- Did you bring a list of the drugs you are currently taking?
- I’m not taking any drugs, currently.
- You have to have a list of drugs you’re currently taking, or the doctor won’t see you.
- I’m not taking any drugs, currently.
The lady at the desk ignored me and I just figured I’d tell the doctor later that I wasn’t on any meds. She handed me a clipboard laden with paperwork for me to fill out.
- Have you been here before?
- No. This is my first time.
She slapped another pile of paper on top of the clipboard.
- Fill these out and bring them back.
I hopped back to my seat on my left leg, the paper smacking the clipboard. En route, a hippoesque woman with green pants asked me if I wanted a wheelchair.
- That’s okay.
I’d never been offered a wheelchair before and the prospect scared me.
- Are you sure? I think you’re going to need it.
My heart began to beat rapidly. Who was this woman? Was she a nurse? Why would she think I was going to need a wheelchair?
- Are you a nurse?
She laughed.
- Haha, no. I don’t work here.
- Who are you, then?
- I’m Jon’s mother.
Who the hell was Jon?
- Oh, nice to meet you.
I sat down and looked at the pile of paperwork. I began to flip through it. Of the 11 pages, six were about the drugs I was currently taking. I glared at the administrator. She looked up at me and I quickly looked away.
The other five pages asked for my emergency contact information and my and my family’s health history.
When I finished the paperwork, I stood up to hop back to the desk and hand it in. Why did they put the front desk yards away from the seating area? What a poorly designed medical center. That’s what I get for going to the University infirmary.
Jon’s mother came to my aid.
- Are you sure you wouldn’t like a wheelchair?
- No, thank you.
- So stubborn, just like Jon.
At this point, I was fairly certain she didn’t have a son and was just kind of crazy.
- I’ll get it for you. You just sit there and rest that leg of yours.
Although crazy, she seemed very nice. She stood at the desk and waited for the desk lady to come over and take the clipboard from her. When she came back, she bore a half a piece of paper.
- That hair of yours, it’s so curly!
- Thanks.
- Where’d you get that from?
- It came with my body.
- So curly!
- It’s the only part of me that screams Jewish.
- A nice Jewish girl!
She handed over the half sheet of paper.
- Here’s Jon’s cell phone number. I just think the two of you would be perfect for one another.
Apparently she hadn’t made him up. On the paper was his name and phone number in giant letters. Did she think I was legally blind? I put it in my giant purse.
- He’s in the back.
I nodded.
- With the doctor.
I nodded again. Was there anything else back there beside the doctor?
A woman in scrubs stood next to the front desk.
- Tasha!
- Here!
I hopped over to the scrub lady.
- Bye Tasha! Call Jon! He’s free this weekend!
- Bye Jon’s mother.
The woman in scrubs and I sat down on a couple of chairs a few feet from the desk.
- What happened to you?
- I hurt my ankle. I went out a week ago and sprained it, then I thought it was better, so I went out again, was walking down some stairs, and then it just gave out.
- Oooh, ouch.
- Yep.
- Do you smoke?
I laughed.
- Definitely not.
- It’s okay if you do. I do.
I squinted at her. This place was weird.
- I’m a classical vocalist; I would basically lose my future if I smoked.
- I’m a biology/pre-med major; I can smoke as much as I want.
- What year are you?
- A junior.
She was younger than me – my smoking nurse was younger than me. This was a first.
- Where’s the doctor?
- We’ll see her in a minute. First, we’re going to get you some crutches.
She left and came back a minute later with crutches.
- 5’4” 120lbs?
- Hey!
- Here you go. Have you ever used crutches before?
- No.
- Try them out; we’ll go to the x-ray room.
I stood up, dug the tops of the crutches into my ribcage and tried to use them. I saw how they had the potential to be helpful, yet I couldn’t get them to work for me. I put them too far out and swung through the air.
- I’ll carry your purse and jacket.
There was something about the crutches that made me laugh hysterically. I felt like I was traveling with a portable jungle gym. When I “got the hang of them”, I began to swing through the air. Somehow, I thought I could go faster than regular walking on them and soon I was racing down the white-tiled corridor with my head tilted back and laughing so hard my eyes had begun to water and little streams were running down my cheeks.
The junior called after me: Not so fast! / Don’t put them so far out! / Slow down!
But I couldn’t. I was flying down the hallway, the wind sweeping through my hair, my uncontrollable, laughter turning heads. A blur (resulting from either my speed, or perhaps the tears, or a combination of both) of blues, whites and pale faces racing on both sides of me. I continued to laugh until I heard the junior yell:
- Turn left!
I hadn’t thought about turning. I turned with gusto and threw myself at a doorframe. The crutches and I fell to the floor. I felt a little broken, but was relieved that I was in a medical center already. Five people rushed to help me up. Someone yelled,
- She needs a wheelchair!
- No! I can use crutches!
I loved my crutches. And, though I was in pain, I was in a very silly mood, slaphappy.
- Don’t take my crutches!
Once upright and turned the right direction, I began to race down the new hallway in front of me, my adrenaline pumping once again. I laughed so hard I had to tell myself to close my mouth so I wouldn’t bite my tongue. My ears popped.
The junior chased after me, but I was too far ahead for her to catch up.
- Turn right!
I stopped in my tracks and waddled like a penguin to rotate to the right. The junior gripped my arm tightly and led me into a small waiting room with a window into another room. A little woman greeted me from the desk within.
