Medical Treatment for Employees
Medical Treatment for Employees
with Work-Related Injuries or Illnesses
Initial Medical Treatment [Sec. 31-294d]
When an injury occurs, a claimant is entitled to receive all necessary and appropriate medical treatment. The employer is responsible for furnishing the initial medical treatment at an employer-designated office or facility. After this initial treatment, the employee may choose an attending physician.
If the claimant refuses the initial employer-provided medical care and fails to obtain treatment, they may risk their entitlement to Workers’ Compensation benefits.
Choice of Physician [Sec. 31-294d]
A claimant may choose an attending physician AFTER the initial visit with an employer-designated medical practitioner. If the employer does not participate in an approved medical care plan, the claimant may choose any medical practitioner who is licensed to practice in Connecticut, including practitioners of chiropractic, medicine,
naturopathy, osteopathy, and podiatry.
A claimant whose employer does participate in an approved medical care plan must choose a physician from the list of doctors included in that plan. If the employee chooses a physician “outside” the plan, an Administrative Law Judge may suspend all rights to workers’ compensation benefits. In either case, it is the injured worker who has the right to choose.
Change of Physician [Sec. 31-294d]
A claimant may change their attending physician, if dissatisfied with the medical treatment being rendered. There are three ways in which a claimant may effect a change of physician:
(1) Get a referral from the present attending physician,
(2) Obtain approval to change physicians from the workers’ compensation insurance carrier involved (or the
employer, if it is self-insured),
OR
(3) Write to the Administrative Law Judge in the District Office having jurisdiction. Indicate the name,
address, and medical specialty of the present physician, as well as the name, address, and medical specialty
of the “new” physician, and the reason(s) for requesting a change. In this case, the Administrative Law
Judge could reply by mail or set up an informal hearing.
NOTE: If a claimant does not have an attending physician’s referral to another medical practitioner, or permission to change physicians from the insurer, self-insured employer, or Administrative Law Judge, they will most likely be liable to pay for any “unauthorized” medical bills which may arise.
Out-of-State Physicians [Sec. 31-294d]
A claimant MUST receive all necessary medical care for the injury or illness from medical practitioners licensed to practice in Connecticut. If, for any number of reasons, the employee requires treatment with a doctor outside of the state, the employer/insurer could grant permission or the claimant would have to request permission from an Administrative Law Judge who may or may not authorize out-of-state treatment.
If the claimant resides in another state, an Administrative Law Judge may authorize medical care by a physician in that state.
Employer’s/Respondent’s Examination (Formerly IME) [Sec. 31-294f]
At any time while claiming or receiving workers’ compensation benefits, an employee may be directed by an Administrative Law Judge, or requested by the employer or its workers’ compensation insurance carrier, to submit to an Employer/Respondent’s Examination (formerly known as IME), paid for by the employer/ respondent.
The purpose of the exam is to determine the nature and extent of the injury. The claimant may have their own attending physician present (at their own expense), but this is not a common practice. The claimant must submit to examination upon reasonable request, and refusal to do so may suspend any right to receive compensation. (A request may be considered unreasonable, if it involves lengthy or difficult travel.
The claimant should request an Informal Hearing before a Commissioners to make this determination.) The examining physician must furnish the employer’s/respondent’s medical report within 30 days of its completion, at the same time and in the same manner, to both the employer (or its insurer) and to the claimant (or their attorney, if represented).
Out-of-State Physicians [Sec. 31-294d]
A claimant MUST receive all necessary medical care for the injury or illness from medical practitioners licensed to practice in Connecticut. If, for any number of reasons, the employee requires treatment with a doctor outside of the state, the employer/insurer could grant permission or the claimant would have to request permission from an Administrative Law Judge who may or may not authorize out-of-state treatment.
If the claimant resides in another state, an Administrative Law Judge may authorize medical care by a physician in that state.
Unauthorized Medical Care [Sec. 31-294d]
Medical care provided by a practitioner other than the attending physician or a specialist to whom the claimant has been referred, is the claimant’s responsibility as these treatments and their charges are considered unauthorized.
The Commission Medical Exam [Sec. 31-294f]
Sometimes there is a significant difference in opinion between the attending physician and the employer’s/ respondent’s physician, and the parties are unable to reach an agreement. In these cases the Administrative Law Judge has the authority to send the claimant for a “Commission Medical Examination”.
