{"id":839,"date":"2010-09-01T07:36:43","date_gmt":"2010-09-01T12:36:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/2010\/09\/children\/"},"modified":"2010-09-01T07:36:43","modified_gmt":"2010-09-01T12:36:43","slug":"children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/2010\/09\/children\/","title":{"rendered":"Children"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday, 30 August 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve gotta take my hat off to the front-desk lady in the radiology department of Children\u2019s Hospital today.<\/p>\n

The four of us woke up early (well, early for us) and got ready, got in the car, and drove into downtown St. Paul this morning. I\u2019m not a fan (= I hate it) of driving in either downtown, so I\u2019m already mad at whatever is going to happen before it even happens. Then we drove around a few blocks looking for the correct parking ramp. Have I mentioned before that Owen is terrified of parking ramps? Yeah, well, he is, so that certainly doesn\u2019t make matters better.<\/p>\n

Then we walk into the hospital. You know: those cesspools of bacteria staffed with people who were trained to think the human body is a disease needing saving from itself? Oh, and also, my wife hates going into hospitals. More than the usual person. I think it has something to do with the dumbfucks at HCMC, but I\u2019m not getting into that right now.<\/p>\n

Anyway, we check in at this desk, where they give us badges that say \u201cvisitor\u201d and this man escorts us to the radiology department. Actually, as long as I\u2019m handing out accolades, let me go ahead and say that it sure is nice that this hospital has people on hand to escort you through their labyrinth of hallways. That sure would\u2019ve been nice at HCMC, but I guess they\u2019ve got their hands full violating patients\u2019 rights.<\/p>\n

So then we get to the radiology department. They put a tag on Isla\u2019s ankle (with her name, incorrectly spelled, printed on it), and then we sit down and wait. While waiting, a sick little girl came in, carried in her mom\u2019s arms, while a nurse pushed an IV alongside that was attached to the girl. The girl is taken into a room, where some procedure is performed that makes her scream like she\u2019s being assaulted. I kind of wish someone would\u2019ve closed the door. That sure would\u2019ve helped to not trigger any issues my wife or son may have had.<\/p>\n

About ten minutes later, a nurse (or maybe she was a doctor, I don\u2019t know) came over to my wife and asked her a few questions. Basically, here was the problem: she could take Isla into the room now and perform the high-radiation test on her, but it would be smarted to perform the low-radiation test first. The reason being, if the low-radiation test turns up negative, then there\u2019s no need to subject her to high-radiation test. That makes sense, and I appreciate that the nurse\/doctor had the good sense to point this out to us. But! (You knew a \u2018but\u2019 was coming, didn\u2019t you?) They couldn\u2019t get Isla in to do the low-radiation test until 11:30.<\/p>\n

Hm\u2026decisions, decisions. We had a midwives appoint scheduled for 11:00, so that was one conflict. I also thought that spending another two hours in the waiting room \u2013 besides racking up my parking fee \u2013 would probably also drive my wife and son insane. The nurse\/doctor said we could come back at 3:00, but I didn\u2019t think that was a good idea, either, as it takes my wife some time to mentally prepare herself to enter a hospital, and twice in one day seemed too much. So I asked if we could come back another day.<\/p>\n

For some reason, the nurse\/doctor couldn\u2019t set that up, but instead told me to call a number. (That\u2019s weird \u2013 whatever happened to appointment books?) So we went up to the front desk to get the phone number. So then this other woman hands us the phone number, and I say: \u201cAre you gonna pay for our parking since you guys screwed up?\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes, yes, I know that I was being a bit rude, and a bit sarcastic, but I had every reason to believe the woman would not grant my request. For one thing, she works at a hospital, which means that even if she personally wanted to grant my request, she would first have to fill out forms A-114 and B-45 in triplicate, submit them to the board of directors, take a urine sample, have me wait in this dinky little room with a creepy skeleton, and then stamp \u201cDENIED\u201d on my forehead\u2026by which time my parking fee would be even higher. For another thing, there was a sign on the counter that read: \u201cNo, we DO NOT validate parking.\u201d So, I guess they\u2019ve been asked that question before.<\/p>\n

But guess what? The woman responded with: \u201cAbsolutely,\u201d which she said in the most pleasant voice, as if I had just asked her if she wanted to go on an all-expense paid Caribbean cruise. She leaned over and grabbed two stickers and, as she handed them to me, she said: \u201cOh, but it wasn\u2019t us who screwed up, we were just doing what the doctors scheduled your daughter for.\u201d Ha! Brilliant! She deftly defused any further anger by passing the buck (usually I hate buck-passing, but sometimes it IS warranted, and I think the woman was correct in this instance).<\/p>\n

But wait, there\u2019s more, she further says to me: \u201cHere\u2019s one sticker for you for today, and here\u2019s one for when you come back.\u201d Score! So not only did I not have to pay $4 today, I won\u2019t have to pay $8 (or whatever) when Isla and I return.<\/p>\n

Bravo, radiology front-desk lady. Bravo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday, 30 August 2010 I\u2019ve gotta take my hat off to the front-desk lady in the radiology department of Children\u2019s Hospital today. The four of us woke up early (well, early for us) and got ready, got in the car, and drove into downtown St. Paul this morning. I\u2019m not a fan (= I hate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}