So here I am writing on my iPhone while waiting for my Mom who is seeing her diabetic specialist at Fraser River Endocronology. I'm trying out the SquareSpace Blog publishing application for the first time as I look up from I phone from time to time to observe my surroundings. The waiting room is central with offices surrounding it. The waiting area is also warm, lit by sunlight coming in through a large skylight.
A mother holds her small child by his two hands, and she lets him lead her on a small walk around the waiting room. Another older man, dressed in black, sits silently staring off into space. Another older woman sits looking at her mobile device (not an iPhone), while an older oriental man reads a woman's magazine that he found in a pile of waiting room magazines. The mother and child is called and they disappear into the office.
I feel a whoosh of fresh air as a motorized wheelchair whizzes by, it's engine whiring smoothly as an older woman approaches the diabetic specialists' receptionist. The receptionist knows the lady and I hear them talk briefly about using the chair in inclement weather, "I'd never take this down that hill in the winter," I hear her say before she whizzes away from the desk to the middle of the waiting room where she stops. She's wearing a green mask - one of those medical masks that Asians seem fond of wearing whenever there's a flu scare. One of those masks hospital ERs or walkin clinics make you wear if you have a cough or cold. She takes out a paperback novel, it's black, titled "Prayer for the Dead." Her hand covers the authors name. She too is dressed in black and has bruising on her arm, no doubt from the diabetic insulin needles she likely uses. My mom has similar bruises on her arms and stomach.
"Leo?" The man in black rises and disappears into the office. A younger woman follows him in and approaches the receptionist for her two o'clock and permission to borrow the washroom key. Minutes later she returns the key and sits, bathed in sunlight as she rubs disinfectant on her hands. She then goes into her purse, opens a small jar of lip balm and with a single finger applies some to her lips. Having finished that her iPhone comes out, and she's browsing it now as my Mom comes out and books her next appointment with the receptionist. It's time to go.
Waiting Room Observa
Now I'm downstairs.
We're now waiting outside the BC Biomedical as the diabetic specialist wants Mom to get her blood work done. She's fighting back tears, saying she had a go round with the specialist who was upset because somehow she was out of the loop over the insulin pump my Mom just acquired. At first she accused Mum of getting it in the States - as many do that - but my Mum would never do that. Then she said she wanted to try Mum on a new drug. But in the end even I clearly remember the specialist giving Mum a number of brochures on pumps last fall. I remember because I sat down and read them with Mum, and I remember looking information up online. I remember getting a call from the hospital from an expert on the pumps who talked my Mum through making appointments with the pump salespeople. The expert only calls when they are sent a letter from the specialist. So even I don't know how the specialist could have forgotten. Maybe she wanted to sign off on it before a decision on which pump was going to be used was made. Who knows. I told my Mum not to worry about it. Thankfully the pump is returnable during its first three months of ownership.
The area I am now has a row of chairs facing an outside area, pictured above. The biomedical office is to the left. To my right is a wall advertising an ultrasound office. The advertisements are kind of disturbing.
A man shouts at the ladies in the biomedical - he's upset he had to wait when he thought he could quickly dropped off a sample. "I've never had to wait before! I'm illegally parked and in probably getting towed!" He storms out, taking his keys from his pocket, his urine visible in the plastic container in the plastic bag he holds as he walks away. My Mom's done now. So it's time to go.