The examiner is chosen on the basis that he/she is free of any bias or interest, not aligned with either of the parties, and therefore able to impart an independent medical opinion. The claimant must agree to be seen by this doctor or risk the chance of losing their workers’ compensation benefits.
Medical Bills [Sec. 31-279-9]
All medical bills for a compensable injury or illness should be paid by the workers’ compensation provider (workers’ compensation insurance carrier or self-insured employer). All medical bills for compensable claims must be sent directly to the workers’ compensation provider, NEVER to the claimant. It is also against Connecticut Regulations for any medical practitioner to ask a claimant for payment for medical treatment, or to refuse a claimant necessary medical care because the practitioner has not yet been paid by the workers’ compensation provider for previously-rendered services
Travel Expenses for Medical Services [Sec. 31-312]
The employer must furnish, or pay for, transportation for an injured employee to go to and from medical examination, treatment, or testing. If medically necessary, this includes transportation by ambulance or taxi. If the claimant uses a private vehicle to travel to and from medical services, they must be reimbursed for expenses at the federal mileage reimbursement rate, as determined by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA).
In practice, most employees keep a record of their travel with each visit’s date, location, and mileage, and send a copy of this record to the workers’ compensation insurer or self-insured employer periodically or at the end of treatment. The insurer or employer should send the claimant a check for the expenses within a reasonable period of time. (See the Forms section beginning on page 24 for a mileage form you may use for this purpose.)
Lost Time Reimbursement for Medical Treatment [Sec. 31-312]
The claimant who needs medical attention should obtain such medical care during normal work hours, if this is possible, and should be paid by the employer at their normal rate of earnings (if the employee is not receiving or eligible to receive workers’ compensation wage replacement benefits). An employer CANNOT require the claimant to receive medical treatment outside of their regular work hours, if such treatment is available during regular work hours. If necessary care is not available during normal work hours, the claimant should receive care when it is available and should be reimbursed at the rate of their average hourly earnings by the employer, as if it were time lost from work. The employer may then seek reimbursement from their workers’ compensation insurer.
Prescription Reimbursement [Sec. 31-294d]
Prescriptions given by an attending physician as part of medical treatment for a work-related injury or illness are fully covered.
All expenses for prescriptions must be paid directly by the carrier or self-insured employer, and claimants should not have to pay for them or seek reimbursement. This relates to all employers whether they participate in a managed care plan or not.
Right to Medical Reports [Sec. 31-294f]
The claimant is entitled to a copy of every medical report by any medical practitioner providing care for the injury or illness, in the same manner and at the same time as reports provided to the employer or its workers’ compensation insurance carrier, at no additional charge. If the claimant retains legal counsel, the reports must be furnished to the attorney instead of the claimant.
To CME or Not to CME
With apologies to The Bard –
“To CME, or not to CME: that is the question; Whether ‘this nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous medical opinions, Or to take arms against a CME, And by opposing end them?”
Authority for the ever-ubiquitous Commission’s Medical Exam (hereafter CMEs) can be found in C.G.S. §31-294(f) which provides in relevant part: “An injured employee shall submit himself to examination by a reputable practicing physician or surgeon, at any time, while claiming or receiving compensation, upon the reasonable request of the employer or at the direction of the Administrative Law Judge. The examination shall be performed to determine the nature of the injury and the incapacity resulting from the injury…” The Guidelines of Cooperation provide that the CME is “selected on the premise that this physician is free of any bias or interest, thus enabling the physician to exercise independent medical judgment.” (June 10, 2023 Revision, p.20) The Workers’ Compensation Act mandates a process of informal dispute resolution to achieve the goal of fair and expeditious determination of claims. The thesis of this article is, to paraphrase a famous quote, that CMEs are like wasabi: they are very powerful and should be used sparingly. This author would argue that when they are used judiciously, they are an indispensable tool that can often move a case toward resolution quickly and fairly, but when they become the rule, rather than the exception, their pervasive use may become antithetical to the purpose of the Act.
While authority for CMEs has always been contained within the statute, their prominence became supercharged with additional thrust about 30 years ago beginning with Iannotti v. Amphenol/Spectra-Strip, 1829 CRB-3-93-9 (1995) aff’d, 40 Conn. App. 918 (1996) when the CRB announced: “Although we do not find error in the Commissioner’s failure to explain his credibility determination in this particular case, we want to stress the importance of a commissioner-ordered medical examination and the need for a commissioner to explain his or her reasoning in not crediting the examiner’s report.” The upshot of freighting CMEs with so much import is reflected in the advice that I typically gave to my own clients until about five years ago when another line of cases began to develop. Until that time, I said that a CME was not merely a tie-breaker between a treating physician’s opinion and a contrary RME; it was game over. The score was not merely two to one, it was ten to one.
