An ode to the lifelong friends made in the InstaCare waiting room
One of the most difficult decisions I have to make on a semiregular basis is when I should go to InstaCare. As a hypochondriac, I am constantly overcorrecting when I feel a sickness coming on — telling myself my symptoms are only in my head, probably just allergies, and all I need to do is take some vitamin C and give it a day to feel better. I procrastinate visiting my local clinic because there’s nothing worse than doling out a copay and then being told I’m healthy as a horse. It’s like taking a car to the shop because the brakes are making a weird noise and then you can’t get the brakes to make the noise once there and then the brakes never make the weird noise ever again. Humiliating.
So, in an effort to save myself the embarrassment and $30, I usually wait about 12 to 24 hours too long before going in, until I’m undeniably ill. Can-barely-stand-upright ill. And, judging by the looks of my comrades in the InstaCare waiting room on Friday, Dec. 22, most everyone else there had also waited a beat or a few beats too long.
By the time I arrived at 9 a.m., the wait was three hours long and new patients walked through the door every minute. Together, me and my compatriots sat as safe a distance apart as we could manage. We scrolled our phones in silence only occasionally broken by alarmingly loud coughing.
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You know when you’re at the zoo and you can hear the seals barking even when you’re half a mile away at the great ape exhibit? Such was the volume of the coughs sounding from the waiting room that morning.
None of us spoke a word to each other. Partly because we were all wearing masks, not out of any sort of altruistic decency for our fellow men, but out of self-preservation — none of us wanted what anyone else had. Partly because it’s difficult to make small talk about medical issues. “What’s wrong with you?” is not a question one asks a sick person without immediate regret. Mostly because none of us felt well enough to fake cheeriness or conviviality.
But I developed a real fondness for my fellow waiters that morning. Those in the trenches of health care with me. Those who had also fallen victim to the virus-and-bacteria soup of the Utah air just three days before Christmas. We were bonded in our pre-holiday anxiety and suffering.
Together we judged the man who walked in, begged for a strep test and was told he’d have to wait the full three hours like the rest of us. As he walked out in a huff, we made knowing eye contact over our masks, then went back to scrolling.
I learned my new friends’ names as they were read by a nurse who took them to triage for a pulse and blood pressure reading, then released them back into the waiting room until an exam room became available. I made my best guesses about their diagnoses based on the severity of their coughs and sneezes.
Eventually, my name was read from a clipboard. I was one of the lucky ones, in the end. Though gagging on the strep-test swab is among the top 10 most humiliating experiences of my adult life, I walked away with a prescription for antibiotics and a clear path to a quick recovery just in time for Christmas.
I don’t know if the same can be said for my brothers and sisters in fever. I’m still not totally clear on what HIPAA is or what might be a violation of it, but I think I’m in the clear to say some of those coughs sounded pretty bad, and I wouldn’t be surprised if those coughers left the clinic with a COVID-19 or flu diagnosis. And that’s a terrible way to spend a holiday.
I hope my new friends have recovered and that we all manage to avoid other InstaCare visits this holiday season. But if fate has other plans for us, as it usually does, I’ll be happy to see them there. And I’ll try not to greet them by name.
