A Muse's GuideFood, technology, yoga and music. . . is there anything else?

Over the past year,  I have spent more than my fair share of waiting in doctor’s offices and medical waiting rooms.  While it is one of the most tedious things (waiting for an appointment), it is a necessary evil of the medical world.  When visiting a specialist, they typically book their initial appointments into 20-30 minute time blocks (or so I presume from the receptionist’s little scheduling book). Somehow though, either due to chatty patients or patients with too many problems (I am guilty of both of these things), the doctor is always behind schedule.

What makes  my visit to the doctor less tiring and frustrating tends to be the doctor’s office waiting room.  There are different little details that all make a difference in my “waiting” experience. I have noticed something in these doctor’s offices and medical waiting rooms, there seems to be four distinct types of waiting rooms.  I have listed them in order of peacefulness and making my day a little better.

The Kid & Senior Friendly:

There is a giant area or box of toys for the children to play with, there are kids books everywhere.  A tonka truck sits in the middle of the aisles where you are trying to walk, and you nearly every time step right on it and go tripping and falling (well at least that always happens to me).  There are sniffling, crying, screaming children everywhere (the poor things are sick, and just dont know why! Its heartbreaking).  While there are various ages of adults also waiting in the sitting area with you, you will notice the abundance of seniors, with canes, walkers or scooters.  Unfortunately since it is usually a cramped waiting room, the poor unsuspecting seniors have to finagle their way through the maze of children on the ground and the children’s toys that get stuck underneath their mobilty scooter or walker. 

While many of the seniors are happy to see the cheerful smiling faces of children, I am pretty sure that they don’t appreciate it when that same giggling child sneezes in their face. I have watched this happen time and time again.  Mixed in with all of this, is an assortment of people of all ages and illnesses.  The magazines are typically family oriented or child oriented, with tattered pages and at least 2 years out of date. All in all, these waiting rooms are not half bad, though I always feel like I walk out of there with a new flu or cold and a headache.

The Communal:

The interesting thing about many new specialists and medical professionals is that when starting up their practice, they need a space to place their office.  Likely due to the budgetary aspects, what ends up happening is they set up their practice in a communal office or room. This type of waiting room serves as a holding area for multiple doctors, dentists, and other medical practitioners.  I have also seen a variety of acupuncturists, tanning salons, immunization clinics and travel centers sharing their waiting room with a doctor.  This makes for an eclectic mix of individuals waiting for their appointments.  It becomes a game of guessing who is waiting for what office, and what illness, problem or need they have. The seats are never comfortable, and it always smells like a brand new waiting room for some reason, sterile and lacking books and magazines.  The depletion of magazines is most likely due to visitors leaving with the magazine they were reading, as there is no receptionist close by to notice their misdemeanor.

The communal waiting room typically has a bit more room than a regular medical practice, though I always end up sitting beside the coughing patient and thinking to myself, “I wonder what they are here for. . . ? Should I move over a couple seats?” and lo-and-behold they get called into the Immunization and TB testing clinic. . .

The “Has Not Changed Since the 70’s”:

We all know this type of waiting room, most of our own family doctors waiting rooms are like this.  The orange coloured chairs that seem to have been bought in the 1960’s, the oak table with various issues of Highlights for Kids (from 10 years ago), the pile of disheveled magazines that haven’t been replaced since you first started going to this doctor 20 years ago, and of course the “piece de résistance” the complete collection of Readers Digests scattered throughout the office.  This type of waiting room has a comfortable familiar feel to it, as you know the 70 year old receptionist “Blanche” by name, the walls have the same patterned faded wall-paper from the 70’s and you know that you may even recognize some of the other patients in the office from visit to visit.

This type of office, while not that entertaining or boisterous, gives you a welcoming expectation of the “traditional doctor with stethoscope and white lab coat” calling you into his office to talk to you about your family (which of course he knows everyone’s name).  The waiting room that feels like it is stuck in the 70’s never really changes, it just gets the occasional new (2 year old) magazine every once in a while.

