For Frying Out Loud by Fay Jacobs Page A

prove our spousehood. Second, Bonnie had to answer the insulting ritual question, “married, single or divorced?”
    â€œPartnered,” Bonnie said. The clerk smiled. A decade ago it would have been an accusatory look. Snail progress.
    We arrived at the hospital at 6 a.m., for 6:45 surgery, only to discover that the private hospital was missing a key piece of paper from the Veteran’s Administration granting permissionfor the operation. My mate is a vet and due to our nation’s health care crisis, the VA is her only health insurance option. Thank God for that safety net. But…there are issues.
    Bonnie was already hooked up to the IV, wearing the little surgical hat, and surrounded by a flock of medical personnel, and we were on hold – both in the OR and on the phone with the VA.
    â€œJust go over there and get what they need, Fay,” the patient said. “It’s only a few blocks away.”
    â€œWait,” said a nurse. “You better take your documents, and maybe we should sign something telling them you’re allowed to get the information. You know the HIPPA privacy rules.”
    â€œOh, right, we’re not legally married. Crap.” Whereupon no less than six doctors and nurses, all held up by the snafu, scribbled on a note pleading for me to be considered worthy of the patient information.
    With a giant plastic bag filled with Bonnie’s clothes and our voluminous legal dossier slung over my shoulder, I raced to the lobby and hopped a cab to the VA hospital. I will spare you the details, but I was shuttled around to three offices and on hold with several non-compliant people as I frantically pictured a gaggle of expensive health care workers loitering by Bonnie’s gurney. At one point I was on hold from the lobby to the business office, listening to an educational tape about the seven signs of a heart attack and I was having eight of them.
    Finally somebody agreed to call Bonnie’s surgeon and set things right. Heart pounding, I ran back downstairs and saw a shuttle bus. “Does that go by Penn Presbyterian?” I asked.
    â€œYep. It’s for the vets. Are you a vet?”
    â€œI’m the spouse of a vet.”
    â€œWhat’s his name?”
    â€œIt’s a her.” Shit. What was I thinking? Toto, we’re NOT in Rehoboth.
    â€œThen you can’t be no spouse.”
    Bet me. I may or may not have said a very bad word, swung my big plastic trash sack over my shoulder and, channeling Lily Tomlin’s bag lady, marched out the door and huffed and puffeduphill six blocks to return to the operatory.
    Amazingly, the surgery finally happened a scant seven hours late, all went well and we headed home the next day.
    Just let me say this about the past week. There’s a reason I work in public relations, not health care. I tried to be a good nurse, really I did, but it just isn’t in my skill set.
    Bonnie came home with a 36-inch leg brace to prevent knee bends and the thing is held together with a thousand strips of industrial strength Velcro. You have to be the Incredible Hulk to unstick it (which, I might become after spending a week as Clara Barton) and when you do get the Velcro open it instantly sticks to everything in the vicinity.
    I’ve spent whole days peeling it off rugs, furniture, and pajamas. One time Moxie got up in Bonnie’s recliner when the thing was undone and we thought she’d be spending the next few weeks dragging a schnauzer around by his beard. I stepped on a Velcro strip in my socks and took the appliance with me like toilet paper on a shoe.
    Then there was the dressing to change and the blood thinning injections, not to mention the matzoh ball soup to prepare. I don’t know whether this house was more like House, ER or Nip/Tuck (me taking a nip of Grey Goose after tucking the patient into bed), but somehow we did all right.
    I survived the nursing rotation, Bonnie started getting back on her