TRIP TO THE ALLERGIST

I tweeted this out the day it happened, but I went to the allergist to get my monthly shots and had A BAD TIME ABOUT MASKS.

In the first months of Shelter In Place, they’d asked me to make an appointment before I came in to get shots (so there weren’t too many people in the office at once) and they’d taken my temperature when I’d arrived, and they’d waived the standard of me waiting 30 minutes to make sure I didn’t have a bad reaction. Then the next visit, the shot person wasn’t wearing a mask when I arrived, but saw my mask and was like, “Oh yeah, right,” put one on herself, and didn’t bother with my temperature, just shot me up and sent me on my way.

My last visit, when I called to make an appointment to come in, the office manager was all, “Nah, we’re not doing that anymore. Just come on in.”

When I arrived, all the patients were wearing masks, and the three people working there, including the person who shot me up, were bare-faced. It made me super mad. They’re medical professionals! Also, their clientele are a lot of older folks, and a lot of them have talked previously in the waiting room about their allergy induced asthma, or their otherwise compromised immune systems.

I was shocked, and then increasingly angry and scared. But I couldn’t get myself to say anything in the office because

a) I’m not good on my feet; emotions make me all garbled and red in the face, and I’m much better cold and precisely logical
and
b) I immediately imagined myself trying to get angry wearing a mask, and the receptionist saying, “WHAT? I’m sorry I can’t understand you.” And then what was I gonna do? Pull off my mask and shout at her?

So I went home and called back, a tiny bit cooled off, and asked the person who answered about their mask policy. She did not pass go, and went straight to Level 10 Guilty AF. “Well, I’d say I wear it 70% of the time, but not ALL the time, of course.”

Then she tried to explain that if she knew she was healthy, and I knew I was healthy… and then the other shoe dropped for her and she got alarmed, asking over and over if I was healthy. Which, I didn’t bother answering, because that’s kind of the point, person working in a medical capacity.

After a minute or two, she found her footing and tried to pull the, “And WHAT IS YOUR NAME?” like I was the one in trouble. So I gave it to her, then asked for hers. She hesitated like she wasn’t going to say.

I could tell we both realized I could just call in a complaint later and they’d know who was working in the small office, and she answered in a mumbly voice. Then she asked why I was asking about masks anyway, and I blurted that I was trying to decide whether or not to keep coming to an office that didn’t use them, and could I please leave a message with my doctor. And she said sure, and I thought she was going to transfer me to a message box, but then she was like, “Go ahead. All messages go through me.”

And I thought, Lady, I have three kids. I know the chances of your boss getting my message that you done fucked up if it’s up to you to pass it along.

Feeling helpless, I asked her when the doctor would be in the office. And she regained her office authoritarian tone. “His office hours are between 9 and 5”

I said, “Is he going to be there all those hours?”

And she said, “His office hours are between 9 and 5, that’s all I can tell you” Which later, I realized I was a little off the deep end, trying to stalk this doctor, and she was probably right not to give out his whereabouts to an irate patient with no appointment. So I rage polited a OKAYTHANKYOUBYE and hung up on her. Because I’m a class act.

Anyway, I later bitched to everyone who’d listen, including my mother, about how I had to find a new allergist, because how could I trust their safety precautions for other things? What if they were reusing needles? Or not changing their gloves, and I ended up with hepatitis or something?

“Oh that would never happen,” my mother told me, like I was ridiculous. “Needles are cheap, and they send away to another lab for the serum they inject into you. The medical offices you need to be worried about are where they have expensive equipment they have to reuse. Worry if you were getting a laparoscopy done. You’re fine in that office.”

Which? I already paid for all that serum sitting in their office fridge, and now California state mandates masks, and I don’t know if I have the emotional energy to find another allergist, so maybe I’m going back? But am haunted that everyone working there KNOWS MY NAME, and what if they jab me with the needles real hard or exact some kind of medical revenge? UGH.

A somewhat trigger-laden PS:

In other news, I wanted to write some follow up thoughts, reflecting on why I’d be so stupid/risky as to go and get my hair done in the middle of a pandemic, but before I could even MORE horrible stuff has happened. Little’s neighborhood got shot up in a drive-by (bullet holes in the cars still parked on the street!) and one of the para-educators as my kids’ school got arrested for multiple counts of child molestation, and the kids found out, and we are working through that (UGH). Especially the part about how he was apparently out on bail for a previous molestation when he got caught up in the most recent arrests. But you will just have to wait for details on that bad news because I can only process so much of it at a time, and look here, we are only through part II of stupid corona virus.