The sea change or CME change began to emerge in the last five years when some intrepid Administrative Law Judges (hereinafter ALJs) began to show a willingness to diverge from the CME’s conclusions and to accept the CME simply as one more opinion. See Madden v. Danbury Hospital, 5745 CRB-7-12-4 (2013); Mauriello v. Craftsmen Litho, 6256 CRB-5-18-3 (March 22, 2019); Smith v. Regalcare at Waterbury, LLC, 6316 CRB-5-19-3 (March 10, 2020); Secula v. SBC/SNET, 6314 CRB-5-19-3.
(March 10, 2020); Goulbourne v. State of Connecticut/Department of Correction, 6329 CRB-1-19-5 (June 10, 2020); Reveron v. Compass Group, 6358 CRB-5-19-11 (Sept. 16, 2020); Rousseau v. Acranom Masonry, Inc., 6366 CRB-5-19-12 (Feb. 3, 2021) and Baldino v. Rondo of America, Inc., 6365 CRB-5-19-12 (April 7, 2021). In two of these cases, as noted in R. Carter, D. Civitello, J. Dodge, J. Pomeranz and L. Strunk, Connecticut Workers’ Compensation Law (Thomson West, Connecticut Practice Series Vol. 19, 2008) §17:13 specifically the Mauriello and Secula decisions, the CRB stated it was unnecessary for the trial commissioner to articulate the reasons why the CME’s opinion was not adopted, clearly retreating from the earlier line of cases and perhaps, thereby diluting the potency of the CME opinion. However, the authors of the treatise conclude that “…the commissioner’s examiner’s opinion is given great weight by the commissioners, and all else being equal, the commissioners will generally find in accordance with their examiners’ opinions.” Id.
With the exception of one of the above-cited cases, either the CME and/or the treating physician was deposed, and sometimes the RME. Clearly if one is going to assail the CME report, there is still a considerable financial and time-consuming burden to be successful. In two recent cases in which I needed to overcome the CME’s report, I brought in the treating physician to testify live at the formal. In both cases the ALJ was able to ask any relevant questions she needed answered on the medical issues in the case. Obviously, the cost of bringing in a physician to testify live at a formal is prohibitive and you can only do it in cases which would financially justify it. But I think in the right case a judge will be more impressed by a treating physician testifying live who can answer the judge’s questions than by a deposition transcript of an RME/CME.
Typically, a CME is ordered when the RME has an opinion which is diametrically opposed to that of the treating physician. CMEs are a necessary tool to provide the trial judge with an expert opinion on a specific medical issue in difficult, contested cases where the judge may require additional information. When the CME is used prudently, and saved in the tool bag for special occasions, it is very helpful. For example, in a case involving whether chemical exposure caused cancer in an employee, the ALJ may well need additional help from a physician of her choosing to help clarify issues of causation. Similarly, where there is a question of whether a claimant suffers from PTSD, an ALJ may want a trusted psychiatrist to weigh in, or in a case of an electrocution injury, the opinion of a CME by a neurologist may be helpful to the ALJ.
These are examples where expert testimony may help inform the ALJ’s ultimate determination as the factfinder in an area of medicine about which she has little or no knowledge. But there is a strong temptation to use the CME as a shortcut to expedite a case, to force parties into a quick resolution of the claim. Is a CME’s opinion necessary when there is a question of causality in a garden variety disc herniation injury, or to determine whether a requested medical procedure is curative or palliative? The Chairman’s office does not track the percentage of cases that settle in the wake of a CME, but my guess, based on anecdotal evidence, would be that most cases settle after a CME.
