Frequent Flyers

A frequent flyer is what we gave patients who appeared at our emergency department on an almost regular schedule. Some came every week, while others were once every few weeks. I teased if they didn’t show up we should send them a “Get Well Card” because they must really be sick. One of our frequent flyers was a large, younger woman named Mindy. She always wore a man’s Banlon shirt, double knit slacks and flip flops. No matter what the weather was like, it was what she wore. She did wear a jacket in the winter. She was a very large woman who looked slovenly, but had a good heart. If she saw me away from the hospital, she would yell to me across the store or a parking lot just like I was a long lost cousin. If she was close enough, she would crush me in a bear hug.

Another nurse from the hospital relayed this story to me about seeing Mindy outside of the hospital. Dorene was a nurse on our I. V. team and said, “I was shopping with my husband at a local grocery store when I saw Mindy come into the building. She was wearing her flip flops, a light jacket, and her double knit pants even though there was snow on the ground.”

“My husband says to me, ‘Dorene, that woman’s pants are split up the back.’”

Dorene said, “Mindy’s pants had split at the seam and there was a gaping opening which was about four inches long.” Dorene returned to her shopping without saying anything to Mindy.

Her husband said, “Dorene, aren’t you going to tell her that her pants are split?”

Dorene turned to him and replied, “She has no underwear on. It’s the middle of winter outside and it is cold. She has to know that her pants are split. If you want to be sure she knows, you go to her and tell her that her pants are split, I’m not.”

Dorene proceeded to tell me. “When we got in line at the checkout counter, there was Mindy and her fiancée standing right in front of us. As we were waiting there, Mindy said, ‘Oh Alfred, I’m so glad we got Hi-C. The kids love it on their Fruit Loops for breakfast.’” Dorene shuddered as she said it.

Mindy had trouble pronouncing V’s. When Dorene told me what Mindy had said, I knew why Mindy kept bringing her two young daughters into the emergency room with “belly pain and bomiting.”