A Rash During the Rush Hour

 A guest in Long Beach had broken out in red spots.

This looked like a terrific visit; skin problems are easy. A sudden rash is frightening but hardly ever indicates something serious. I have no objection to making a diagnosis over the phone, but guests are terrible at describing a rash’s appearance. In any case, most want the doctor to look at it.

My only problem was that the call arrived at 5 p.m. on a Friday, and Long Beach is thirty miles away. I avoid long drives during the rush hour, so I told him I could come around 9.

That wouldn’t work, he replied. He had a long business engagement that evening. But he’d be happy to see me the following morning.

Saturday morning drives are easy, but a rash that arrives quickly often departs quickly. I wanted this visit, so I told him I would be there in an hour. Or two. 

 

Frustration

An Emirate Airline flight attendant was suffering severe back pain. 

Emirate crew stay the Hilton in Costa Mesa, 46 miles away in Orange County. There is an Orange county doctor, but she had not responded. It was 2:40 a.m.

I didn’t complain. Freeway traffic is light. I have no office hours, so I can go back to bed if I want. I earn extra for long drives and late hours. The Orange County doctor enjoys a rich social life, so she’s often unavailable. I made 42 housecalls to her territory in a single year.

I dressed and drove off. As I entered the freeway my phone rang. The visit was cancelled. The Orange County doctor had checked in and reported that she was on her way. 

I pointed out that once the agency assigns a doctor, he or she should take priority. The dispatcher agreed and promised that it would not happen again

Does Everyone Live Like That?

The Beverly Garland is a sixteen mile freeway drive. The guest had phoned at 8 a.m. on Wednesday. I avoid distant housecalls during the rush hour; guests rarely object to waiting.

But I had finished breakfast. I had no plans for several hours. Why not get the visit out of the way? I checked my traffic app. North on the 405 was not bad; the second leg, east on the 101 was solid red. Maybe it would ease by the time I reached it.

Driving north on the 405, I shared my fellow drivers’ relief that we were not on the immobile southbound side. Half a mile before the connector to the 101, the right lane stopped cold. 

It took another 45 minutes to reach the hotel. I hate being late, but I had warned the guest, giving myself plenty of time. I listened to a tape. I paid close attention to driving, moving at a steady few miles per hour instead of braking and accelerating constantly. Doing that requires allowing the car in front to move ahead some distance. Cars from the adjacent lane occasionally pulled into that space, infuriating the driver behind me. I hoped he wasn’t armed.

Getting stuck in the rush hour was my decision, but millions of people have no choice. They do it ten times a week. How can they live like that?.....

Good News, Usually

A flight attendant with diarrhea is usually good news. Airline crew are young, so they suffer uncomplicated medical problems, and diarrhea qualifies. Her hotel in Costa Mesa was 46 miles away, but it was Saturday morning, so traffic was light, and I’m paid extra for the distance.

To my annoyance, this was one of those inexplicable weekend days when the freeway was jammed although it wasn’t a holiday, and I never saw an accident.

After caring for the guest, always the easiest part, I got back on the freeway and its creeping traffic. Five minutes later my phone rang. This was bad news because freeway driving is more tiring than practicing medicine, and I had had enough. The caller was a national housecall service, and, to my surprise, the patient was in Costa Mesa, a half mile from where I’d been.

Unaware that I was nearby, the service quoted its usual fee for a long drive, so I retraced my route, cared for the guest, and returned to the crowded freeway. I was weary when I finally arrived home, hours past lunch time, but it had been a lucrative day in the fascinating life of a Los Angeles hotel doctor.  

A Bilingual Doctor at Midnight

A guest wanted a doctor who spoke French.

“I don’t speak French, and it’s midnight,” I pointed out. “You won’t find a bilingual doctor to make a housecall at this hour.”

The operator promised to inform the guest and call back. Waiting for people to call back is one of my least favorite activities especially if I have been aroused from sleep. Fifteen minutes passed before the phone rang. The operator apologized for the delay, explaining that the guest wasn’t answering, and she didn’t want to keep me up. When she reached him, she would suggest a housecall for the following morning.

I agreed, adding that I could arrive around ten. The hotel was in Norwalk, thirty miles away, and I prefer to avoid the rush hour.

I went back to bed. Half an hour later the phone rang. It was the operator announcing that the housecall was on for 10 a.m.

Freeway traffic was in the category of “could have been worse,” but I arrived on time. No one answered my knock. According to the desk clerk, the guest was part of a tour group that had checked out earlier.

