I'm As Mad As Hell & I'm Not Going To Take It Anymore

This morning I went to the ear, nose, and throat doctor because I’ve had something going on with my inner ear that’s making me dizzy. I was disappointed to see the office my primary provider had referred me to was over twenty miles away, but I didn’t want to jump through the insurance hoops to get someone else. I arrived on time for my appointment, filled out the mound of forms that required me to supply the same answers three times, then took my seat on a worked-in couch. Immediately I chastised myself for not bring my own reading material because the only offerings were outdated issues of “Hearing Technology” magazine. I looked around at the other patients, noting a majority of them were elderly.

As the minutes ticked by my mental calculator was adding up babysitting and gas costs and I noticed the waiting room was starting to fill up. I watched as one mother made her three boys go sit on the curb outside since there were no seats (it was in the nineties), then men began giving up their seats to incoming elderly patients. I looked at my watch and an hour has passed. I got up and asked the receptionist when I’d be up; she left and came back, “Mrs. Adams you’re up next.” That would be great except that isn’t my name I thought. I took my seat. The nurse came out and announced, “The doctor's running behind so you can either wait or reschedule,” she said in a take it or leave it tone, you could feel the atmosphere of the waiting room turn into a tense one.

I stood up and walked back to the receptionist, “I’m leaving and I’m not rescheduling. I want my chart too.”

“We can’t give you that,” she said in a clipped Asian accent.

“I don’t want you to have my information. It should be like I was never here. It’s my chart and I want it now!” I could feel the eyes of the other patients on me, some silently cheering, others trying to size up how crazy I was.

“Okay,” she said knowing I was on the verge of leaping across the counter and at half my size, she’d have little chance.

I took my paperwork and left. When I got home I read what was in it. Seems my doctor referred me for “dizziness and giddiness.” Worried he thought me a flake, I looked up giddiness in the dictionary and in addition to meaning lighthearted, it’s another word for dizzy. Good thing because there was no giddiness in my voice when I called and told him what I thought of his referral.