A doctor's office made of paper and glass

Yesterday, I had an appointment at my doctor's office to have some trigger point injections. This is, basically, when they inject a local anesthetic into my aching muscle knots. It helps take the edge off of some of my back and hip pain for a couple of weeks, and I thought this would be a good idea prior to our upcoming summer road trip and camping adventure. I'm hoping a little lidocaine in my ass will make sitting in the car for hours and lying on the ground all night comfortable.

I tried to keep track of the amount of material my appointment used. The clinic has a pretty sophisticated computer system, and most of my file goes directly onto a computer, but I still left an impressive trail of paper, glass, and plastic.

There is a piece of paper and pen where I signed in when I arrived. Not sure of the point of this, since there is always someone at the desk to take my name and note my arrival on the computer before I'm done writing it.

I got a big and a little receipt for my copay (one the office receipt and one the card receipt--not sure using cards rather than cash to pay for things really reduces the paper trail yet).

I got a piece of paper on a clipboard to fill out a satisfaction survey, in which I was asked to rate on a scale of 1 to 5 such statements as, "The doctor makes me feel important," but not, for example, whether the office has done a good or bad job remembering to get correct insurance authorization prior to my monthly office visits and occasional procedures (they haven't, but I sure do feel like a queen when I leave the exam room).

Then they asked me to sign an electronic consent form for the procedure with a stylus on a computer screen.

Once in the exam room, I used a paper gown (though this was only because they had run out of cloth), the paper on the exam table, and all the materials involved in the injection, which included a big fat scary needle, some cotton for swabbing the injection sites, and a few glass bottles of medication, plus the plastic wrappers everything came in.

I got a prescription form, and I know all prescriptions at that office must be photocopied onto a full size sheet of paper for their records.

I also grabbed a paper cup of water while I was waiting to make my next appointment, then got a small card to use as a reminder of my next appointment time.

I used my car to drive across town for the appointment, and to drive to the pharmacy afterward. And the pharmacy gave me a bottle with medication inside, a small paper bag for the bottle, a piece of paper with prescription information stapled to the bag, and a receipt.

The garbage generated from this one visit probably equals the amount in the tortilla chip bag holding my kitchen garbage right now, though it smells better than molding taco night plate scraps.

The consumption of consumption

We have been sick in my house. Especially my son. We are on Day 10 of the Great fr(ECO)logy Household Illness. For Days 1-9, the poor kid spent 18 hours of each day sleeping fitfully, and the remaining 6 hours staring blankly at Mama, requesting lots of make-me-better kisses, requesting food then charmingly refusing to eat it, drinking juice and tea and water, and taking medicine. At all times, I was to be no more than one inch away. Today, some improvement: I have had as much as 20 minutes at a time without physical contact with my son, and though he is now sleeping next to me again he is doing so without needing me to hold him with at least one arm, so I am able to type. Also, he's been eating bananas.

You can imagine how very little time I've had to work on being fr(ECO)logical. I have, however, had very much time to think. And remind myself of how bad television can be.

One of the things I have been thinking about but have not had the free hands to write about is the amount of stuff that has entered my home to treat or comfort my child. We have four empty and more nearly empty bottles of medicine (not because we are overdosing the poor kid; we were just scraping the bottom of a few bottles). We have bought and consumed several gallons of orange juice--the only thing with calories my son would consume for much of the week. We have bought and consumed three six-packs of ginger ale--partly a bribe for my son at medicine time, but also for me as I began to catch the tired-of-sitting-on-the-couch bug, and then the whatever-my-son-has bug. We have bought and consumed 2 boxes of popsicles.

I'm sure we could have been more conservative. I could have foregone the ginger ale. I could have squeezed the orange juice from actual oranges. I could have made popsicles in the popsicle molds we already own. I could have done all of this with my feet, I guess, or one-handed with one of those Mrs. Incredible stretchy arms from my perch on the cuddle-with-Mama-couch. Could have, but didn't.

Another thing we did not do was get take-out, though I was tempted a couple of times. I also resisted the desire to put my son in the car to get out of the house and hit a drive-through coffee place a couple of times. Going out for a drive or to get drive-through coffee is not something I normally do, but neither is taking care of a sick child. Once upon a time I had a child who rarely got sick. Now he has spent 10 days of his young life ailing.

Regarding coffee: I left the house only once during the week, to take the kid to the doctor. On the way back, I figured I'd stop to get coffee beans, since we were already out of the house, we were out of coffee, the place was on the way home, and the kid was having a relatively fever- and delirium-free moment. Also thought I could bribe him to eat something--anything--by offering him a yummy pastry. No luck. I bought the pastry but the kid refused to eat it. Just kept trying to feed it to me. Poor guy must have really been sick.

The problem with getting coffee was I forgot the coffee bean bag I had planned to reuse. And my coffee mug. No, I didn't have to get coffee as well as beans. I could have made myself coffee with the beans when I got home. But they give you a big discount on coffee when you buy beans. And did I mention I have been chained to a couch and a sick kid who keeps asking pathetically to cuddle with Mama and opens his eyes every time I shift positions to make sure I'm not going anywhere?

So I needed the coffee. Here was the dilemma: drive the mile home to get the bag and coffee mug and then the mile back to get the coffee? Or just stop and deal with the waste? I chose to just stop and deal with the extra bag and cup. More convenient; less gas and time. I'm going to stash the extra bag in my car so I won't be faced with that part of the dilemma next time. And let me know if you think of a good use for a disposable coffee cup.

Regarding the title of this post: to call my son's ailment "consumption" is overdramatic, obviously. More likely it's the flu. And I am afraid I am about to find out that the only thing worse than being well while taking care of a very sick child is being very sick while taking care of a well child.