There is no lesson here. It’s part of a hotel doctor’s life.

The Most Difficult Calls

I stopped chopping an onion when the phone rang. A young man at the Airport Hilton was vomiting.

For a hotel doctor, a difficult call refers not to an illness but to traffic conditions. It was four o’clock, so I would drive eight miles both ways during the freeway rush hour, returning hungry and with no dinner prepared. I delay some visits but not for acutely miserable symptoms.

Before I left, the phone rang again. I yearned to hear that it was another airport hotel, but the guest was downtown, fifteen miles in the opposite direction. Worse, she had a migraine, so I couldn’t delay.

Delivering medical care is sometimes challenging. Always challenging and the mark of a seasoned hotel doctor is the ability to remain serene in gridlock.

Certain rules apply. Unless lanes are closed, leaving the freeway for city streets is a bad idea. Another rule is that blocking a lane at any hour stops traffic cold. Steady movement, however slow, is simply a sign of congestion.

“I wonder if there’s an accident,” I thought a dozen times after several minutes of immobility, but I never saw one. So much for rules.

Two housecalls which normally take two hours took four and a half, but I maintained my serenity, sucking on the hard candy I bring along to dull my hunger and listening to a novel on my CD.

Wee Hour Gridlock

The phone woke me at 11:30. A lady at a downtown hotel was suffering an allergic reaction. This was not bad news; downtown is not too far, I charge extra for calls that get me out of bed, freeway traffic is light, and I can sleep late. I wrote down the information and dressed.

Traffic was minimal, but as I approached the freeway interchange leading to downtown, a line of traffic cones forced me to the outside lane. The ramp heading north was closed. The highway department schedules inconvenient maintenance for the wee hours, and I occasionally encounter these obstructions. No problem, I thought. I continued on to the next exit and re-entered the freeway to retrace my route. Cones appeared, so the other north ramp was also blocked. By the time I learned this, I was forced onto the freeway heading south. Again I left at the first exit only to discover no on-ramp in the opposite direction.

Fortunately, there was Figueroa, the main street through downtown, so I decided to follow it. That turned out to be everyone’s idea, so I joined a gridlock that crept north.

I apologized for arriving an hour late, and the patient was too polite to express skepticism that heavy traffic at 1 a.m. was responsible.

Frustration

I drove to care for a woman with a respiratory infection at the Georgian, a boutique beach hotel in Santa Monica. My phone rang as I pulled up at the entrance. The caller was JI, a Japanese travel insurance agency with a patient in a downtown hotel. Ten o’clock is perfect for driving downtown. Freeway traffic dips until noon when it begins a steady climb toward the evening rush.

“I can be there within the hour,” I said only to hear that the patient wanted someone between 4 and 6. I explained that people don’t realize how quickly I arrive. I could be there in 45 minutes. She checked but informed me that the guest wanted to go on a tour. Disappointed, I agreed to arrive at 4, a very inconvenient hour.

The phone rang soon after I returned home, a lady at the airport Westin whose husband was coughing. Did I accept Blue Cross? I didn’t. American insurance pays skimpily for a housecall, and billing requires skill and patience; foreign insurers do better. I gave directions to a walk-in clinic a mile away. Many Americans decide that paying for a housecall is preferable; she assured me she’d call back if she wanted a visit.

Christmas Season

In the Pasadena Sheraton last Sunday, my phone rang for a visit in Irvine. Pasadena is twenty miles from home, Irvine fifty miles. I would miss supper by several hours, but the month before Christmas is slow, so I was pleased at another visit.

I often drive to Irvine but not from Pasadena, so I consulted Siri from my I-Phone. She directed me toward the nearest freeway but told me to turn off as I reached it. That didn’t seem right, but disobeying Siri is usually a bad idea. A drive through city streets to the Long Beach Freeway saved several miles but probably not much time.

I settled down for the trip before realizing with a shock that she was directing me toward the Santa Ana freeway. No one takes the Santa Ana freeway. It’s always jammed. Sure enough, as soon as I drove on, traffic slowed to a crawl.

I arrived after 1½ hours to face another irritation. The address, 2120 Waterbury, wasn’t a street address but suite 2120 at the Waterbury Apartments. Siri found the complex but getting to 2120 among the buildings was my job.

It was night. The guest was a traveler and unfamiliar with the area. There was no parking except in locked underground garages, so I couldn’t wander far from my car. Also (and I’m not making this up) it was raining. In the end, she came out and searched the streets until we encountered each other. The visit, as usual, was the easy part.

