Hands OFF

There is a patient that comes in regularly to the clinic. He's been coming for about as long as I have worked here (somewhere in the neighborhood of 4.5 years). For the sake of saving on confusion (while protecting the identity of the patient), I will now christen him Rob.

Rob is an older fellow. Not so old as Noah but about as old has your younger granparents. He comes into the office in spurts. Several times a week for a few weeks and then we don't see anything of him for a few months at a time.

Rob is a funny fellow. He has no boundaries when it comes to personal space (please remember this later on...). His conversations are loud and weird, usually gravitating toward the uncomfortable personal areas that are not easily shared between front desk medical staff and patient. Rob is one of a kind.

One day, after a particularly unusual conversation, Rob comes up to me (whilst I am on hold on the phone with an insurance company), steps beyond the natural barrier that patients should know not to cross behind the front desk (WHY do people not understand this?!), stoops down so his face is inches, no, CENTIMETERS, from my face, turns my chair so I am facing him, places his hands on my shoulders and says to me, "There is just something you need to know about me: I'm a hands on kind of guy." Meanwhile, as I'm picking my jaw up off the floor and calculating the distance to the nearest hand sanitizer bottle wherewith to cleanse my entire being from this incident, Rob's wife calls him back to the waiting room.

That'll teach you to be nice and humor old people.

I don't know why I need to go to the doctor

Being on the phones is always a fun week.  You never know what kind of crazy is waiting for you on the other end of the line.  Today was the mean-crazy.

The patient calls requesting an appointment. 

"Ok." I said "What did you need to see the doctor for."

"I don't know."

"Ok, can you tell me what is hurting."

"I don't know, my doctor just gave my your number and said to make an appointment."

"Well I can't make you an appointment if I don't know why we are treating you."

Loud audible sigh. "My ear hurts ok!  Gosh!  Does that help?"

"I'm sorry I'm just trying to get some information for the doctor about why you are being seen."

"Well I'll just tell him when I get there."  Click


Ok buddy, you do that.

I have no idea how to start this blog, so I've experimented a bit with the "Hi" post and the "watermelanin" post. The main reason for this blog is so that we can remember the funny stuff that happens 'round here ('round here = un-named doctor's office. We are employs of said doctor's office), whether it is stuff we say or stuff patients say. Expect anything. Our boss should have said that to us when we started working. "Girl Employee, expect anything."

Because I have not yet, I will explain watermelanin. A friend of mine started taking sleeping pills called melatonin. I thought it was funny because melatonin is the stuff that gives your skin color (it's not. I know this now). When I shared this with my friends at work, Giuliana said "isn't melanin the stuff that gives your skin color?" and I said "Don't be dumb. It's melatonin." Then she said, "Well then what's melanin?" and CoCo said "Is it watermelanin?" hahahhHHAHAHhHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHHH.

Many of you have probable heard of watermelon, so you know that watermelanin is not.

Also, melanin really is the stuff that gives your skin color. Melatonin is nothing but a sleeping pill.

watermelanin

Hi.