I am a fairly patient person, in fact I think I have the patience of a saint sometimes. I read an account that my friend wrote about a doctors visit where she was a bit late, then made to wait and wait and wait as patient after patient even those who arrived after her were admitted before her. This has happened to me before, it was portrayed amusingly by Jerry Seinfield as they were waiting for a table at a Chinese resteraunt. I think in that case she might have run into an annoying paradox about doctors offices. Those people who make an appointment for say a well child examination are often forced to wait while people with more "urgent" needs like a current cold or whatnot are seen before them. How many times has this happened to me??? Too many to count and I have often felt like getting up and walking out, but I am a patient person I weigh my options and look at the big picture, sure I am annoyed but still I will wait. Do I say this to extoll the virtues of patience? Not at all, because sometimes patience is pointless because you could be sitting there and suffering with no one aware that you are suffering or annoyed. I have learned that in the case of doctors offices it is better to put on an air of nonchalance and to hang out in front chatting with the nurses. It's a trick that my Dad uses, not really consciencely because he just likes to chat, but it helps none the less. There was one time though recently that I just could not stand being in the doctors office, not one second longer and I left. Well actually it was about two years ago. We didn't have insurance but the state "requires" that you do this test on your baby where they prick their heel and squeeze out drops of blood onto about 8 circles that they send off to a lab. Well I missed my appointment and the only one they had was a Saturday at 9 a.m. and I was a tierd new mom. I didn't realize at the time I made the appointment that my husbands niece was to be baptized that same Saturday at 10 a.m., my husband mentioned it to me but it didn't click. So I woke up on Saturday and went to the doctors and I still wasn't thinking about the baptism at 10. So I sat there in the office until about 9:20 a.m. and they finally called me back. At this point I was weak with hunger and thirst because I hadn't ate or drank and I was still a very new mom of a week. So I went into the appointment and the nurse placed a warm sock that contained rice that was warmed up in the microwave over my baby's heel, then she pricked it and my baby started to cry. Immediately I felt sick to my stomach and faint in my head so I sort of held my baby trying to comfort her and leaned against the doctors table at the same time. Meanwhile the nurse was pushing at my baby's heel trying to get her to bleed and painstakingly blotting her blood onto the card. Finally after 10 minutes she got one dot full and I breathed a sigh of relief, but then I realized that there were 7 more dots and that the first prick was not bleeding very freely. So the nurse went to warm up the sock thing again, but I had had it. I was disgusted that I was being forced to sit there torturing my baby and that I would have to pay $60 bucks for it to boot. Plus it is a test that checks for extremely, I mean extremely rare diseases that have to do with babies not being able to drink milk properly, I was breastfeeding and my baby was fine. So as soon as the nurse left I snatched my baby off the table and locked her in her car seat, put on my coat and gathered all of my stuff and hastily walked out of the room. The nurse came back and told me that I would have to start the test all over again if I left right then, I told her I would reschedule. On top of all of that, I believe it was before the nurse started to poke and dot fill, my husband had called me all mad about me being so late at the doctors office and reminding me about the baptism. Needless to say I had enough reasons to leave. I DID NOT go back to have the test done, there was NO WAY.
That is how things are for me, sometimes my life feels like a situation that I cannot control. I look at the implications and see what the "right" thing for me to do is and try to do the right thing but sometimes the "right" thing is irritating, difficult and I wish it was different. Sometimes there are situations where I know that I would like to take one course of action but I "have" to take another course of action, because that is just the way things have to be. Right now I am stuck in a conundrum. I cannot explain it, it just is. It's one of those situations where you rehearse what you would say in your head, but when it comes down to saying it the situation is just wrong and you cannot say what you think. Where you wish that others would act in the way that they should act because the situation calls for it, but then they don't and you are left with the painful task of either explaining it to them "slowly" or dealing with the situation without their thickheaded understanding. Am I a pushover? I guess in some ways I am, but in others I am just taking what I have and doing the best that I can with it. I mean you can curse the car in front of you who just cut you off or you can avoid an accident, calm yourself down and not let it ruin your day. I guess thats my rant about my patient impatience. I hope everyone has a good night.
~Strawberry Girl
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