Joyce's KP Adventure mikepasini.com headlines
Today's CT Scan
7 June 2021
This morning Kaiser's Radiology Dept. called to see if Joyce could drop in today at 3 p.m. for the CT scan Dr. Tong ordered last week. Sure, no problem.
Joyce's Note. Drink two cups of water, pay $200.
She makes notes for everything these days. This was the one she consulted in the Radiology Dept. waiting room while she was waiting to be called in.
I was able to accompany her to the Radiology Dept. in the hospital this time. It's on the second floor. But the entrance is not on the first floor. And there's a Mezzanine level above the entrance. So you do actually have to take the elevator up three floors to the fourth.
We knew that. We forgot. The line to the elevators was so long we took the stairs one flight. To the Mezzanine.
Several other people wandered in.
On the Mezzanine a friendly medic got us where we had to go. It seemed he had just left the set of M*A*S*H.
No one was there when we arrived but the one woman behind the Plexiglas. She signed Joyce in and we took a seat.
I wasn't supposed to take a seat. I was supposed to wander around outside the hospital looking for a cheeseburger, I think. But the lady behind the Plexiglas didn't say anything so I sat there with Joyce for 20 minutes before a technician came for her.
She's always 20 minutes early.
Several other people wandered in. One older woman who couldn't believe the co-pay was $200 for a CT scan when an MRI was $250. Another who couldn't see the scanner to swipe her Kaiser card and became flustered with apologies. A guy with a bump on his knee who was sent to the sports clinic across the street, much to his bemusement (he didn't understand why his doctor sent him here if he should be there). A younger man in a wheelchair weighing enough for two who told his attendant he may look calm and collected but inside it's a different story when she explained there was no Diet Pepsi vending machine and he resorted to the bottle of water he carried with him. One young man on crutches who was in the wrong place to have his scan sent somewhere because they do that across the other street in the Radiology Records Dept.
My observation of the species was interrupted by a phone call. It was Joyce.
She said she was in the ER. How'd you get there, I asked, trying to mask my alarm with a cough. She took the elevator.
I know the elevator doesn't go to the ER. I tried to nail down exactly where she was. It turned out she was back in the lobby. I took the elevator down to meet her.
And we came home as if nothing had happened.