Surgery - Covid Style

Rita is having surgery on Monday to repair the tendons in her ankle.  Apparently - when your ankle starts hurting, you should NOT wait a year to see the doctor.  Lesson learned. 

Surgery in the age of Covid is a little sublime.  You spend 15 weeks refusing to go indoors anywhere other than your own home and then you’re suddenly being wheeled through a 12-story repository of concentrated illness [Sorry Rita – don’t read this until after your surgery!]

But fortunately, there are a whole new coterie of precautions for Covid starting with a “Covid screening”.  I’ll be honest…I expected a little more from the “screening” than a three-part questionnaire:

1. Have you traveled recently?  [Wow THIS is our biggest risk? The health care industry is throwing some serious shade at their friends in the tourism sector.] 
2. Have you had any flu-like symptoms?  [yes – and flu-like symptoms during a pandemic seems like the very best time to call a doctor….for surgery.  I called to ask for a Covid test and instead ended up in out-patient surgery.]
3. Have you tested positive for CoronaVirus.  [Ummm….maybe this is the first question you should ask?  I feel like we’re burying the lede here.]

Honestly, the “screening” consists of questions that are so obvious that if you get all the way to the hospital and then “fail” the screening questions, I have to conclude you either lost your phone on March 9^th and you’ve spent 15 weeks wondering why there’s no traffic out and about or you work on Trump’s coronavirus task force. I’ll be honest, I was hoping for something a little more…insightful.  Like…”Were you sort of sick at any time in the winter of 2019/2020 – even before Coronavirus was discovered – that you caught from someone who travels or maybe doesn’t travel but lives in a city full of people who do travel and you felt…well…sick?  Then you probably already had coronavirus.  Let’s apply this new magic test to be sure.”  

After breezing through the – “welp-you-didn’t-sneeze-on-me, you-must-not-have-Covid” screening, there were still additional precautions to apply.  

First, “you should come to the facility wearing a mask.”  Everyone? Or just the liberals?

And finally, the big finale….

“we encourage all visitors to remain in their cars or return home as visitors are prohibited at this time.”

Wait – am I a visitor????  And you want me to “return home” and just hang out and watch TV while Rita is under the knife?  This feels like a great big trap, I’ll tell you that.  Unless, of course, I want to “remain in my car”.  For 4 hours until she’s out of recovery?  Do you think we drive a camper?  And does it look like I love my wife any less if I opt for the “TV-at-home” option instead of the “I’m-right-outside-in-a-boiling-vehicle” option?  Rita just wants to me to pick the option where I’m the least likely to be on a conference call when they tell me to come get her.  Maybe they could also email me just in case.