Non-Essential Pandemic Blues
Up early. I needed to get to the lab for blood work by 7:30. I hoped to beat the crowd and get in and out without touching anything or getting too close to people. The pandemic is in full swing and the fear has become palpable. A great day to venture into the void of compassionless survival mode.
Outside I was greeted by a dense fog, adding even more grey (Indiana’s state color) to the early spring morning. By late March in our state we haven’t fully shaken the sweaty chill of the end of winter. I don’t even know why we call it winter anymore. For me, winter in Indiana is just Cold Grey Season.
Note to self: write a letter to Adobe to suggest that the name of the Pantone color Grey be changed to “Indiana Winter.”
Despite the lockdown, there were a lot of cars on Chester Boulevard. I wondered if there would be a long wait at the lab as I tapped the wipers once to remove the misty miasma from my Jeep’s windshield. The cars themselves seemed despondent.
As I turned down the road across from the hospital, I saw a line of medical buildings that reminded me, through the grim morning mist, of post apocalyptic shooter games and movie sets. I wondered what the suicide rate among medical facility architects must be. Surely the forced austerity and lack of imagination required for medical building design must haunt them.
All manner of horrible things passed through my mind as I passed one featureless, drab building after another. At my stop, the parking lot was nearly empty. Was I even supposed to be here? Was I lucky? (Or crazy?) Then excitement: I had beaten the crowds of people who were surely on their way to get lab work done! All this, followed quickly by the feeling that I’d made a mistake coming here.
As I entered the building I was overcome with a false sense of sterility. Lots of chemicals had been used recently, but everything looked infected anyway. More grey. More flashbacks to Fallout. Evidence of medical facility interior designers who very clearly hated their jobs and wanted everyone to feel hopeless.
The empty waiting room featured the usual sliding glass reception window. A memory stretching as far back as early childhood visits to my pediatrician (who always had 1/3 of a smoked cigar in his mouth while examining me, followed by a piece of Juicy Fruit gum at the end of every visit. To this day, whenever I smell cigars, I also smell that sticky-sweet gum.) Now, in front of the receptionist window, was a brand-new kiosk for self-check in. Old and new clashed in a juxtaposition that modern horror film directors love to feature.
Panic: I had to touch that screen. Twice!
The lab tech, in mask and gloves and nothing but seriousness in her eyes, slightly opened the window to inform me that if I didn’t have an appointment I would have to check in all over again, a different way. Then she disappeared. As I touched the glass screen, I wondered if a previous patient, possibly infected, had the same birthday as me as I tapped those specific spots on the screen. The local radio station’s morning show blared vapid twittle into the empty waiting room with its sad, diseased chairs. Wood paneling on the walls was the only thing missing.
I felt unwelcome.
The days of a receptionist with a bright smile and comforting demeanor were clearly over. In fact, there was no receptionist at all. Apparently the lab tech was running the entire office today. I wondered if I should sit on one of the stained tan-brown-mauve waiting room chairs. “Can you get the virus from sitting on a waiting room chair?” I decided to be brave.
Just as I sat, the lab tech came back to the window and asked for my paperwork. I had scheduled my blood work online. My blood sugar wasn’t staying down with diet and exercise alone anymore. I needed Metformin. To get that, before my online doctor would prescribe anything, I still had to venture into the pandemic to get blood drawn.
Today’s medical adventure felt essential. My sugar was really high, despite losing 15 pounds and working out every day, eating a vegan diet for the last 2 months. The lab tech made it very clear that the reason no one was in the waiting room was because all non-essential lab work, like all other medical visits, was being strongly discouraged. I wondered why I was able to order labs, if this was the case. Her disapproval thickened the chemically tainted air. Was she using The Force to close my throat from six feet away or was that just my utterly constant anxiety doing it for her?
It felt like she thought I was putting her or others needlessly at risk. Little did she know, I had been holed up since before the lockdown was in place. Hell, I’ve been holed up for 20 years, compared to most Americans. I work at home. I loathe being in contact with people even when there isn’t a virus trying to kill everyone. I knew, she didn’t, that I was possibly the safest person she’d seen in months.
High blood sugar is an emergency, except during a pandemic, apparently. For all the tech knew, I was getting labs done for something ridiculous that could wait. “If he says this draw is to check for low testosterone, I’m going to jab this needle into his eye!” she appeared to be thinking.
I wanted to tell her why I was there, but it was clear that I was to get out of her lab as fast as possible. Banter and medical histories were off the table.
“Fine by me, let’s set a record for a blood draw!”
She was done faster than I’ve ever experienced before. Eerily, my parting small talk was met with complete and total silence from her. She never said another word as I left the room and I saw myself back to the waiting room. She wasn’t even following me to make sure I didn’t steal masks, or even an August 2019 Better Homes magazine.
“Was it more fear or anger?” I wondered. Whatever the case, it seemed even more uncomfortable parting silently as one of the only two people in an entire medical facility.
The fog had lifted some as I left the facility and turned back onto the main road. I recounted my every step, every surface I touched, and wondered if I should apply a 3rd coat of sanitizer to my hands just to be sure. Under the circumstances, the visit couldn’t have been safer. No people. Fully masked and gloved technician. In total I was only in the building for maybe 20 minutes. Invisible sickness makes you feel contaminated no matter what, though.
Someone was driving slow in the left lane and I felt the urge to move them along, eventually passing on the right. I was in a hurry to get back to safety. Back to the only place I knew that had no virus, simply because me and my family were still healthy and keeping the place clean as possible.
I felt bad about the anger the tech felt toward me. I felt judged. She was in pandemic mode. I was in a panic myself, yet my problem wasn’t important at all to her. Though it very much was to me.
Later, when the virus fully hits our little town, I’ll never be able to get into that lab. Nor would I want to. It was either now or 3 to 18 months from now. Significant and irreversible damage could be done by then. I had no choice.
My “non-essential” visit to the set of the next Hunger Games remake felt surreal, like I was already among the last survivors. Somehow The System was still operating, albeit with near empty buildings, fully lit, with only skeleton crews, ready to serve hundreds of people. On this grey, dank, chilly morning, I looked in the rearview mirror as my thoughts wandered back to that medical facility architect suicide rate.
