Myrna at the Urgent Care

After a lot of careful consideration, Myrna decided her pain was a five. Or maybe a six. Five point five? Are decimals permitted? Maybe it’s more like five and a third?

She picked at a ragged cuticle; the sharp pain of a hangnail worked as a good distraction from the burning in her groin.

Myrna tried to compare the pain to other things she’d felt. A ten was childbirth, she knew. This wasn’t that. Long ago, in a former life, practically, her midwife had told her when she started feeling labor pains to start making a batch of cookies. And when she burned the cookies, it was go-time.

She’d never actually made the cookies while in labor, of course. But she tried to compare this pain on the cookie-making scale. She would be able to get the cookies out of the oven on time, she decided. But she might forget or mis-measure some of the ingredients, especially if she were doubling the recipe and doing math in her head. The pain was that distracting.

Another stab, and Myrna looked toward the bathroom. It was occupied, and besides, she knew using it would bring no relief, only an increased burning sensation. The urge never went away.

She turned to her left, where a woman sat with a toddler on her lap. The toddler looked sweaty, her hair frizzing from braids that probably looked adorable two days before, when they were lovingly plaited. The toddler was screaming when she arrived, but she’s been tranquilized since by a pacifier and a bright animated show on a tablet. Her red face still showed tracks of tears through dirt and dried snot.

Now and then, the girl vocalized something unrecognizable around the binky in her mouth, and Mom would “hmm” and nod and rub the girl’s back. Myrna noted the way Mom leaned her head back onto the wall and slept in two-to-three-minute snatches between their interactions. Mouth open, she snored softly. She checked her phone often, sending quick text messages before passing out again.

Myrna imagined Mom’s text messages with her husband, telling him how long they’d been waiting, how little Shawna had stopped crying but was still burning up.

(Myrna had heard the nurse call the girl’s name, and it was actually Briony, but she disapproved of such modern, ridiculous names for little girls, so she renamed her, in her head.)

“K,” the husband would respond, or maybe “keep me posted.”

Myrna wondered if the husband was home, taking care of a passel of older children. Back in her day, that was likely on a Saturday. But this woman looked to be mid-thirties, so maybe this was her only child? Women were like that now.

Mom rubbed her eyes blearily and took the tablet from her daughter, starting a new show with a few taps of her finger.

“I have a UTI,” Myrna blurted out. She knew she shouldn’t. She couldn’t help it.

Mom looked up, confused and concerned, unsure who the comment was meant for. Myrna held her eye contact and nodded, smiling encouragingly.

“Oh,” Mom said. “Well. Those are rough.”

“They are,” Myrna sighed, indulgently. “But I manage.”

The Mom nodded, lips pursed, then pointedly shut her eyes and leaned her head back again.

“Being a mother is exhausting,” Myrna acknowledged. “Especially to a sick little one. I remember that phase well.”

Mom didn’t respond, but Myrna saw from her eyelids that she wasn’t asleep yet. They were a little too squinched together.

Maybe the pain has increased, Myrna thought. She massaged her abdomen. Certainly, the pain was worse when she did that. Perhaps it was a kidney stone? Her daughter-in-law Courtney, got those sometimes, and they could imitate UTI symptoms. Myrna would alert the nurse to the possibility.

Myrna checked her watch, a dainty thing on a tarnished gold band. The face was so small she had to extend her arm completely to make out the Roman numerals. She’d been waiting half an hour. No. Maybe an hour and a half? She couldn’t remember when she’d arrived. But her tiny feet in her Danskos, dangling three inches above the ground, were beginning to go numb.

She slid from the chair and walked to the front desk. There was an electronic list, which showed she was still fourth in line to be treated, but Myrna ignored it, just as she ignored the sign taped to the desk urging patients to WAIT UNTIL YOUR NAME IS CALLED TO APPROACH THE DESK in messy handwriting.

Myrna stood behind a translucent bit of plastic separating her from real, face-to-face interaction with the medical assistant behind the desk, who was typing as if her life depended on it. Myrna cleared her throat, a tiny circle of fog appearing on the plastic. The medical assistant continued to type, eyes glued to her computer screen. Myrna wondered if she was transcribing patient notes, or perhaps she was typing a long, impassioned letter to the President of the United States detailing the epidemic of protracted wait times at urgent care facilities. Or maybe she was playing Candy Smash? Myrna knew her grandkids used to like that game, but she wasn’t sure if it was still popular, or if the medical assistant would be permitted to play it on a work computer. Probably not, Myrna decided. She looked a little too old for Candy Smash. Candy Smashers? Crush the Candy? Myrna couldn’t remember the name.

“Excuse me,” Myrna said, and the fog spot grew in diameter by a few centimeters. Frustrated, Myrna used her fleece sweater sleeve to wipe it away. The plastic was a leftover from COVID, she was sure, and she hated it. She guessed she should appreciate that the precautions were all meant to protect elderly people like her from getting sick and dying. But she didn’t.

The assistant turned toward Myrna and cocked her eyebrow, clearly frustrated. Myrna fluffed her curls on the left side of her head and waited for the woman to respond.