The CME is a legal fiction in which a physician chosen by the trial judge may be temporarily cloaked with special powers whereby his or her opinion is accorded extraordinary weight. The parties and the trial judge are all asked to suspend their critical powers of analytical reasoning and accept that the CME will provide an objective opinion that is difficult to challenge. Within the framework of this legal fiction, the CME’s opinion may be fairly viewed as a rebuttable presumption on the issue in question, a presumption that can only be rebutted by clear and convincing evidence to the contrary. In reality, CME physicians are mere mortals who have their own busy practices and who are allotting perhaps one hour to reviewing the indexed records and five to ten minutes examining the claimant. After all, the same doctor, who enjoys the confidence and authority conveyed by the judge appointing him or her as an expert in a hearing at 10:30 a.m. may very well be disrobed and stripped of his superpowers when that physician is relegated to the pedestrian status of a treating physician at the 10:45 a.m. hearing. It’s not as if these anointed physicians are retired or selected from some sacrosanct stable of doctors who only engage in these exams. They are deputized, artificially and temporarily vested with special authority, and endowed with a gravitas that is necessary to create this fiction. It is clearly harder to subscribe to this fiction when the ALJ unilaterally decides whom to appoint without consultation of the litigants as will be discussed below in greater detail.
There are at least several common situations in which CMEs are ordered by the ALJ. Often, it is at the request of one of the parties. There are instances in which claimants counsel has a reputable, skilled physician, (perhaps even one who has performed many CMEs) who has provided a strong opinion counter to that of an RME whose credibility, having been too long in circulation, has come to resemble a coin that has been worn a little too smooth. Or the reverse is equally possible where claimant’s counsel has a weak report from an overly enthusiastic surgeon who wishes to proceed with surgery, but a thoughtful, cautious, well-regarded RME opposes the surgery. In each of those scenarios the party hoping for the CME is mobilizing the CME as part of a favorable litigation strategy, namely, that the CME will bolster a weak case that may not survive the formal. But arguably, there has not been a sufficient joinder of the material medical issue in such a case. Why give the opposing party a free shot at suddenly improving a bad case?
Another scenario in which an ALJ will sometimes request a CME is when each of the parties has a solid report from a reputable physician. In such cases there is clearly a joinder of issues in a case that is ready to litigate. Each of the parties may be loath to introduce a new opinion into the equation, yet the ALJ orders a CME to try to move the case toward a resolution, and perhaps save administrative resources. I would argue in a case where neither of the parties wishes to have a CME, the parties should be allowed to try their cases the way they stand. It is akin to a game of Blackjack in which both players want to stand pat with the cards they have but the dealer introduces a wildcard opinion that is likely going to cause one of the litigants to fold. While it is ultimately the trial judge’s prerogative to seek an expert opinion in addition to those of the treating.
Black’s Law Dictionary defines legal fiction as “An assumption or supposition of law that something which is or may be false is true, or that a state of facts exists-which has never really taken place.”
physician and the RME, in the above scenario the ALJ might reconsider the urge to order a CME in favor of allowing the parties to prosecute their cases with the existing opinions.
The ALJ will sometimes ask for the input of counsel in selecting this physician which may make the selection process more palatable if counsel can agree upon an acceptable physician, but more often, the trial judge keeps her own counsel on this matter. Effectively, this gives counsel an opportunity to bolster an unfavorable opinion. One might ask why opposing counsel would rebuff an opportunity for another physician to weigh in on the matter. After all, isn’t this the ultimate purpose of having a CME, by helping the trier of fact understand the medical issue in the case?
The problem with that rationale is that it invites too many unintended consequences. The standard check-in-the-box forms utilized by most ALJs do not provide essential definitions for terms, such as “substantial contributing factor” or “reasonable medical probability”, terms necessary to provide a meaningful opinion. While many of the physicians who participate in the workers’ compensation system in Connecticut are facile with such nuanced definitions, many are not. (This author attended a seminar in which an orthopedist frequently used as a CME lectured about what criteria he needed to provide an opinion “beyond a reasonable doubt” in a workers’ compensation case). Further, there are some doctors whose opinions on certain medical issues are a foregone conclusion. For example, in a case involving a dispute about a concussion, there are certain doctors who still adhere to the outdated and disproven notion that if a patient does not lose consciousness, she did not have a concussion. There are orthopedists who disregard the concept of adjacent level disc disease. There are some physicians who do not believe in chronic regional pain syndrome, and other doctors who will automatically wean any patient from narcotic medication, without exception. When these doctors are utilized as CMEs, a more jaundiced practitioner might wonder whether the humanitarian spirit of the Act is being eroded in the name of a more expeditious resolution of the case.
The language of the statute states that the scope of a CME is “to determine the nature of the injury and the incapacity resulting from the injury.” It does not authorize the use of a CME when the issue to be resolved is whether medical treatment is reasonable or medically necessary. Yet there are countless CMEs routinely ordered to determine whether opioid medication should be continued, or whether a certain surgery is reasonable, or whether a claimant has a body mass index that makes a proposed surgery unreasonable. Arguably these issues are outside the authority conveyed by the statute, and would theoretically be subject to challenge, although this author is unaware of any cases on point.
