SIT ON A CHAIR

 September 20, 2020.

It's now routine for visitors to medical offices to be asked a series of questions at the door: are you experiencing any Covid-19 symptoms? In the past two weeks, have you been near anyone who has been diagnosed with Covid-19? Have you been near anyone who has been has been exposed Covid-19? If the answer to all these questions is "no", the questioner then takes your temperature with a small, pistol-like device that comes close to but does not touch your skin, and apparently registers your temperature. 

There may be variations on this routine. Have you traveled outside the country in the past two weeks? Please use the hand sanitizer. Put this sticker on your shirt. Masks, of course, are mandatory, and sometimes I'm given a mask to wear over the mask I'm already wearing. Waiting rooms have signs on the chairs designating which ones are for sitting, and which ones are to be kept vacant to insure that no one sits close to anyone else. There are circles on the floor, six feet apart, and often a plastic or glass shield between you and the staff person you interact with. 

When I was a little girl and threatened to become over-excited or angry or out of control, my mother would say, "Do you want to sit on a chair?" Her strategy was to isolate me by placing me on a chair in the corner of the room until I calmed down. It's the same technique today's parents use when they invoke a "time out". 

I had an appointment for an annual mammogram, and found the routine at the small imaging office involved sitting on a chair or actually three chairs. When I arrived, the entrance was locked and there was a plastic chair sitting just outside the door. The receptionist could see me, and quickly came to the door, opened it, asked me the usual questions, and took my temperature. I entered the waiting room --- no one else was there --- and was told to sit down on a second plastic chair, leaving the upholstered furniture in the waiting area unoccupied. Once I had filled out a couple of forms, choosing a pen from the cup labeled "clean" and after using it, depositing it in the cup labeled "dirty", I was was invited into the room with the mammogram machine and told to sit on a plastic chair where I disrobed. 

After the mammogram itself was completed, I was told to sit down again on the plastic chair, get dressed, and wait for the doctor. After several minutes, the doctor, fully protected with high-tech mask and total plastic face shield, stuck her head into the room, said everything looked fine, dropped a paper report on a shelf just inside the door, and disappeared again. 

After picking up the report and leaving the office, I thought about the three plastic chairs. Clearly they were plastic so they could be wiped down with sanitizing wipes, and by confining me to the three chairs, I could not roam around and contaminate other surfaces. I was glad the office was taking steps to protect its patients. But mostly I was amused that at the age of 81, I was once again ordered to sit on a chair.