Halfway down the Danube

In the Clinic

"Please tell me that wasn't the reset button."

"Well, I don't know... what's 'reset' in Romanian?"

"Well, what does the damn button say?"

"It says... 'reset'. And the screen just went dark."

We are standing in the doctor's office, staring at the computer. Alan's finger has just lashed out, quick as a chameleon's tongue, and hit the tiny button on the back of the doctor's CPU. We thought we were watching him; we weren't watching him closely enough.

"Oh, crud, it shut down. It shut down."

"Well... 'reset' is 'reset', right? It should start up again in a second."

[pause]

"In a few seconds."

[pause]

"Come on... Alan! No! Not again!"

[parent snatches small child away from CPU] [small child squirms, whines]

"Hold him!"

[small child begins to wail miserably]

[SFX: Microsoft startup chime]

"Yes!"

[long pause]

[child continues wailing]

"Come on... come on... holy smokes, what is this thing, a 286? What's taking so long?"

We have been standing in the doctor's office for about half an hour, with the kids growing steadily more whiny and squirrely. Since we brought them to the clinic mostly because they were already whiny and squirrely, this is not so good. Alan is literally bouncing off the walls, which is one of those things that you consider a figure of speech until you see it happen. David's crying has begun to take on that ugly rasping sound that suggests no amount of parental jiggling and cooing will stop the incipient meltdown.

"'Improper shutdown detected, Scanning drives for --'" [Claudia slaps the 'Enter' key] "Ooh, good one, wife."

"Thank you -- No! It wants a password!"

The clinic is overcrowded, the doctors and nurses are obviously overworked and underpaid. The floor needs cleaning and the tiles on the walls are chipped. The interior of the clinic is a weird maze of temporary rooms and recently added partitions; the room just outside of ours is half file cabinets, half sink-toilet-shower. Nurses and doctors duck into the bath to change clothes and scrub, pulling a curtain across to give them a few square feet of privacy.

The clinic smells faintly of disinfectant and the wordless fears of tired parents. Somewhere outside a baby is crying -- another baby, I mean, not ours. The doctor has been gone for a long time now.

But: the doctor spoke English and seemed to know her stuff. She gave David a swift but professional examination, pronounced him slightly dehydrated, and prescribed electrolytes and carrot soup. Alan was something else: she heard sounds in his lungs, found inflammation down his throat, and stared long and thoughtfully at his flushed cheeks. Then she ordered an X-ray, which was done in just a few minutes down the hall. (Without any apron or protection for Claudia, but we're getting used to that.)

But then she had disappeared, leaving the four of us in her tiny office. With her computer.

"Hit 'Enter' again."

"What?"

"Do it. Sometimes people don't bother with the password."

"Oh... yes!"

Just above the computer, a sign announces -- in simple Romanian that even I can read -- that smoking is really, truly forbidden in pediatric emergency wards, because the government has passed a law against it, with fines of up to two million lei ($60), and they really mean it this time. The effective date of the law is June 1, 2003.

"Stuff coming up on the screen... Microsoft Instant Message?"

"Close it."

"Looks like some sort of virus update notice."

"Close that too."

I've lifted Alan up onto my shoulders and am swaying from side to side across an arc of thirty degrees or so. Sway, sway, swaaaay. Usually he finds this amusing, or at least soothing. All it's doing now is taking the edge of his whimpering. If I sway any further his head will bang into a wall, a lamp or the edge of a medicine cabinet.

"Umm... I think this is the desktop."

"Okay. So now what?"

"Well... I guess we wait until the screensaver comes back on."

I can't say this clinic is terrific the way that, say, German health care is terrific. It's not a cheerful place. The waiting room in particular is... grim; a small bare room, no toys or books or magazines, no cheerful paintings or prints on the walls, just worried-looking parents sitting on benches holding children.

On the other hand, it is, dammit, health care. We may have to wait for the doctor to get back -- we've been waiting for about 45 minutes now -- but we got in the door, and into her office, in ten minutes or so.

And, in the end: the screensaver came back on, the doctor came back in -- not giving the computer a second glance, bless her -- and looked at the X-ray. She said it was viral but not too serious, probably; and then she gave us prescriptions and instructions, and then wouldn't take the extra couple of hundred thousand lei that I tried to give her.

It's not a Mercedes, but it has four wheels and an engine. I'd go back.

I do wish they'd paint that waiting room a more cheerful color, though.

Posted by douglas at January 10, 2004 12:12 AM