(The pain was a four now, Myrna decided. But she might still say five when they asked, so they would understand the severity of the situation. And because she had been waiting quite a while.)

“Can I help you?” the assistant said.

Her name tag said “Prahnee.” Myrna wondered how to pronounce the name. Would it be “Praw-nee?” Or perhaps “Prah-nee,” with a short a sound, just as it was spelled? She supposed it was possible it could be pronounced “Pray-nee,” though she hoped not, because that wasn’t nearly so pretty. She decided not to attempt the name. People didn’t like it when their names were mispronounced.

“You have a lovely name,” Myrna said, smiling. “How do you pronounce it? Is it…Indian?”

“It’s Prahnee,” the woman said. So, it was pronounced just as it was spelled. “How can I help you, Mrs. Sunderlin?”

“Oh, it’s actually Ms.,” Myrna said. “Since my husband died, I’ve been using Ms.”

She actually hadn’t, until this moment, been brave enough to do it, but she’d thought about it. It seemed like a fun thing to do, a feminist thing to do, since she was no longer married to Howard. And while they’d never officially been divorced, they did have a big fight before he passed. She’d wanted him to get the vaccine, and he refused, and look where that had landed him. She still hadn’t forgiven him. And going by Ms. made her feel powerful.

Prahnee exhaled powerfully through her nose. “Ms. Sunderlin. What can I do for you?”

Suddenly, Myrna lost her nerve. Prahnee was clearly not in the mood for a chat; she could see that now. She tucked her head to her chin and said softly. “It’s a…five. Maybe five and a half, even, if fractions are allowed?”

“What was that?” Prahnee’s voice was as sharp as an IV stick.

“The pain,” Myrna explained. “The nurses, they always ask about the pain on a scale from one to ten, you know, and one is an ill-fitting pair of trousers, and ten is childbirth. And I know ten, I’ve had babies- “

Prahnee’s eyes were bulging, so Myrna concluded. “I mean, I’ve just been thinking and I decided the pain is a five. But this morning it was a six. I think. Anyway. Just in case you want to,” Myrna wiggles her fingers toward the computer screen, miming typing, “add that to my chart.”

Prahnee looked up at the ceiling for so long, Myrna glanced up too, in case there was a leak or something she should be aware of.

“Take a seat, Ms. Sunderlin,” Prahnee said, without looking back down. Myrna walked back across the lobby using tiny steps, swinging her handbag by her side.

She chose a different seat this time, near a man with a white beard and glasses. He was wearing a black cowboy hat, but a regular-sized one, not an offensively large one. He was also wearing a camouflage jacket, which Myrna didn’t think really matched the hat, and looked too light for the chilly spring they were having, besides.

She plunked onto the seat and pulled her phone from her handbag. Even though she’d had a smartphone for nearly six years, it was still a mystery to her. Darryl gave it to her for her birthday during the pandemic, so she could FaceTime with the grandkids. She should be grateful, but it seems to her that FaceTime had completely replaced face time, and she missed seeing Truly and Damon “IRL.”

She opened the messaging app and clicked Courtney’s face from her list of ten contacts. She began composing.

“Dear Courtney,

How are you? I am at the urgent care. Once again, I have a UTI. Oh, the joys of growing old! The pain is manageable. I think it is a four right now, though when I got here, it was definitely at least a five, and it might have even been a six when I woke this morning. I have been here quite a while.

How are Truly and Damon? I hope you will bring them to visit soon. I know they are so busy with gymnastics, baseball, and all the fun things they do. I would love to see more pictures.

I was just thinking of that game they like. What was it called? It’s Candy something, right? I hope they still like real candy. Haha. Grandma will send them some soon.

Remember, I texted you before about going by Ms.? I told the medical assistant today. So, I guess I’m really doing it.

Love, Myrna”

She set the phone on her thigh, where she’d both hear and see the response right away. She looked up at the blaring TV on the wall. The show was something about zoos and veterinarians. She felt icky watching the artificial insemination of a cheetah, all the vets in gowns and masks, the cheetah with a tube down its throat. Surely there are better ways for a cheetah to get pregnant. Did the cheetah even want to be a mother? Did anyone ask it?

Her phone dinged loudly and buzzed on her thigh. Across the room, Mom woke suddenly from the sound, glared at Myrna, then closed her eyes again.

Myrna lifted the phone, savoring the anticipation of Courtney’s response before unlocking it.

“Candy Crush”

Myrna closed her eyes, breathed in deeply, then opened them again. Not a full sentence. Not even a period.

Myrna stowed her phone in her handbag, thinking about how communication had deteriorated over the years. When she taught English, before the children came along, she had always insisted that her students use complete sentences. She hadn’t gone by Ms. then. She kind of wished she had.

Myrna began swinging her legs, then quickly stopped. It made her feel like a little girl. She stared at her seat-neighbor, examining his face. He was absorbed in a Louis L’Amour paperback and didn’t notice.