The High-Brow Spa-like Fancy:

Ah! This is by far my favourite type of waiting room.  There is a spa-like feel when you open the door to this office, it feels like you have walked in to a Amazon rainforest with chirping birds, waterfalls and peaceful harp music being plucked by angels.  The receptionist is always young and attractive, with a headset glowing blue on her head, she gives you an acknowledging nod that almost seems to say “Welcome and Namaste”.  There are comfortable chairs to sit on, with ample room separating you from other patients. There is a watercooler carefully disguised as a rock fountain in the corner, where fresh purified, ionized etc. chilled water pours out of the tap.  The receptionist will offer you a cup of that cold fresh water with a slice of lemon (of course giving you an actual wine glass of water) or offers you a cup of freshly brewed green-rooibos tea picked from the hilltops of somewhere in Nepal.

You sit down to sip your water or tea, and look down at the beautifully hand carved table beside you to find this month’s issue of every magazine under the sun.  There are fresh white and yellow flowers carefully placed throughout the office.  This peaceful and serene waiting room almost seems like a little piece of heaven, you almost are sad to have to get up for your appointment. The waiting room never seems packed, and no one talks above a gentle soothing whisper it seems.  This waiting room style seems perfect and serene, until a mother comes in with a screaming child, you feel sorry for her as her poor child seems in pain with some illness, yet the soothing calming sounds of the room and the comfortable chairs seem to calm the child’s cries to a gentle whimper, and by the time it is their turn for their appointment, the child is asleep.  Ah, this waiting room is the dream. I wish they were all this peaceful.

I am still refining my opinion of the four styles of waiting rooms, but so far it seems that these are the categories I have run into. If only every doctor’s office I went to had the soothing peaceful tranquility feel, though I am just happy these days to actually have an appointment within the next 3 months at all, so I will take what I can get.

Ciao

Deanna

Sale! Sale! Sale! or Is It?

This morning I was stuck in the sea of people at Pacific Centre, where there was shoving, and yelling, and people scurrying everywhere with their shopping bags and oversized purses, with a mission to shop.  Now I normally don’t have a problem with crowds, as long as I can find a nice calm quiet place for me to sit every once in a while, to take a breather from the madness. Today was especially insane, as it is two days until the beginning of the school year.  On the news, all I hear about is that the economy isn’t doing well, and that people aren’t buying as much as they used to; well I would like to find out where they are getting their data from! The mall was just as packed and bustling as the week before Christmas, people did not seem to be curbing their spending habits due to their financial problems, and they were being vocal and ranting about their money troubles.

There were sales at every store stating “25% off all items”, or “buy one get one 50% off”, yet the prices of sweaters, jeans etc. are seemingly higher this summer.  Since when did a plain cotton sweater at American Eagle Outfitters cost $65? Did bushels of cotton suddenly double in price, driving the cost of t-shirts and tank tops up to $20-25 a piece in the past year? I somehow doubt that. Yet teenagers, adults and even little grannies were flocked around the “bargain” tables in a variety of clothing stores to take advantage of these so-called “buy-one-get-one-half-off” deals that are invading every apparel shop across town. Are they really getting a deal? I somehow doubt it, yet just by having the “SALE” sign posted over top of the table, with a little red sticker with a minutely lowered price, we somehow think we are saving ourselves money.

I went further into the back of the American Eagle store (where normally Sale items would be kept) and noticed that there were sweaters almost identical to the ones at the front of the store, where the throngs of Sale Seekers were revelling in their bargain finds, these very similar coloured and styled sweaters were markedly lower in price, yet not labeled a sale.  Many a shopper was walking by these items and barely glancing at them as they would comment to their shopping buddy, that “these ones aren’t on sale, so I don’t want to bother trying them on” or that “this sweater back here is the New Arrivals, and is obviously more money, since the Sale sweaters up front are Buy-one-get-one-half-off!”.  I am not sure whether these shoppers are just not able to do math in their head or that they just do not realize that the words SALE are not always a good financial deal for them, but more likely a marketing and inventory ploy by the store.  

The Apple Store Repair Shop: Picking Up My MacBook Pro

I only lasted about 15 minutes in the actual mall, where the whirlwind of drone-like shoppers were bumping and shoving to get to their next location, before I quickly rushed to the retreat of the Apple Store.  I was sadly mistaken that the Apple store would be my quiet place of refuge, the calm blue and white glow from the rows of iMacs and MacBooks was polluted by the sheer amount of people swarming the shop.  All I needed to do today was to go and find a representative to get my laptop from the back room where it had been getting repaired. No payment needed, no other assistance, I just needed my MacBook Pro to be picked up, I had even confirmed before hand on the phone with the Repair team that everything was ready.  Alas, the laptop acquisition would not be so easy.