I dropped myself from the crutches down in one of the 4 fuzzy, yellow chairs, across from a fairly attractive brown-haired guy.
The junior handed me my purse and coat. She looked exhausted and I felt a little bad for her.
- Cindy will take care of you.
She nodded toward the window and walked off.
- What happened to you?
- I hurt my ankle. What happened to you?
I was trying to figure out where to put my purse and coat. My crutches were blocking the other seat.
- I dislocated my finger.
He held up his hand. I wanted to scream – his finger disturbed me beyond words, all mangled and looking very unnatural. Instead, I gasped unintentionally, and dramatically held my chest.
- Yeah, I know. Creepy.
- I’m Tasha, but I won’t shake your hand.
- I’m Jon. We’ll shake with our left hands.
We shook with our left hands.
Cindy called my name and asked me to fill out some more paperwork. She put it on the desk. I stood up to hop over to the desk and knocked my crutches over. They hit my purse, which I’d sat on the armrest of the other chair. My purse fell over, spilling not only a couple personal, female items, but also Jon’s phone number.
Jon picked up the clipboard waiting for me and then came over to help with my purse.
- I’ve got it.
I leaned over awkwardly and with outstretched fingers, attempting to rake my stuff in beneath my upside down purse. Of course, the sheet with Jon’s phone number lay on the floor, phone number side up, just beyond my fingers’ reaches.
I looked at him and he squinted down at the paper, as if he needed to squint.
In order to get the paper as quickly as possible, I had to rake it in with my foot. And, in a panic, I forgot I’d sprained my ankle. I stomped on the paper with my right foot and then screamed in pain.
Cindy stood up and surveyed the situation before she calmly sat back down again.
Then, the room was silent. Jon sat in his seat and avoided eye contact. I filled out paperwork about the meds I wasn’t taking.
I was so happy when Cindy called my name. But then I had to go out the door and around a wall to get to where Cindy was. I stood up, put on my coat, put my obscenely large purse around my arm, and swung myself excitedly into the doorframe beside Jon.
- I’m bad at steering.
Jon laughed politely and I left him sitting there, nursing his finger.
Cindy took x-rays of me. I’ll spare you the details of that, as it wasn’t that exciting. But when I finally got in to see the doctor, the real doctor, I realized she was a little crazy too.
- I’m Dr. Plegardi.
- Okay.
- The good news is that your ankle isn’t broken! Isn’t that wonderful?!
I stared at her. I never thought my ankle was broken, so I wasn’t as thrilled as she had wanted me to be. She looked a little disappointed.
- It could have been broken. But it’s not.
I tried to be an enthusiastic patient,
- Hooray!
She liked the hooray and continued with her doctoral-speaking voice. She seemed a little nuts, though. She had a strong Wisconsin accent and when she was thinking, she made growling noises.
I felt like I had stepped into the twilight zone – everyone here was a little off. For a moment, I wondered if I was the weird one. Then, I looked down and saw I was wearing my pumas. No, I was definitely still cool and normal. Many of these people were wearing those ugly sneakers with the giant shoelaces. Vans, I think.
- How are you doing with those crutches?
- I like them. I feel like I’m my own jungle gym.
The junior appeared with another set of crutches. She said,
- These have spikes on the ends of them so you can walk on the ice.
- Oh, thanks.
She left and Dr. Plegardi beamed at the crutches.
- Now you can attack people in alleys!
I laughed nervously.
- Yeah.
She started typing all kinds of information into her computer, asking me questions that I just answered in the paperwork.
- Did you give us a urine sample yet?
- No.
She made another growling noise.
- I really don’t want to do one.
- Oh, okay.
That was easy. The air smelled a little funky in her office and I kept trying to figure out what it was.
She continued typing in information about me and I noticed that her thumb had no nail on it. The skin was creepy: wrinkled and soft looking. The only words that kept entering my mind were, ‘Ew, gross.’ And yet, I couldn’t stop looking at it. I felt more and more nauseous and continued to stare at it queasily. I felt myself grow cold and hot, alternately. I have a really weak stomach for weird things like that.
She ran her hand through her hair and I imagined how scratchy and awful it would feel for her de-clawed thumb to rub against her coarse, peppered hair. I broke out in a cold sweat and began to breathe deeply as chills ran up my spine and goose bumps popped up on my arms.
The smell in the room now stood out more than before and the doctor picked up a Tupperware of coleslaw, white with mayonnaise, the most repulsive food in the world. She held the plastic spork in her right hand so that her de-clawed thumb faced me. I turned to the side, grabbed her trashcan and tossed my cookies. She put down her coleslaw and raised her eyebrows at me.
- Don’t worry, it happens all the time.
My entire body seemed to waver in my seat and my forehead was still wet with cold perspiration.
The junior showed up again and helped me out down the hall to where they fit me with a giant black, cushy boot that they strapped onto my leg with Velcro. Now my foot alone weighed about 20lbs. I saw Jon’s mother again as I was leaving.
- Good for you, you’re doing well on those crutches!
- Thank you. Bye bye.
- Bye! We’ll talk later!
I left the health center and walked into the snow with my spiked crutches. My roommate found me lying in a pile of snow where I’d fallen off the ice and decided to make the best of the situation and make a giant, lopsided snow-angel.

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