Lisa Newburger, LISW-S, a.k.a. Diana Directive, provides humorous ways to deal with difficult topics. Check out Diana’s webpage at www.discussdirectives.com.Can you believe MY mom is in the hospital? Maybe she’s looking for a doctor, perhaps a plastic surgeon, but for me or for her? Wait a second, that isn’t a bad strategy. If she’s the patient, I can race in to the hospital all concerned and put on a good act. What a great idea! You see, my mom doesn’t want me to be a dental hygienist. For some reason, she has issues with that. I don’t like to put my manicured hands in people’s mouths, but hey, it pays for my hot Jimmy Choos. Besides, I’ve actually been able to keep this job. Keeping jobs isn’t my strong point, particularly when I have to work with women. As long as the dentist is male, I have job security, right?
I went to Hillcrest Hospital and made my grand entrance to visit my mom. I tried to look flustered, but the receptionist ignored me. Can you believe I had to wait? Obviously, she didn’t know who I was. Oh yeah, she’s a female. Men handle me so much differently. You know, the bending over backwards to get in my good graces thing. Women are just so catty! I only talk to them when I have to. After I found the elevators, I went up to my mom’s room. I stopped at the nurse’s station to announce my arrival. For some reason, the nurses looked up and then just lowered their heads. What is up with that? But the doctor — now that was a different experience. Some young intern ran around the nurse’s station to introduce himself, saying, “I am SO glad to meet you” Of course he is. Isn’t every eligible male honored to be in my presence? He explained, “Your mom had an accident and is unconscious.” This I had to see for myself. My mom, unconscious? That doesn’t make sense. Mom never stops criticizing me. She talks nonstop. The intern, Ethan, walks me into her room. He’s right. She ain’t with it. Her eyes are closed and there are all these machines around her. Actually the machines were pretty cool with all these little lights and alarms going off.Ethan said, “You need to make some decisions.” What kind of decisions? Mom doesn’t like me to make decisions. She doesn’t think I’m mature enough! Well, I’ll show her. I pretend to listen to Ethan, but then I see a really good looking orderly walk by. FOCUS DIANA! I’m looking for a doctor, not an orderly. Stick with my goals! Ethan is still talking. He said something about whether or not to drain something or other and if my mom needed surgery. How was I supposed to know the answer? Mom is a control freak. I don’t know what she wants. Wait a second; she did say something about not wanting to look bad. But she always said stuff like that. How am I supposed to know what to do?My dad arrived. He had a Starbucks coffee in his hand. I started salivating when I saw that cup. Can you believe he didn’t offer it to me? He said, “Diana, you get to make all the decisions. I am off to play golf.” He took his Starbucks and disappeared. I started to get nervous. I don’t do nervous, you know, the idea of a shiny face or perspiration marks under my armpits just doesn’t go with my style. Ethan turned to me and asked, “What do you want to do?” He has these dreamy blue eyes and was wearing a short white coat. Maybe he is going to be a brain surgeon, and he has a lot of years to go in his training. FOCUS DIANA!!! I didn’t know what to say. ”Can I get back to you after I do some research?” I guess Mom really isn’t looking for that plastic surgeon for me after all. She really is hurt. OK, I’ll do some homework and then let Ethan know what to do next. This is really scary. Maybe I can ask some really good looking doctors for their opinions. If you have some ideas, shoot me an e-mail at [email protected]. I would love to hear from you.