I first had to wait in line to speak to one of the Apple Reps in a Orange shirt, though this seemed fruitless (no pun intended) for about 15 minutes.  I then caught sight of one of the numerous Blue Shirt reps, and she kindly told me that she was taking care of appointments, and that the Orange shirt could help me shortly.  Turns out, Orange shirt guy was the Concierge, and that is the only person who could help me out. (Would have been nice to know from the get-go) Again I waited.  Upon speaking with Orange Shirt, he took down my info and told me to wait for the manager who would bring out my laptop.  Progress! I then proceeded to wait for another 10-15 minutes for the Light Blue Shirt to say I could pick up my laptop from the front desk.  During all this waiting for a Orange or a Blue or a Light Blue Shirted representative, there were multitudes of shoppers buzzing around the store, looking for their copy of Snow Leopard, or looking for a new iPod nano and so on and so forth.  In the midst of all these shoppers with numerous questions for Orange and Blue shirts, there were about 8 other people I could see that were just waiting to grab one of these reps to just say “Hey! You have my computer in the repair shop back there, GIVE ME!”

The waiting and waiting, while other people pushed their way in front of us, in the madness of all the shopping and browsing, could have been easily averted if the store had considered to have a “Repair/Drop-Off/Pick-up” counter or individual. I wouldn’t even care if they made that person a “Red” Shirt, it would just be helpful to be able to get through the masses of people with questions about “this laptop case” or “that iPod colour”, and not have to guess at which Apple rep is in charge of picking up my laptop that is in their Repair Shop.  Now once I actually got the attention of and spoke with any one of these Blue or Orange Shirted Reps they were absolutely a delight to speak with, and they really were knowledgeable, cheerful, and even apologetic if they weren’t able to help me just yet.  It just was quite the experience to be in the Apple store and feel like a little fish stuck in a current, not knowing which way to go!  Or perhaps a fruit on a conveyor belt at a farm.  “Pick me! Pick me!”

Apple seems to have cornered the market on a stream-lined user experience, yet seems to have fallen short on their retail experience.  Their gleaming white and silver walls exude simplicity in an environment where a little more guidance would be more than helpful.  A simple sign stating that “This is the Concierge Counter, where you go for the following services”, and “Go to any one of the Dark Blue Shirts to pay for your purchases, if you have MasterCard or Visa”, or even “Pay Here!” would help solve quite a lot of confusion.  The amount of glares and shoves I received from customers waiting to pay, when I got waved to the front counter to pick up my laptop that was in for repair, would have been avoided had they realized that I was in a completely different queue than them, and that the Cashier only takes up one individual at the counter, the rest of the Light Blue Shirts up at the counter were either Repair Specialists or Specialists waiting for their booked appointments.  I wasn’t getting preferential treatment, I was just there for a completely different purpose.  After all of that, I got my precious MacBook Pro back, in wonderful condition with a brand new top cover/keyboard, therefore I cant complain too much.  I do hope that I wont have “Alice-in-Wonderland”-esque nightmares tonight about chasing Blue and Orange Shirted people.

~Deanna

As many people know, my stomach and I are never really on the same page.  I have gone most of my life having my stomach get angry at me for pretty much everything; from wheat, to meat to even water.  Yes, you heard me, water – be it cold or warm, it gives my stomach cramps and pain.  Doctors, Naturopaths, Acupuncturists, Medical Specialists, and all sorts of “healing” professionals have tried to figure out to no avail. I have tried eliminating wheat, dairy, meat, sugar, fruit, gluten, chemicals, preservatives, caffeine, chocolate, alcohol, you-name-it from my diet, and while I now am able to live a bit more normal of a life not rushing to find a washroom all the time, that living off of chamomile tea, rice & chick peas really does suck.