Leaving, I drove to the San Diego freeway, the sensible, if not the shortest, route from my house to Irvine. To my dismay, traffic was crawling. Weekends are usually OK, but I should have remembered that this was the Sunday before Christmas.

Another Wee-Hour Call

It was midnight when the phone woke me. An Emirate flight attendant at the Hilton in Costa Mesa needed a doctor.

That Hilton is in Orange County, a 46 mile drive. The agency that serves airline crew has an Orange County doctor but calls me when she doesn’t respond.

After I’d dressed and filled out the necessary forms, the phone rang again. The Orange County doctor had checked in and wanted to make the visit. Was that OK?... 
 
I’d received a similar call last month when I was already on the freeway. At that time, when the agency announced that my visit was cancelled, I made a fuss, so it promised not to do that again.

Did I want to spend two hours driving plus twenty minutes delivering medical care in the middle of the night? I boast that, not having an office, I can sleep late, but I enjoy getting up early to write. In any case, my body automatically wakes at the same time.

Returning to my cozy bed seemed extremely attractive; I gave my consent.

As soon as I hung up, I remembered that the agency pays generously for long drives in the wee hours. That thought gave me a touch of insomnia, so I still passed a sleepy morning.

A Hotel Doctor's Christmas

I’m the only hotel doctor who loves to work on Christmas. Freeway traffic is light, always a bonus but more so on Christmas because my competitors, including those in Orange County, prefer their holidays undisturbed, so I make some distant visits.

Guests who fall ill are especially grateful to find a doctor. Employees, apologetic when they phone, are impressed when I make an appearance. Visiting a hotel that doesn’t call provides an irresistible opportunity to point out the superior service I deliver.

The only person not delighted by all this is my wife. Long ago, receiving a second call while engaged in the first, I missed the family Christmas dinner. I won’t do that again, but that’s only a matter of juggling a few hours.

No Easy Way to Hollywood

There is no quick drive to Hollywood. I can take the freeway north through the San Fernando Valley, a twenty mile trip. Or I can take it east through downtown for nineteen miles. A direct route is eight miles, but that’s tedious stop-and-go on city streets. Taking the long way doesn’t mean an easy drive because the freeway is often but unpredictably jammed.

When Loews in Hollywood called at 11 p.m. my heart sank less than usual. It was late enough for most drivers to be in bed.

But not quite late enough. The male fun fair in West Hollywood was in full swing, filling the streets.   

Loews in Santa Monica calls me exclusively, but the Hollywood Loews keeps a list of doctors, thus assuring that none of us will lean over backward to accommodate it by, for example, coming during the rush hour (no hotel doctor lives near Hollywood).

My immediate problem in a nonexclusive hotel is that parking valets may not recognize me, so my mantra:  “I’m the hotel doctor. They let me park here” might not work, and I would have to pay. But it worked this time.

As usual, delivering medical care was the easiest part. A perk of hotel doctoring is that I go home after seeing a single guest. During my best months, I go home a hundred times.

I like my job, but going home always feels better than going to work. I played my audio tape. I looked benignly on the midnight revelers as I crept through West Hollywood. Beverly Hills and Century City were nearly deserted, but traffic lights ensured that I would not make haste.

"Do You Go To Ontario?"

“Do you go to Ontario?” asked the dispatcher for Expressdoc, an agency that sends doctors on housecalls. Travel insurers who don’t call me directly use Expressdoc. It’s a mystery why because it costs them extra, but I charge the same no matter who calls, so I don’t mind. Ontario is in San Bernardino County, fifty miles distant, but this is small potatoes. My record is ninety miles to Carpinteria. Freeway traffic, not distance, determines if I drive. I delay distant, late afternoon visits until the evening. Morning drives are acceptable; the hours between ten and noon are golden because traffic slows after the morning rush; it builds again after twelve, and there is no afternoon decline. The Ontario call arrived at 12:20, so I was not optimistic about the return. But it worked out fine. I took the Pomona freeway, bypassing downtown, and the hour’s drive passed with no significant slowing. I listened to Slaughterhouse Five on my CD; highly recommended.

The patient was a Brazilian lady visiting her son; her upset stomach presented no problem. Accompanying me to the elevator, the son he told me he was reevaluating his decision to remain in the US because the political atmosphere had grown so shrill and confrontational. I agreed. Did you ever think there’d come a time when South Americans considered their governments more stable than ours?