A Visit to the Clinc

I’ll use my sore finger for not posting more. It’s not entirely untrue and it’s the best excuse I can come up with at the moment. I’m not sure what’s going on with it. I noticed it getting sore one day, but it was only something that I barely noticed. It wasn’t like a jab or a sharp pain - that came the next day.

Over the course of the days following, it got more red and more swollen, until it was at the point where the throbbing was waking me up at night. That was about the point where I figured I better start soaking it, and when I wasn’t soaking it, I better start wrapping it and putting cream on it - all of which I did - to no avail.

I finally broke down and called the doctor’s office, late the other day, which is something I hate doing for something like a sore finger. But the threat of another possible thumb episode forced my hand (so to speak). (You can read about that here, here, here, and here.)

So I called, and after waiting on hold for a while, I called again and got to talk to an actual person, presumably a nurse. She asked me a number of questions, put me hold to ask someone else a number of questions, and then came back and told me that it sounded like I should get on some antibiotics- preferably right away. One problem- they were about to close and the soonest they would be able to get me in would be the following afternoon. She suggested that I visit the so called “Minuteclinic” at the local CVS pharmacy.

I had heard about this “Minuteclinic” and nothing about it appealed to me. It’s not that I heard anything good or bad, it’s just I pictured a bunch of coughing and hacking walk-ins, squeezed into a tiny waiting room, infecting the semi-healthy others around them (me).

But I went anyway - that’s how much my finger was throbbing, but more importantly, that’s how much I didn’t want to deal with another thumb episode (see above links.)

I got to the Minuteclinic somewhere around six o’clock. Apparently, if you’re going to get sick or have an infected finger, six o’clock on a weeknight is about the best time for it to happen. There was absolutely no one in the vast expanse of a waiting room, which was great because if there were, they couldn’t help but cough in your face, should the need arise.

I had to enter a bunch of information on a touch screen monitor. This was much more of a process than I had expected. I’m not sure how long it took me - probably ten minutes or so - but it felt much longer. Along with all of the legal disclaimers- that I and nobody else reads, it asked a bunch questions that I didn’t see as particularly relevant. 

I decided that the process must be designed to discourage either the people that are healthy and are too busy to waste a lot of time there, or it's to discourage the really, really sick, who either can’t focus enough to read the screen or stand for the time it takes to enter the information.

But I entered the information and the screen told me that the wait time would be about eighteen minutes. So, I took a seat… and waited. 

The waiting area.

My view from the waiting area.

After about five minutes, I got a text that read: “ MinuteClinic Visit Alert: Pls return to MinuteClinic within 30 minutes to be seen. If you return later than 30 minutes, you will lose your place in line.” What was I to make of this? A) I hadn’t gone anywhere, b) How did the now less than eighteen minutes become thirty minutes, and c) what line are they referring to? I was still the only one there.

I passed the rest of the time trying to figure out if this were some kind of test. Maybe I was supposed to get up and try to find somebody to ask, thus losing my place in the alleged line, and then having to return and enter all of my information again - and be billed for a second visit. Maybe this was a subtle way of getting me to do a little shopping with my now extra free time. Whatever the reason, I had no intention of moving.

Soon the door opened up and the previous patient left, and I was asked to enter. The nurse or doctor or random employee ran through some more questions - some new, some repeats, and I found, to my surprise, that she was actually quite pleasant. Some of this was due to our mutual disdain for a particular medical facility in our area (not my current one, thank-you), and some of this was due to the fact that she was not only kind enough to inform me that she had a devastating cold, she also had the courtesy to wear a mask during my visit.

She poked and prodded a bit and agreed that it was indeed infected. And since neither one of us had a clue as to why, what the heck, getting me on some medication seemed the best solution. She wrote me a prescription and wired it to, basically, the other side of the door, to the pharmacy. 

Before long, I was out the door, waiting in line at the pharmacy, about twenty feet away. And this wasn’t some imaginary line either, but an actual line - with people waiting on the sidelines and everything.

I took my place in the back of the line, eventually moving up and becoming number two. By about this time, some poor guy about my age, came hobbling across the store and headed over to the counter. This poor guy could barely move and was bent over like the letter “L”. I could see him ask the woman at the counter something, and he painfully turns as she motions over to the direction of the line, and then he hobbles off, heading our way. Naturally, my first instinct was, “This guy better not cut in line.”

But for some ungodly reason I let him go in front of me and the guy in front of me let him go in front of him too. The guy got whatever medication he needed, or at least the medication he came for, and it wasn't long before I had my medicine and I was out the door too.

It’s been about a week now, and I’m happy to report that the pain and swelling is now mostly gone, the skin has peeled and mostly re-grown, and best of all, there isn’t any weird extra appendage-like growth coming out the side, like I experienced with my thumb.

Now that that is apparently over with, it's onto the next ailment...