Gray Halls

At 7:20 in the morning, the halls of the hospital were mostly empty. But the gray was everywhere.

The walls were light gray.

The flooring was dark gray.

I half expected foggy mists to seep up through cracks in door frames as my husband and I wandered, hand in hand, down the long halls of Lewis Gale, seeking the radiology department.

Why? Because finally my doctor had decided the blood clot in my leg had troubled me long enough to warrant an ultrasound.

So we slipped through corridor after corridor, following signs through hallways that all looked the same.

How boring.

How unimaginative.

How incredibly frightening.

We reached the place we'd been told to go, only to find it was the wrong radiology department (shouldn't they all be together?) and we needed to go elsewhere. This time a woman in black with a white ruffled shirt (just like the other woman's clothing looked as she stood behind the counter - matching outfits, I guess, making the intake persons in this department look like they worked at a hotel) led us down the long, gray halls, pass the flashing red "exit" signs and out into the back part of the hospital.

This completely eliminated the great parking space we'd found at the hospital's front door, because if we had been told where to go in the first place, we could have parked just a few steps away and never seen all those long, gray corridors that seemingly led only to the River Styx and the boat waiting there to take your coin.

Once we reached the right department, the receptionist (dressed in regular street clothes, thankfully, and not the hotel management outfit from the other department), found my name but not the doctor's orders. This meant we had to wait until my doctor's office opened at 8 a.m.

In the meantime, we learned that the receptionist had family who worked in the fire department, people my husband knew, and they rattled off names and retirement dates.

I was on the phone with my doctor's office at 8:02 a.m., telling them I was at the hospital and couldn't receive my ultrasound until they did their paperwork.

This cost us about two hours of time and most of the morning, waiting on the paperwork. I was being worked in, you see, because my doctor didn't like the sound of, "pain that feels like a razor slitting something open inside of the calf of my leg." That, and swelling up to my knee.

The woman who did my ultrasound was named Linda. She was very kind. She was two years older than I and she had been at Lewis Gale for 40 years. She loved her job. She didn't see any deep vein thrombosis (deep blood clot) but could tell there was a superficial one, which is what we'd been treating for all along. It's just taking its time going away, I guess.

After she gave me the thumbs up to leave, I dressed and wandered out, making the right turn out the door as she said. But then . . . gray corridors. Gray walls. I couldn't find my way back to my husband.

I panicked for a moment. When you're lost in the woods, you're told to find a fence or a river. If all else fails, stand still. So I stood still. Finally someone asked if she could help me. "I'm lost," I said.

She led me back to the waiting room, through the endless gray corridors, to where my husband sat sleeping.

I pulled out my cell phone and called the number on the wall behind us that said "complimentary" carting around. It said something else but the word escapes me.

At any rate, we needed carting around. I wasn't trying to find my way back through that maze of gray again.

A fellow introduced himself on the phone as Xavier and said he'd be right over to fetch us.

We walked outside straight from the waiting room, avoiding the gray corridors. The sunshine was welcome. Even the slight humidity and the heat was a relief after being in the cold dungeon-like corridors of that hospital.

Xavier put my husband in the front seat of the red van and me in the back, though I am short and could have used a boost up into the seat, frankly. Then Xavier took off, driving through parking lots all over the hospital campus, telling us about how he used to work for the railroad for 20 years, and then discovering that he knew a neighbor of ours who still works for the railroad. It was like we were old friends.

He finally dropped us off at our car, and we headed for home. The test results were a relief, though I've yet to hear an official word from my physician. The ultrasound lady was confirmation enough that things are simply moving slowly, but in the appropriate direction.