Friday, March 18, 2011

What goes around eventually comes around

In the midst of a mini torrential rain blast last Friday morning, I found myself driving to the Moked to have my son's hand "seen to". The Moked is the Israeli answer to people who need more medical help than they can get in a doctor's office but less than they could get at a full-fledged hospital. In theory it is a great concept. And in practice I like it too -- I just wish the closest branch wasn't located half way to Tel Aviv.

By the time we got in the door of the Moked we were soaked and I was expecting a very long wait. I have been to the Moked in the past and spent hours sitting there waiting my turn. It might be more cost effective than wasting a hospital's time, but customer turnaround time is rarely better than any hospital environment where you don't arrive on death's doorstep.

We went to the first check-in counter and the woman there explained all the steps we would have to go through. First you see the nurse, then you get an x-ray and finally, you see the orthopedist who gives you your final diagnosis. In other words, I was mentally hunkering down for the duration.

And that was when I noticed the signs that said "Wi-Fi". Within seconds my entire day was starting to look better. I pulled out my iTouch and started to review my unanswered emails. At some point during my email review they must have called my son's number. Fortunately he was listening and once I realized that he was headed somewhere I quickly gathered up our things and followed him.

The nurse at Stop One checked his hand and asked a few questions. But since his hebrew is so much better than mine, I left him to deal with her and continued to scan my emails.

Back to the waiting area.

A few minutes later, my son was called in to get an x-ray. Since visitors are not allowed into an x-ray area, I waited outside. As I said, he is almost 14 and his hebrew is far superior to mine.

He returned from the x-ray and took up the seat next to me while we waited for Stop Three -- the orthopedist.

When our number was called, my son -- the same son who is connected to an electronic device almost every waking hour that he is not in school (at least I hope that's the case) -- stood up and almost yelled at me: "Ema, take those earphones out of your ears and pay attention. You cannot listen to your iPod and know what's going on." And with that he walked into the doctor's office.

I just stood there and realized that we had reached a watershed moment in our relationship.

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