In the rare instances in which, in this author’s opinion, a CME should be utilized, this author would strongly recommend Judge Barton’s approach of allowing the litigants to prepare the letter to the CME for the judge’s signature, to make sure that the CME addresses each of the relevant issues in the case, and that the doctor understands the legal threshold and definitions of specific terms such as “a substantial contributing factor.” To go even a step further, counsel should be allowed to agree upon the CME chosen as the examiner. If counsel are allowed to participate in the selection of the CME physician and the drafting of the letter to the CME, then it is much less likely that one party will come back to the judge to ask the CME for a clarification of the report, which will make the doctors’ and the judges’ lives easier. And if counsel agree on the CME to be selected, then the criteria for the disappointed lawyer to return to the ALJ to ask for a clarification of the CME’s opinion by way of a follow-up letter or deposition should be very high indeed.
In response to the protestations of CME physicians who are frequently asked to clarify a muddy report, some judges, who ultimately have to send the request for clarification to the CME, have been reluctant to send follow-up requests to the CME, but instead, direct the litigants to take the CME’s deposition. Due to the doctors’ busy schedules, this can often take several months to organize, sometimes more. In addition, this expense is borne by the attorney requesting the deposition, which in the claimant’s case, seems particularly onerous, especially when the attorney may have objected to the CME before it was ordered. Several years ago, this author was required to drive to Glastonbury on three separate occasions to take the CME’s deposition in three installments because the physician would only allow one hour of time—at 7am. This took approximately six months to play out. In the meantime, the case was put on ice and valuable time was wasted. (It was worth the trouble, ultimately, as the ALJ ignored the CME’s negative opinion at trial). Even worse, other judges are increasingly reluctant to entertain a request to take the CME’s deposition because of their legitimate concern that doctors who are too frequently deposed may not continue to participate in our system. Clearly this line of reasoning raises some due process implications, although this author in unaware of any cases on point. Yet.
There are inevitable attendant delays occasioned by the appointment of a CME such as when the physician has an emergency surgery that preempts the CME appointment, resulting in a rescheduling delay measured in weeks, if not months. Or the CME may be habitually late in getting out his CME report, sometimes only responding after counsel has had to request a hearing or two to have the judge prod his CME to respond. Occasionally the CME is asked to comment upon one question, say whether a procedure is reasonable or necessary, and then gratuitously opines that the previously compensable injury was not causally related to work. Or, as in a case I recently tried, the CME to whom I vigorously objected, mistakenly believed he was being asked to provide his opinion about whether the claimant sustained an acute injury on a date certain rather than over a 34-year period of repetitive insult. The CME opined that there was no evidence of an accident on the last date of injurious exposure, and therefore, the “injury” was not compensable. Here again, the ALJ ignored her CME at trial, but this unnecessary detour caused a significant delay and ultimately did not assist the ALJ in deciding the issue of compensability.
Clearly every case cannot and should not be tried. Business needs to be moved, cases need to be resolved quickly and efficiently, but not at the expense of a fair and equitable resolution. There are instances in which CMEs must carry more weight than either the treating physician or the RME, especially if the litigants agree upon the CME beforehand, otherwise the legal fiction does not work its magic. At the same time, we must recognize that CMEs are neither inviolate nor invincible; they can and should be challenged when there is a legitimate basis for doing so, and when the financial ends justify the means. This is especially true when the CME is one of the “usual suspects” whose conclusion is foregone, and where the opinion is forced upon unwilling counsel. There has been a “market” correction in just how much value a CME should have, and while its value may have dropped, it still carries significant weight. If ALJs only use CMEs in the appropriately rare cases, counsel will avoid the expense and time of having to challenge them. As the old saw goes: too much of anything is good for nothing.
Michaela
My brother is currently spending a semester abroad in Vienna, Austria. Before leaving he offered the idea of my visiting him alone. When I proposed this to my parents, their eyes filled with hope and adoration at the thought of a culturally engaging and potential bonding experience for their son and daughter. And much to my surprise, my father did not display symptoms of a cardiac arrest at the thought of his 17-year-old daughter traveling 4,144 miles across the Atlantic Ocean by herself.
