This morning as we were all getting ready for church we had a mid-level medical emergency. Alisa was in the shower, Zoë was taking her bath, I was getting breakfast ready, and Ike was pretty upset that he wasn't getting a chance to take his bath along with Zoë. So, he was circling around the tub, trying to get in. Alisa was warning him to stay back.
Out of nowhere, I heard a blood curdling scream, and I darted into the bathroom to find Ike standing by the toilet with a very concerned look on his face and Zoë screaming hysterically, a small line of blood squeezing from the outside corner of her right eye. It looked like something supernatural had attacked her.
We dried her off and took a closer look at the eyelid. There was a cut running parallel to her eyebrow, and it was deep, but it didn't look like it went through the eyelid. There was no damage to the eye that I could see.
All Zoë could say was, “Ikey cut me with his fingernails.” I asked him if it was true. He said it was. I told him he was a good boy for owning up.
We got her dried off, and cleaned the eyelid with a Q-tip and some rubbing alcohol, which made Zoë howl like someone undergoing a surgical procedure in the days of whiskey and four uncles holding your extremities. After that triage, it seemed evident that we were headed to the emergency room.
Note to self: don't get hurt on Sunday. Urgent Care isn't open.
Zoë didn't want to go, and we calmed her by saying that we though ther eye would be okay, but we wanted to hear it from a doctor,and we wanted to know how to take care of it. She agreed to that much, at least. So, we piled into the car and headed out to the hospital. I got Zoë checked in. They took her back with her mother. The Ikester and I hung around outside and watched all the other people come in with the misfortune to get sick on the sabbath. Most of them, it seemed, had some kind of urgent thoracic problem. Man, you gotta count your blessings.
While I was pacing around, I noticed that just behind the emergency room sign was a moment of extreme crassness. The second sign you notice when entering the emergency room is the sign for the cashier. If there's anything to make a person feel cynical on Sunday it's an arrangement like that. Super bad karma, I should think.
I whipped out my camera phone and snapped a shot. The writing that says “cashier” isn't all that legible, but it's there. This re-kindled my anger— Michael Moore level anger—about the complete lack of Christianity in the health care business.
My only consolation is that these health care executives—not most of the people on the ground, nurses, for example, but the people who are getting rich off health care (and I do include doctors)— my only consolation is that they are going to have to sit down with Jesus and a conversation that I can only hope goes like this:
JESUS: Hello
HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATOR: Am I dead?
JESUS: Only to the people on the other side.
HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATOR: Where's everybody else?
JESUS: They're waiting. Can I see your proof of insurance?
HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATOR: (pats himself) Um, I don't have my wallet. There's not pockets in these robes.
JESUS: (shakes his head) That's too bad.
HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATOR: What does that mean? What's too bad?
JESUS: We'll have to send you along. I'm sure he has beds down there. We'll have someone drive you. They'll take you, don't worry. They take everybody.
THEN A LONG PAUSE and the HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATOR bursts into tears.
JESUS: Come on, I'm kidding.
HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATOR keeps weeping.
JESUS: It was just a joke. Seriously.
HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATOR wipes nose with forearm and looks up.
JESUS: You know, when I was healing people. I did it for free.