Friday morning I had my physical. I get to visit Dr. H. every 3-4 months anyway, but most of the time, he examines the results of my blood work and tells me to lose weight, and I don't have to remove a stitch of clothing. But once a year or so, he feels compelled to poke and prod and look at things that probably ought not be looked at under such a bright light.
I prepared for this visit by getting blood work done a week ago, so those results added yet another page or two to my file, which is all of three inches thick. The folder that holds it all is tattered and worn. Then I had more redundant paperwork to do at the office. That's something else that happens once a year or so--I get to copy all the old stuff over onto a new form. Of course, if there are changes, I add those, but generally, everything is the same. The reason for my parents' deaths is not going to change, for example. In short, it is an exercise in repeatedly and redundantly, over and over again, duplicating my own words. Both forms, the old one and the new one, remain in the folder.
This year we even did an EKG. Dr. H. still can't seem to believe that a fat old broad like me is not just keeling over with heart failure. If they were truly concerned with my health, they'd do something about those damned stirrups. I admit, they've put a little flannel bootie on each one so it isn't cold, but that doesn't keep it from being turned at an uncomfortable angle. Am I weird, or what? Don't all people's feet point in generally the same direction? By the time I get my bottom scooted down to the edge of the table, my knees bent and aiming perpendicularly to my torso, my feet don't agree to turn inward. They have to be forced inward, and it hurts.
It didn't really hurt to get the PAP smear. I've had so many over the decades that probably all that's being snipped off now is scar tissue. At what point does a woman get to opt out of this indignity? Surely there's a better way.
And while we're at it, the finger in the rubber glove is no fun. Well, I guess I can't speak for Dr. H., but I don't get a lot of ha-ha out of it. It doesn't hurt, but surely there is some way to warm up that icy KY jelly. That'll wake you up in the morning, for sure.
The things on me that really do hurt never quite seem to be on the agenda. Where I clunked my hand on Bonny's console--only now has the bruising gone away, and there is a bump under the skin where I suspect a tiny bone may be broken and trying to heal. My fingers have varying degrees of arthritic knobs and bobbles. My ingrown toenail was ignored. I guess I could have made a point of having him look at it, but he'd have just sent me to the foot doctor again. Dr. H. is in INTERNAL medicine. Ears, noses, throats--a little. Genitalia--sometimes. But toes and fingers--not his job, man.
Esteemed spouse will be having his first visit with Dr. H. toward month's end. It will be .... different, I suppose .... to hear his take on the tiny little doctor. He won't like him, but then, he never likes doctors.
There's good reason, certainly, not to trust doctors implicitly. A local dermatologist has been accused of exposing possibly as many as 10,000 patients to infections like HIV because he was reusing instruments without properly sterilizing them. He is also accused of performing unneeded procedures and of billing for ones he did not perform. He lives in a gazillion-dollar lakefront mansion, and as one disgruntled patient put it, "Part of that house is mine." I hope she gets a big hunk of it. I don't care how unethical some professionals are--no one is likely to be killed by an unethical newscaster or hardware sales person. But doctors can kill and maim people, and apparently, some of them do so for fun and profit. I can't help but hope that this man will go to prison for a long, long time, and that while he's there, he contracts some skin-damaging virus. What a jerk. What a sadistic, self-centered, money-grubbing jerk. Dr. S.
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