On Call*

The job I have now is the first one where I have had to take regular emergency call. I work for a decently sized practice, so I’m only on about once every four or five weeks for a week at a time. Some of the other therapists whose practices are extremely specialized, (i.e. they only see people with eating disorders or dog phobias or something like that) don’t have to take call. Which makes perfect sense- you’d hate to call our emergency on-call number because your wife just left you and you don’t know what to do and end up talking to someone whose instinct is to ask “Are you wanting to binge eat?” So it’s not an unfair system. And before this week, I typically got about one call every other day for my week and usually only a middle of the night call about every six months; all in all ,it hasn’t been so bad. In fact, when I was on bed rest last year, I still took call, my rationale being that, hey, I was doing something besides researching things that could go wrong with the pregnancy on the internet or watching TV. It was during this time that I learned something interesting about adrenaline during pregnancy. I got paged at 4:00am one morning and woke up feeling a little panicked. The girls were asleep, too (I was about 7 months along at this point), but it took only about 45 seconds before they were up and obviously feeling panicky themselves and writhing around in there like they were trying to escape, which I thought was kind of funny. Anyway- back to my point. Basically, I’m trying to say that I don’t get paged that often and , when I do, I find that I’m usually explaining the whole “emergency” concept to whoever is calling. In case there is any doubt, let me review some situations that are not, in fact, emergencies and that I would prefer not to be paged out of bed for: your teenage daughter telling you she hates you; your child waking up one night having a night terror; your wife coming home drunk; your therapist not returning you call within 20 minutes; feeling that our office has billed you in error; and so on. I’m not trying to be insensitive; I understand that each of these events can be distressing; they do not, however constitute what I call an emergency. What I generally consider an emergency is something that most people would recognize as resulting in immediate harm or permanent damage if not dealt with this minute, like a teenagers troubling, recurring thoughts of suicide; an almost irresistible temptation to swing the sledgehammer you’re holding over your ex-spouse’s windshield in violation of your restraining order; that panicky, awful empty feeling that often goes along with depression-please pick up the phone and call the emergency on call therapist if you‘re experiencing these symptoms. Actually, if you know me, feel free to call me at home if you’re experiencing these symptoms, night or day.
But this week was different. I received an emergency call every single day and not one was a real emergency. And while I’m so glad there weren’t seven people in our practice experiencing life or marriage crises, but I am as tired as I have been since the babies were 5 months old and consistently sleeping through the night today. And it’s due in part to the fact that I was paged at 3:00 this morning for a situation that WAS NOT AN EMERGENCY. I feel empathy (but only a little) for the father of the teenage girl who called because she caught him reading her e-mail and she told him she hated him. Truly I do. But I myself was not experiencing great love for him myself when my returning his call at that hour in my formerly silent, 1200 square foot ranch style home awakened my two sleeping daughters, who mistakenly then assumed if Mommy was on the phone, it must be morning and, by golly, they were going to be forced to yell until somebody served them breakfast. While I was explaining to the caller that while, yes, it is very upsetting that your 19 year old daughter claims to hate you for invading her privacy, this is probably a matter best taken up with your therapist who knows your family dynamics in the morning, he must have noticed the background weeping and gnashing of teeth, because he asked in a irritated tone of voice “Is that a baby crying? Are you able to pay attention to my problem over all of that?” I assured him that I was, but had to reign in my desire to ask him if he thought I sat up all night in a quiet room in an office somewhere waiting for non-emergency calls all night or to assure him that I would punish the offending baby appropriately as soon as I was off the phone. As we discussed contacting his therapist, he asked me “Can you promise me she’ll call me right back tomorrow morning?” Again, I wanted to say, “Actually, I can’t, but I’ll call her at home right now and try and extract a promise that she will.” But what I said was “No, but I’ve never known her not to return a call.” So I got off the phone and went to prepare E and L’s 3:30 breakfast and help them back to sleep. But not before whispering a prayer of thanks that this is my last day of call .

*All identifying information and exact dialogue have been changed to ensure client confidentiality and to comply with all HIPAA regulations.