November 13th, 2024
Caring for a sick kid is always stressful. It is especially hard to do if the small child is in pain and sobbing uncontrollably. That was the case with Asher, our little grandson, early on Sunday morning. He had been struggling with bouts of diarrhea since Friday. His condition seemed to be getting worse. The volume and intensity of his cries were growing stronger. My wife and I needed to do something.
That something was to take him to the local urgent care. We didn’t really want to go to the emergency room because we were not convinced that he had a true emergency. However, we couldn’t wait for the following morning to take the boy to his pediatrician. The situation did in fact seem to be urgent.
There are actually a couple different urgent care facilities not too far from our home. We took him to the one affiliated with the office of our primary care physician. We have had good experiences with his office, and we hoped that this urgent care would give us the same level of service.
I held Asher in my arms as I approached the lady at the front desk to check in. She was rather chipper for being there early on a Sunday. I handed her Asher’s insurance card and then she asked me about my relationship to Asher.
“I’m his grandfather and his legal guardian.”
She replied, “Do you have a copy of the court paper showing that you are his guardian?”
“What?”
She said, “We need to have proof that you are actually his guardian in order to treat him. You need to have that with you.”
After a short pause, I asked her, “How would I know this?”
She smiled and said, “Oh, you wouldn’t know it. That’s why I’m telling you now. It’s to protect the child. Hasn’t anyone ever asked you this before?”
“No, nobody has. I don’t have the anything on me. What exactly what do I need?”
She replied breezily, “Oh, it’s a paper from the court with a stamp on it. We will just scan it and then he will be in our data base. If you want, you can run home and get it and then come back.”
That dumbfounded me. Here I was with a sick little boy, and they won’t touch the boy unless I can show my legal status. How bad does something need to be to qualify as urgent? I knew I have the paperwork at home, but I had no idea exactly where it was. Going on a treasure hunt was not going to work.
Apparently, I stood there for too long lost in thought because she said to me,
“Or you could go down the corridor to the ER.”
I consulted with my wife. The boy was miserable. We were tired. This woman was useless to us. We walked to the emergency room.
That was quick and easy. We were in and out of the ER in 45 minutes or so. The doctor was good with kids, and he had no trouble examining Asher. He determined that Asher had a nasty stomach virus. There wasn’t much that we could do but make Asher comfortable and let the virus run its course. We were relieved that it wasn’t anything worse than that.
After we got home again, I dug around for the magic paper from the court. I found it, and I put it aside for the next time.
Frank is Emptiness 