INDIANAPOLIS – In case you haven’t heard, the greatest show on earth is coming to Indianapolis. The drum roll leading up to the Super Bowl has been getting louder and louder over the last year. A local grocery store has run an ad in the newspaper every day counting down the number of days until the great event. The city is suffused with a carnival atmosphere and it feels as if the Olympic Games were coming to town for a day. The city has built a Super Bowl village, and all that is lacking to give the city that touch of Olympic class, is a Super Bowl–torch-lighting ceremony. Perhaps I can suggest it to the NFL gods for next year.
I’ve been able to ignore the newspaper countdown ad, but with the great event almost upon us, I can’t ignore the extra traffic during my morning commute. Even though I don’t drive through downtown, the downtown exits from the highway are so congested, that traffic is noticeably slower. Hoosiers take sports very seriously, and many people are completely enraptured by the coming event. One nurse told me that she was taking her family downtown for the festivities since "this is a once-in-a-life-time event." During the regular season a few years ago, an acquaintance predicted that the Colts would go to the Super Bowl that year. Lots of people say things like that about their teams, but his face glowed as he added the comment, "They’re going to the promised land."
Now don't get me wrong, I’m not against sports, but the heightened atmosphere of intense sports goofiness is a bit of an overdose. My enthusiasm has been limited to wondering if the Super Bowl’s powerful wake might drag a few patients with east coast accents into my waiting room. This beer-guzzling bacchanalia might produce a few good gout attacks. Sitting on stadium seats for a few hours might generate some sore backs. The hotel shortage is acute and sleeping in cars might flare up arthritis as well.
I received an e-mail from the hospital administration reminding all staff to be on their best behavior. The e-mail reminded staff not to incur the wrath of the HIPAA police by snooping into the charts of "high profile" patients or chatting with media without the permission of the hospital’s community relations department. Therefore, if I am summoned to attend to the tophi or sore backsides of the rich and famous, I’d love to tell you about it but, alas, my lips are sealed.