She was glad to see he was reading, and not playing Candy…Candy Crush. Perhaps he, like her, didn’t even have games on his cell phone. She studied the wrinkles of his face, trying to guess how old he was. Myrna had a knack for guessing people’s ages. Maybe in another life, she could have had that job, at carnivals, where you guess a person’s age, height, and weight? Well, she wasn’t much good with height or weight, but age she could do. Was that even a job at carnivals anymore? She hadn’t been to one in years, but she didn’t recall if there was a guesser the last time she did.

The man was old, but not as old as she, she decided. Maybe ten years younger? Which would make him…65ish. She wondered if he was the kind of person who immediately took advantage of senior discounts when he turned 65, or if he stubbornly insisted that he didn’t need them and refused to divulge his age when people asked, gently, if he would like them. Myrna had been the former, Harold had been the latter. When they were together, Myrna always had to forgo the discounts, but on her solo trips to the Salvation Army thrift store, she announced her age with gusto.

Now the veterinarians on TV were doing an internal sonogram of an elephant named Phoebe to confirm a pregnancy. They couldn’t find a fetus, but, apparently, fluid in the uterus confirms that she is still pregnant, and they’ll repeat the ultrasounds weekly to monitor. That was interesting to Myrna. She always thought a fetus was a pretty critical part of a pregnancy. But now she knew you could be pregnant without one. Someone should tell the pro-life people. It would strengthen their case. Or would it be an argument in favor of abortion, actually?

Elephants have very long pregnancies, she knew that. She was glad she wasn’t an elephant. Nine months had been plenty long enough for her; in her memory, she threw up nearly every day of her pregnancy with Darryl. She was less sick with Tricia but just as sick with Josh.

(Josh was what she called him. Harold had insisted they didn’t name him, because then it would hurt less when the doctors took him away and disposed of him as medical waste, he said. But Myrna had always, secretly, called him Josh. Not Joshua, mind—just Josh.)

Myrna dug through her purse again, unlocked her phone, and clicked on Tricia’s picture.

The message log popped up, a never-ending string of green outgoing messages, uninterrupted by gray responses.

“Dear Tricia, I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. Love, Mom.”

“Dear Tricia, I’d like to meet your girlfriend. Would you please come for dinner sometime? I’ll make pork chops. Please. Love, Mom.”

“Dear Tricia, Can we talk about this? I just want to understand you. Love, Mom.”

“Dear Tricia, You’re being ridiculous. Please just call me. Love, Mom.”

“Dear Tricia—”

“Myrna Sunderlin?” the nurse’s voice interrupted her scroll back through time.

“That’s me!” Myrna squeaked a little too enthusiastically. Mom looked up, envious.

“Come with me, ma’am.”

Myrna followed the nurse, taking three steps to his one to keep up. She tried to get a glimpse at his name tag, but couldn’t see it. She was thrilled to see a male in the nursing profession.

“You’re experiencing UTI pain?”

“That’s correct. I would say, level five. Well, level four, now, but that’s probably because the meds have kicked in. But it was a five when I arrived. And a six this morning.”

“Mmmhmm,” the nurse murmured, holding a hand out to indicate that Myrna should enter exam room two. Myrna walks in and sits dutifully on the paper-lined exam table.

“On your chart, it says you’re taking Cephalexin, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“It was prescribed….” The nurse flipped through the papers on his clipboard, his eyebrows wrinkled in confusion. “…yesterday. Mrs. Sunderlin, did you come into the urgent care about your UTI pain yesterday?”

“Yes,” Myrna said confidently. “And it’s actually Ms. Sunderlin. Since my husband passed.” Or since today.

“Okay, has your pain increased since then? Any blood in your urine, fever, vomiting?”

“No.”

“Rash? Vaginal discharge, any other symptoms you weren’t experiencing yesterday?”

“Well, no,” said Myrna, looking down at her lap. “Yesterday, the pain was definitely a six. Maybe even higher, maybe a six point five, if decimals are permitted? So, it’s less today.”

“Okay,” the nurse said slowly. “Mrs. Sunderlin, you need to give the antibiotics a chance to do their job.”

“It’s Ms.” Myrna insisted, politely. “Of course, you’re right, Mr….?”

“It’s Nurse Cameron.”

“Nurse Cameron. I just wanted to make sure everything was progressing as it should.”

“Ms. Sunderlin, I can see on your chart that you are a frequent visitor here at the urgent care. If there’s nothing else bothering you, I need to ask you to leave. We have a lot of patients with real problems that we need to attend to.”

“I—uh, yes. You’re right. Just wanted to check—but no, I think I can just wait for the antibiotics to work. Thank you, Nurse-“

“Have a good day, Ms. Sunderlin,” the nurse said tersely as he swept from the room. She could hear him calling out, “Briony,” in the waiting room. She could hear Cowboy Hat coughing dryly. She could hear that an eight-and-a-half-year-old Arctic fox was suffering from a mysterious, life-threatening illness.

She lifted her handbag and walked slowly toward the door. It was 1:30 pm. She wondered what she would make for dinner.

Maybe there was something new at the thrift store since yesterday.

“Goodbye,” she said softly to no one in particular, as the automatic door opened with a whoosh, ejecting her from the warmth of the building to the biting afternoon air.