her say something to the effect that "he" had been seen in the neighbourhood. Lana and I agreed that the police officers were there for her protection.
The excitement never ends. To get a breath of fresh air, we stood outside the doors to the ward where we could take off our masks. Lana made a joke about the wait to a nurse who was leaving at the end of her shift. The nurse was defensive, despite Lana's best efforts to explain that she was only joking. Some people take health care very seriously.
After about three hours, I was allowed into the emergency area proper. We thought I would be examined immediately, so Lana decided to wait in the intake area. When I got into the emergency area, however, I found that there were still half a dozen people ahead of me, and it might take hours before I was seen.
I went out to tell Lana to go home. The season finale of 24 was airing that evening, and I knew she was a big fan. Besides, I figured I had done enough to ruin her birthday celebration.
Portrait of the Author as a Young Satanist
In the emergency ward, there were two beds that were curtained off. Two people lay on gurneys in the halls. There were also people in examining rooms off the halls. I was given a chair next to the door of the room I would be examined in.
Behind one of the curtains lay an elderly man who would ask you in if you got too close to the opening in the curtain. From his conversation, I got the impression that he was a Jewish man, a Holocaust survivor who was ready to die, but really just wanted some company. When I walked by the opening in the curtain, I found myself staying along the far wall, the better not to be ensnared.
I always leave the house with reading material; today's selection was Conrad's Heart of Darkness. In the three hours I waited alone to be seen by a doctor, I got through much of the short novella. One of the things I found was that one of my favourite lines in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now ("I see no method here") was almost a direct quote from the book. This is not a comment on my hospital experience, which had a definite method. As Freud truly said, sometimes a random quote from a famous novel is just a random quote from a famous novel.
In the end, I waited six hours for a 15 minute medical examination. The doctor suggested a couple of over the counter drugs that would clear up my condition in a few days - I didn't even need a prescription - and I was sent home. One of the tests involved putting a yellow liquid in my eyes, so the red eyes were rimmed with yellow. I can only wonder what people on the subway on my trip home must have thought.
Would I have liked to have been in and out of the hospital in half an hour? Sure. Would I like to find true love and a meaningful job without having to put any effort into either? Who wouldn't? However, this is the current state of health care in Ontario, and wishing won't change that. Besides, my choice wouldn't have been between a six hour wait and a 15 minute wait. If health care were privatized - a response some have suggested to the problem of long waiting periods - I wouldn't have been able to afford to be looked after. My choice would be between a six hour wait and not being seen at all. To me, that's no choice. I suspect, put that way, many people would feel the same.
Oh, and my problem? Conjunctivitis. The doctor who examined me said that it was the most extreme case she had ever seen. (I always was an overachiever.) It has two causes: a viral infection or an extreme allergic reaction. As it happens, I have an allergy to cats, and I was in a room with a cat the day before. The doctor suggested some eye drops and strong anti-allergy pills, and in a couple of days I was back to normal.
Now I'm just waiting for Halloween...
