My five-year-old daughter Katie is very sweet. I think so. Daddy thinks so. And most of the bees within a hundred yards of her think so. As a result she gets more than her share of bee stings. It’s usually no big deal. We pull out the stinger, comfort her for a few minutes and get on with our day. But this time the little welt on the bottom of her foot developed into a swollen mass of red tissue, with spidery red lines creeping up her leg.

I’m not given to hysterics, and I am certainly no drama queen but I couldn’t stop focusing on Katie’s foot. A phone conversation with the doctor did little to calm me down. She felt that Katie was suffering from blood poisoning and insisted we get to the nearest emergency room fast. And so, flushed with fear and frantic driving we arrived at Miracle We’re Still in Business Hospital.

We must have been quite a sight. I staggered in carrying Katie in one arm, my sleeping three-year-old son James in the other arm, and my huge “mommy’s purse” slung over my shoulder (you know, the one with the toys, snacks and complete change of clothes oozing over the sides). “What seems to be the problem?” asked the lady behind the counter. You mean other than the fact that I couldn’t find parking within a hundred blocks of the hospital, am schlepping around eighty wriggling pounds and have a child with bee venom threatening to kill her? I’m sorry. I suppose there was nothing particularly evil about what she asked. I think it was more the way she asked it. It was in a bored, nail-filing, “Is it time to go home yet?” manner.

“Could you please fill out these forms,” the lady drawled while shoving a stack of papers at me. Confused, I looked around the room. This is the emergency room right? Who has time to write their memoirs when a child’s life hangs in the balance? It was becoming painfully obvious that Ms. Doolittle did not share my sense of urgency. It was also becoming clear that she was no Rhodes Scholar. Any idiot could see that I had my hands full at the moment. I won’t bore you with the details but the papers got signed and we were told to take a seat.

We barely had time to settle in when a lady wearing a lab coat called us from the pack. Thank God somebody here knows how critical Katie’s situation is. I gathered up my kids and quickly followed her. Little did I know that she was hired by the hospital to give all emergency room patients a false sense of hope; hope that their ailments would be treated before the next ice age.

This lady was apparently related to Ms. Doolittle because she took Katie’s temperature and blood pressure with all the energy of a patient from the coma unit. Filling out yet more forms she inquired, “And did your great-great grand pappy’s dog ever suffer from ticks or irregular bowel movements”? Unbelievable. I felt like screaming into her stethoscope, “Did I mention my daughter may be dying”? When she was finally done she escorted us back to the waiting room.

Now I’m no brain surgeon but it seems that the waiting room is in the opposite direction of any useful help. There are no doctors, no medicines and no sense of emergency in the emergency room. But it is here that we languished for hours. One hour became two. And two hours became three. My adrenalin rush died in the confines of that room. If there was a scalpel within reach I would have gently cut my daughter’s foot open and sucked the bee venom out myself. But there was nothing sharp in that entire room.

Finally Katie was called again. This time we passed through the sacred doors which lead into the heart of the hospital. “Please wait here until a bed becomes available.” The woman gestured to two chairs in a hallway choked with electronic equipment and medical people. It was difficult to tell the equipment from the people; neither of them seemed to be working. I wondered again if I was in the right place. This is the emergency room right? Then why is everyone moving like they’re Velcro’ed to the floor?

I guess they read my mind because I soon found myself back in the waiting room. At least there we were surrounded by several new friends. A unique form of camaraderie develops between people when they face a common enemy. And to us the clock was our enemy. It kept ticking, ticking, ticking while we kept sitting, sitting, sitting. Whenever one of us was called behind the “iron curtain” the others joked, “We’ll see you soon.” And we always did. The lot of us were batted back and forth between rooms like balls in a ping pong tournament.

After what seemed like an eternity we were once again ushered in to the nerve center of the hospital, but this time we were lead to an empty bed. Hallelujah! We made it to the Promised Land. But here too we were left to stew. Only now we had the added pleasure of hearing an ear-piercing operetta performed ad nauseam by the patient screaming across the hall. Being the good Christian that I am I did the only thing I could. I prayed. “Dear Lord, please make that lady shut-up. Amen.”

We never did see a doctor. Some kind of a nurse’s assistant with a major in Bad Bedside Manners examined Katie. It wasn’t so much of an examination as a casual glance in the general direction of Katie’s bed. He prescribed, what else, antibiotics. What would the medical profession do without antibiotics? They’d actually have to diagnose something. But the ticking clock had worn us down and we had no energy to argue. All we wanted to do was get out of Alice’s Wonderland and get back to the land of the living.