Yesterday my life got momentarily awful, like an impending storm the morning before a super-technical criterium, then all of the sudden brightened like a sky that miraculously clears up just before said criterium's start time. You see, my father is part of this thing called a family business. It has to do with agriculture and real estate in California. So, as a result of the family business-ness I fall under the umbrella of my family's California agriculture-workers' insurance plan. As there aren't many lemon farmers outside of California in this here wonderful nation, the insurance coverage gets more and more spotty the further away you get from the Pacific Ocean. Finding a doctor that will take my insurance in New York is about as fun as racing Grant's Tomb last year (it isn't). So the first two hours of my day yesterday were spent making call after call, looking for someone who 1) would admit to accepting my insurance, 2) was actually working on the week of Thanksgiving, and 3) could see me on Monday or Tuesday.
After two hours of dealing with disgruntled employees of various health services providers, I finally found a doctor who would see me - and better yet one that was right across the street. So I went. And I waited. And I waited. And I bemoaned the annoying mega-wrap splint that was put on my arm in the emergency room and had subsequently cut off almost all of the circulation to my right hand (but was just shy of being severe enough to risk taking off the splint). Finally, after a million phone calls to my dad needing his social to get them to accept my insurance, and a walk to the ATM because they don't accept credit card copays, I finally got in to see someone. Who promtly sent me down 6 floors to radiology for x-rays. A half hour later I was back in the waiting room. The amazing P.A. somehow took pity on me and beckoned me into a room as soon as I walked in the door. She took of the splint, poked my hand until I winced, and sent me right back downstairs. They needed more x-rays of different angles.
By this time it was about noon. The people in radiology were doing what I am usually doing at noon: eating lunch. But instead of telling people, they just ate and let us wait. I spent the better part of the hour playing with my unsplinted hand and trying to remember how to move it. Two days without moving your thumb is apparently enough to forget how it works. Finally, oh finally, I got in for another x-ray after the same nice P.A. called down to radiology worried that I had yet to reemerge.
I went back upstairs. I was directed to the doctor's office. Not his waiting room, not an exam room, but his actual office, where I was pleased to find my x-rays sitting on a screen. He came in. He looked at them. He poked my hand. The PA came in and they discussed. He muttered about how terrible the x-ray tech was at her job. Finally, he told me that I needed more radiology: this time an MRI. He showed me a skeleton hand and pointed out the small bone between the thumb and the wrist that protrudes slightly. This, he said, is what he thinks is broken. But he needs an MRI to be sure. He had the P.A. get me a brace. A wrist brace! It was small and dainty and when they slipped it on I could actually maneuver all five digits. All of the sudden I had twice the mobility that I had with the splint and thought I might actually be able to type (hello, interwebs!). I felt like Wormtail when Voldemort gives him the magic hand, except for the whole evil thing.
Come back and see me next week after the MRI, the doctor said. I literally skipped out of his office. Well, walked with a lighter step, and headed straight for the Wafels and Dinges truck parked on 114th and Broadway. But that's a different story.
My Chamois Butt'r and I will still probably be grinding away on the trainer for three weeks or so. What a stupid, stupid, stupid rock that my hand landed on. Whatever. Have I mentioned I still got a medal?
AND POINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNTS. Sometimes I love being a girl.
The moral of this story is that when you race your bike you shouldn't fall, because sometimes a 40 minute race turns into 10 hours of ER and doctors' waiting rooms. Ooops.
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