The Wait

Everybody has to wait. Mr. Gonzales, the President’s nominee to be the next Attorney General, did some waiting yesterday. I saw it as I watched the news scroll by on CNN, killing time. I saw that there were seven national guardsmen killed in Baghdad, the worst incident since the mess-tent bombing in Mosul last month.

It was a roadside bomb, and it destroyed the Bradley fighting vehicle as it thundered down the road. I have a white paper on detecting those devices, but we cannot get it developed fast enough to be a defensive capability for the troops. We have to wait on that.

Military officials in theater are saying the total number of attacks have gone down. They are waiting for the election, doing what they can.

Walking down the crowded corridors of the Naval Hospital I saw some of the wreckage from the war. Young men sitting in front of the Orthopedics ward, some on crutches. One of them had a horribly mangled leg confined in a metal brace. His wife was with him. Some of the scars were old. He has been waiting a while to heal.

Alberto Gonzales is going to be confirmed, of course, and this is all theater. Just like the Democrats who refused to certify the electoral votes from Ohio. They just wanted the President to wait.

Gonzales will be confirmed because it is a Republican-controlled Judiciary committee, even if Senator Snarlin’ Arlen Specter is an interesting sort of Republican. The Senate is controlled by the Republicans, so this should be a done deal.

But the Democrats are going to make Mr. Gonzales wait for a while, and consider the impact of his opinions on the treatment of prisoners. They grilled him for seven painful hours about what constituted torture, if it was akin to organ failure or not. It is too droll for words.

Senator Joe Biden called the nominee his ”Ole buddy” as he launched into a bitter tirade against his professional integrity. I was startled by the vitroil as I watched from my seat in the Emergency Room at the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda.

I was counting on professionalism here. I have no idea where my health insurance is. I think I missed the ”open season” in November when you are supposed to declare what corporate plan to take. Consequently, I just have my military benefit as a retiree.

I didn’t have to wait long. It was a judgment call not going to the hospital on New Years Eve to have them look at the wound on my hand.

I knew it was going to be a zoo at the ER, and I would wait for a long time. I could find my own painkillers at home. There was always the chance that with direct pressure and plenty of gauze the wound would heal by itself.

It didn’t, though. There was no one at the office when I got there this morning, and I managed to clear my e-mail queue, return my phone calls and have a phone teleconference. There was a faint but disquieting whiff of corruption from the bandage and I realized I had waited long enough.

The last e-mail was from a friend who provided the name of a reliable fellow who runs a spiritual mission in Sri Lanka. He is providing direct aid to the Tsunami victims in one of the Tamil areas of the island. The majority Sinhalese are being partial with the relief aid to the troubled Jaffna Peninsula where the Tamils live. I wrote a check, borrowed a stamp from the Administrative Assistant, and put it in the outgoing mail basket.

I looked at the clock and saw that I could drive up to Bethesda and be there not long after lunch. Bethesda is bustling these days, and it is hard to find a place to park in the most peaceful of times. The corridors were crowded, but I was pleasantly surprised to find I was the only one in the waiting area.

The news continued to drip out of the TV monitor suspended above the seats in the waiting area as I filled out the forms. I waited only a few minutes until the pert young Lieutenant took my vitals, and I had barely started on my book on the history of Hadrian’s Wall when they called my name to go back to the examining room.

There was an old woman on the other side of a curtain. She had cancer and some sort of mild dementia. I felt sorry for her. She couldn’t keep her appointments straight, and now was going to be doing a lot of waiting.

The Physician’s Assistant who saw me was a civilian, a contractor from the George Washington Hospital Group. He was crisp and professional and bathed the gash with brown Betadine fluid and warm saline solution.

He scolded me for waiting, and recommended a powerful antibiotic and regular irrigation of the wound. He entered the prescription in the computer, and with a brisk wrap, directed me to report back in 48 hours to see if the medication had worked.

I looked at my watch. It was incredible. I had been in and out of the ER in precisely an hour. My timing could not have been better.

I walked from the ER back through the main corridor and towards the pharmacy. All I needed to do was pick up the prescription and I was on the road to Wellville.

Visiting the pharmacy is exactly like visiting the Department of Motor Vehicals, only not quite as entertaining. You first go to a little kiosk and press a button corresponding to your patient category. There is a button for active duty personnel, and one for all others, dependents and retirees.

I looked at the button with curiosity. I had never been in the ”all others” category before. I mashed the button with my good hand and a slip of paper popped out with the number ”392” printed on it. I looked up at the bank of screens showing which number was being served. The highest number displayed was “223.” There was some small print under the number on my slip. It said the wait was estimated to be two hours and thirty-three minutes.

I marveled at the precision of the prediction. It took a while for a seat to open up. The rows of chairs set up like a theater, with the service windows on the stage. I got one behind a man with an oxygen cart on wheels.

Then I settled in with the other retirees to wait for my turn.

Copyright 2005 Vic Socotra

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