My quest to figure out which foods I can eat has taken me the past 9 years of testing and trying.  I have narrowed down my main problem foods, and try to keep on a certain list of foods that I know wont hurt (too much), mainly some sort of rice, corn, fish, bean concoction, and non-alcoholic beer.  Now here is the thing, I LOVE to go out for dinner to a restaurant and enjoy a meal that a someone else has made, relax with friends or family, in an environment that isn’t my own kitchen.  The problem is, I can never just order something directly from the menu and be able to eat it, without having my stomach rebel at the excessive wheat or dairy used in North American cooking.

When I pick up a menu at an Earls, Milestones or a local restaurant or pub, I look at the yummy appetizers that likely are loaded with wheat filler of some sort, and quickly disregard the ever common chicken wings, calamari, nachos, or some sort of flat bread with a tapenade.  Scroll right past the salads and soups section, since I haven’t found a salad anywhere on the West Coast that tastes as good as the price I get charged for it ($15 for a couple pieces of lettuce with oil, vinegar and a few pine nuts & goat’s cheese. Really?)  Then typically there is a Pasta, Pizza and Burger section, which for someone who cant eat wheat without having extreme stomach pain and ramifications for several days later, is literally a section that I avoid like the plague.  My friends and colleagues who have Celiac’s Disease, IBS, Crohn’s Disease or gluten allergies have the same stance it seems, there is no section of restaurant menus (other than the salad section) that has a wheat-free or gluten-free option. If I want to pay $25 for one of the non-red meat entrée items, that consists of a piece of fish, potatoes and some veggies covered in cream sauce, I could fork out my hard earned cash for a meal that is completely too filling and likely will still hurt my stomach because of the dairy and potatoes.

You may ask – How do I end up finding something to eat with options like that?  Well, I end up ordering a side of fish, a side of rice, and a side of corn tortilla chips.  I ask nicely for the kitchen to make the meal interesting, but I end up ordering a side of Frank’s Red Hot Sauce to give my meal some flavour.  Oh well, at least I was able to enjoy some plain non-stomach-hurting food while visiting friends or family & listen to fun music at the restaurant. But Wait! The bill still will arrive at the end of dinner, and lo-and-behold, my simple, plain, dietary meal that held no real ingenuity from the kitchen costs me double what anyone else at the table is paying – and that includes the guy who ordered the 12 ounce steak!  How is this fair? Well it is NOT, but it is how things go in the world of someone who needs a customized meal.  Why is my meal so expensive? Alas, here is the usual breakdown.  The server has charged me $18 for the small “side” piece of fish (keep in mind if I had ordered a salad with a “side” of fish, the piece of fish would have only cost $6),  the rice gets billed $7 or $8, and my tortilla chips have been rung into the server’s ordering system as “Chips and Salsa” at a whopping $10 to $12 (though I only got 12 chips on a bread plate).  All in all that meal has now cost me about $36,  but wait, that little side dish that held my Frank’s Red Hot Sauce to make my bland rice taste better also cost $2.  So the grande total is $38 for my food, and I find that just ridiculous! Don’t you? On top of that I end up tipping way more than anyone else, as my waitress or waiter has likely gone out of their way to take the time to deal with the kitchen to request these substitutions, so my meal ends up costing the same as 2 people’s.

I have asked numerous waiters and waitresses for different wheat-free options for a meal, and they typically will point at the $25 fish dish on the menu.  As one would assume that that meals can have some substitutions, my request for Corn Tortilla Chips, Hot Sauce etc. instead of potatoes and vegetables will get billed on top of the actual meal price, thus making my meal once again über expensive and lacking any creativity from the kitchen.

Why is it that I pay more than anyone else at my table for my meal, just because I have stomach problems? Is making a nice wheat and dairy free meal really that hard? I can prove that making delicious meals that don’t have wheat, dairy and red-meat is actually quite easy and fun, yet most restaurant kitchens are unable or unwilling to try to accommodate that request.  I have asked many a server to just tell the kitchen to surprise me with something meatless, wheat and dairy free, only to get a bowl of edamame soy beans and a baked potato.  It’s not their fault, they just aren’t used to the request I guess, yet everywhere I turn these days I am running into people who are vegan, or Celiac, or are avoiding wheat for weight loss, so there must be some demand.

I am looking forward to the day where I can go out for dinner, go to the menu and see more than one item I can order carté blanche from the menu without having to change a thing.

I can dream, can’t I? Or is that going to cost me too?