Based on this reaction, one would assume that when I asked my parents several weeks later to go to Indiana over winter break they would not think twice before saying yes. However, their response would have made you conclude that I was asking to go to a different country by myself. … Oh, wait. This immense difference in their attitude was due to nine letters: B-O-Y-F-R-I-E-N-D. The boyfriend, mind you, whom I have known for five years now and have been dating for almost two. I was justifiably enraged by their irrational decision-making and thus a ferocious debate began.
One night, my parents told me that the three of us would be going to dinner with a couple that my father knows through work. I was at first reluctant to “fifth wheel” the dinosaur reunion, but I reluctantly blessed them with my presence. Right off the bat, my mom decided to humiliate me by explaining the controversy to these two strangers (to me) using several alternative facts.
“Michaela is upset because we won’t let her stay in a hotel room in Indiana with her boyfriend for a week.”
My dad immediately leapt to my defense, telling them that I merely wanted to visit him, not to shack up in a hotel room for week.
NOT!
In reality, he slithered down into the booth across the table from me and avoided eye contact in the manner of a bird that has just flown into a windshield. However, even after this embarrassing betrayal, I won. See, my mother had unwittingly assumed that all parents are as illogical in their parenting methods as she and my dad. She was (not so happily) surprised when her “ally” sided with me.
“If you trust her and believe that she is responsible then unless there is a serious concern that you are putting her into danger, you need to give her some freedom.”
One would think that my parents, bright as they are, would look at their soon-to-be 18-year-old daughter who (not to toot my own horn) is driven, responsible, and has never broken their trust, and see this on their own. But they are getting old and at some point, as my mom likes to point out, you have to swallow your pride, put on the reading glasses and read what’s in front of you. Needless to say, my flight leaves Friday.
Michael
“As long as I’m living my baby you’ll be.” This was the refrain from a book that I used to read to Michaela every night for the first nine years of her life. During that time when she would run to the door to loop her arms around my knees every night, it seemed impossible that she would ever be anything but my baby. Nine more years have blinked by and my baby girl is just a few months shy of 18. Last year she began dating a senior in high school, who went off to college in Indiana at the end of the summer. She has seen him when he comes home on breaks, but it is always like ripping off a Band-Aid when he has to fly back.
So it was inevitable that the question would come up, and it did, repeatedly, almost as soon as the wheels were up on her boyfriend’s outbound flight after the Christmas break. “Can I go out to Indiana for winter break?” She may as well have been asking me if it were okay to declare her childhood over. The words stung like the purple tentacles of a Portuguese man-of-war.
“No problem as long as mom flies out with you,” I suggested helpfully.
“No, I want to go by myself.”
“Sure. Next February.”
“But you let Caelan go all the way to Virginia to see Logan when he was a year younger than I am.”
Guilty as charged. In fact, we had allowed her older brother to take a train down to Virginia by himself when he was 16 years old to spend a spring break with his girlfriend. But that did not mean I had to double down on bad precedent. I pointed out that Logan’s dad was with his daughter under their roof during the entire visit: I would be 850 miles away.
“You need to trust me, Dad. In six months I am going to be living in a dormitory surrounded by boys.”
The mantra has continued for weeks, as inexorably as waves rolling onto shore.
“So have you guys made up your minds?” she asked the other day, meaning, have you caved in yet? My wife is a licensed clinical social worker who deals with teenage issues all the time. She told me that we needed to trust Michaela to make her own decisions, but ultimately, she was deferring to me. As long as I made the right decision. I ran it past one of my best friends, who told me: “Have a little faith in her. Let her go, as she is in the process of letting you go.”
And so we will let her go to Indiana, and I suspect to farther flung places in the coming years. She needs to find her place in the world. But I hope my sweet girl will always remember, wherever she is, that as long as I’m living my baby she’ll be.
Michaela
In my 17 years I have noted that people tend to believe that spontaneity is a favorable attribute, something to seek in a friend or spouse. In reality, it is an atrocious character flaw. I simply cannot wrap my head around why this trait would be alluring to anyone.
My family is one of the most “spontaneous” groups of people you could find. From deciding on a whim one Thursday afternoon to grab the grandparents and drive 1,200 miles to Florida, to missing the class party on my 100th day of kindergarten because six inches of fresh powder were sitting atop Magic Mountain waiting to be carved by my family’s skis, little room is left for solid plans in the Kerin household. This is laughable considering 50% of the family is comprised of control freaks whose lives revolve around devising and executing meticulous plans.
A prime example of this “spontaneity” can be seen in the literal last-minute cancellation of a trip to one of my top schools. Ironically, my mother and I had planned the trip on Columbus Day weekend, months in advance. I say “ironically” because as already noted we rarely make actual plans in my family; so predictably, the one time we bought plane tickets weeks, rather than hours, before our flight, we ended up deferring the trip.
I was awakened the morning of our departure by my parents’ loud chattering in the hallway. They must have heard my covers ruffle because seconds later my dad whipped my door open, flicked on my light, and started talking to me at a normal volume and speed as if I’d been awake for hours.
Really Dad?
He proceeded to explain that due to “dangerous weather” my mom and I were not going to fly and we were instead going to visit schools in Connecticut.
Somehow our college weekend turned into a quick swing through Storrs (the location of the University of Connecticut) followed by an overnight at a lake house in the middle of nowhere. The A frame is owned by the second craziest man I know, my dad earning the distinction of first place in that category, namely Tom, one of my dad’s best friends.
Although I was not overly excited about the change of plans, that weekend was amazing. We sat on the porch for hours singing along to Taylor Swift songs (yes, the “we” includes my dad and Tom who were jamming out to T-Swizzle, and I have video-proof of it). We ate delicious Polish food that people who live across the lake brought over in their boat. We danced on the porch until we nearly lit our hair on fire in the tiki torches lighting the deck. We even saw a mythical sea creature emerge from the eerie lake waters which, as it turns out, was really just one of Tom and Sarah’s neighbors sneaking up to the dock on his paddle board. We ended the night by diving into the dark freezing water.
Sometimes I guess the best things in life really are those that we could never plan for.
Michael
Plans change fast for the Kerins. When you spend your summers living on a boat and your winters skiing you are always subject to the vagaries of Mother Nature. You have to develop a little fluidity in your plans. Sometimes going with the flow means you have to suddenly unpack a truck full of sweaters and ski gear, and repack it with bathing suits and sunscreen, when there’s a forecast for a week of rain up north. These minor deviations, okay 1,200 mile detours, are occasionally a necessary evil.
So Michaela was not pleased when we were obliged to nix her trip down to New Orleans because Hurricane Nate was barreling through the Caribbean with its sights set on the Big Easy. As a consolation prize, I thought we could look at some schools in New England, even though Michaela had vowed not to go to a school her parents could drive to in one day. My buddy, Tom, had, coincidentally, invited us to stay with him on an island at Lake Williams, about 12 miles from U Conn.
She was unimpressed as we drove through the rolling farmland of Northeastern Connecticut that morphed into a bustling campus of 32,000 students. But incredibly, she ran into two friends who were originally, like Michaela, reluctant applicants, but whose unbridled enthusiasm for their new home was apparently contagious as Michaela was beaming by the time we drove away from the campus.
Tom and his 16-year-old daughter, Sarah, met us at the dock on the mainland in their motorboat so they could ferry us out to the island as the sun slid behind the trees across the lake, lighting up the sky in a raspberry sherbet swirl that seemed to brighten defiantly before surrendering to nightfall. Four neighbors arrived in a pontoon boat, joining our impromptu party on Tom’s porch, as Taylor Swift blared from a speaker and the five girls started to shake, shake, shake to her sick beat. At one point someone ghosted across the lake, his paddle board all but invisible, just another neighbor approaching.
The next morning, the four of us, plus Tom’s Lab, piled into a canoe whose bottom sloshed with an alarming amount of water. We all tried to squeeze our bottoms onto the aluminum braces that clamped the sides of the boat together, but whenever Tom turned the little electric motor one way or the other the canoe tipped precariously. We had to lower our center of gravity and quickly. Michaela must have sensed that I was going to enlist her as a volunteer because she threw a beach towel onto the floorboards, then more or less nudged me off of the aluminum strut onto towel. “Thanks, dad,” she giggled. My jeans stayed dry but only for the few seconds that it took before the towel was fully soaked.
We said goodbye and headed south on 395 toward New London until Mickey announced there was a better likelihood of her going to school on Mars, so we spun around and pointed north toward Boston.
I wish that kid would stick to a plan, just once.
Michaela
If you are like most of my friends, you had your first, second, and third dream colleges, along with safeties, memorized since you were a freshman. However if you’re like me, when someone asked where you were looking, you spontaneously chose names that rolled off of your tongue like “Quinnipiac” or something that matched your outfit like “Brown,” until you actually looked at schools and formulated an idea of what you were looking for.
In April, my parents took me on a five day college road trip. My mom and I had planned the trip months before, scheduling tours at several schools in Delaware, D.C., Virginia, and North Carolina. We made sure to coordinate our agenda in such a way that we would have time for a guided tour of each school with extra time to explore the campuses on our own. Well, we certainly had extra time to explore as we successfully missed every single tour that we had scheduled. My dad likes to blame me for missing the tours, claiming that my inability to get dressed and ready quickly was the ultimate cause of our tardiness at the schools. However, if we didn’t have to circle around the parking lot of our hotels four times every morning while the dinosaur learned how to use his “iPhone GPS” we may have had a better chance of making it to a tour on time.
Surprisingly, making it to the schools was the easy part: maneuvering through the campuses while attempting to pretend that the weird, tall guy in the bright orange shorts and the fur-lined crocs was not my father was the harder part. It only got worse when he opened his mouth. One morning, we arrived at the University of Virginia, late of course, where hundreds of people spilled out of a huge auditorium, but somehow the three of us managed to cram into a nook in the vestibule. After a few moments of looking around and sizing up everyone, my dad turned to me with a mischievous grin and not-so-quietly remarked: “Hey, I’m pretty confident that I am the coolest dad in this room right now. I mean, look at me!” Come on dad, I would like to say that there was a time when the “Hairless Potter glasses” and hiked up-shorts were in, but Mom assures me there was never such a time.
After missing our tour and latching onto someone else’s already over-crowded tour in progress, we wanted to get a quick bite to eat on the patio of a Georgetown café overlooking the Potomac.. After waiting for nearly 45 minutes, my dad asked me what I ordered, insinuating that my order caused the delay.
“A quesadilla and a salad.” I answered.
“Quesadilla. That means ‘house of the day’ in Spanish. Casa día.”
No Urkel, not even close. Really Dad?
Michael
“Dad, can you please not yell: ‘Hey Mick, are you okay?’ when I don’t come out of the bathroom instantly?” my daughter pleaded as we walked into the lobby of the Walt Whitman rest stop of the New Jersey Turnpike. Like I’m some kind of over-protective weirdo. We were on our way home from our college tour through some of the Southern Atlantic colleges on the Thursday before Easter. I hit the men’s room, shuffled around the lobby watching the steady progression of humanity flow through the rest stop, thinking it was not a safe place to linger. I poked my head into the foyer of the ladies’ room, if that’s even the correct name anymore, and shouted: “Hey Mick, you okay?” More than a couple sets of eyeballs glared at me.
Someone from the recesses of the bathroom yelled “Freak!” although I couldn’t tell whether it was Michaela.. Usually, I just enlist the assistance of a good Samaritan to wander in and ask if there is a Michaela in the bathroom, but with the irritated looks I was getting from the potential volunteers, I had no choice but to call again, “Mick?”
“You freak show, dad,” was the hoarse whisper that was unmistakably my daughter. .Now I could relax.
Like all the best laid plans, our meticulously “Mapquested” adventure was doomed from the get-go by a combination of factors that conspired against us. We missed our official Georgetown tour because of DC’s tangled traffic, but managed to merge inconspicuously (or so I thought) with a tour already in progress. The ebullient guide interrupted her canned spiel when she spied our arrival saying: “Welcome. Glad you could join us!” I fought off the urge to introduce ourselves as the Griswold family, but my little Audrey, I mean Michaela, was already looking for a large rock to crawl under, so I settled for a dorky wave.
We missed the American University tour later that afternoon because of a lackadaisical waiter. No great loss because as soon as we rolled onto campus Michaela crossed the school off her list. “How did you spend two years here, Dad?” I wondered the same thing as we sliced southwest across Virginia to Charlottesville where we checked into a hotel three mile from the campus of the next school, confident we would be on time for our 8:30 am tour the following morning.
Wrong again. Despite my repeated entreaties to coax my girl out of the hotel, I couldn’t end the fashion show in front of the mirror quickly enough. My stylish daughter was one of the last prospective students to saunter into the UVA amphitheater, where the Dean of Admissions reminded us that in 16 months we would be saying goodbye to our daughter as she embarked on her academic journey. I could feel Michaela looking up at me, reading my thoughts, as she looped her arm through mine, oblivious to the crowd of her peers surrounding us.
