ADVENTURES IN MEDICINE

Since my injury I have spent an inordinate amount of time waiting in examination rooms to be examined. At PRO-MED ( a misnomer that I will elaborate on in a bit ) and at my regular doctors office. I don't like going to the doctor, I don't even like going to my own, who has been "my own" for about 12 years...he's a perfectly likeable doc...12 years in his care is testimony enough to his skill and personality. In no particular order are things and anecdotes about what I don't like about going to the doctor.

Having to take off my pants for strangers, ( back in the 70's, taking off your pants for strangers of the female persuasion was a good thing, provided it was in a car in some darkened corner of the armadillo parking lot versus an examination room), especially if I'm sans boxers. When you take off your pants in an examination room, it usually leads to a digital invasion. The most recent was for purposes of x-rays of my back, and wouldn't you know, I was freeballin' it that day.Oh, how I wished I had donned the eightball boxers that morning.

Waiting around...If you have an appointment at 10am, the doctor should see you at 10am. I realize that every other patient is just like me, the center of the medical universe, and even though you're there for bloodwork, you can't resist inquiring about those unsightly skinflaps on your neck that you think might be melanoma and your doc freezes them off biting into the other patients time. As much as I remind myself of the fact while reading every article in a 2 year old field and stream magazine it's still annoying. Until it's my turn to monopolize the good doctors time.

Speaking of bloodwork...In the lexicon of medical annoyances, I think this is the worst. It's a multifaceted frustration. Most of my bloodwork is NPO, that is, nothing by mouth after 11pm the night before. So, if you have a 10am appointment that means you can have nothing to eat or drink for 11 hours...granted, some of that time is spent sleeping and that would make it less of an ordeal and you have gone longer periods without food or drink on your own. But when such a limit is artificially imposed to end with a procedure that makes you want to be sick anyway, 11 hours is a long LONG time.

The procedure...The trauma of having blood drawn is determined by 2 definite factors: How many tubes are they drawing and the skill level of the vampire phlebotomist doing the draw. I have had excellent ones where you don't even feel it, and ones that obviously learned the skill from shaky heroin addicts on skid row by using a 10 penny nail for practice. I was fully expecting the same phlebotomist that has drawn my blood for years the other day...a wizard, he is. No pain, and the tape he used to attach the cotton ball stuck to itself and not you (and your arm hair).
He found about it while working for a veterinarian, which gave him bonus points. I didn't mind the jokes he made about my aversion to being poked by a needle versus the times I had been voluntarily poked repeatedly by needles as evidenced by my tattoos, an irony we both found humorous.
Imagine my surprise when a new vampire phlebotomist skipped into the room with a kit box that resembled something you could buy from the hello kitty website, all pink and white and gay. Just like him...he was so gay that my gaydar link shut itself down. I don't have a problem with gayness, but because I look like I do, most gay folks assume that I do have a problem with it and react accordingly. And this guy was extremely fey...I swear, a showtune medley followed him into the room. He made a funny about how I should have an "x marks the spot" tattoo, I laughed and said "yeah,maybe even a target" and when he saw me go pale and turn my head away, he asked if I was alright. I said yes, I just don't like this...at all. And before we could enjoy the humorous irony his homophobe switch went off, and like most extraordinarily fey gay men, he turned into an extraordinarily fey gay bitch. And then he used the medical equivalent of duct tape to attach the cotton ball to the hole he poked in my arm, which by the way hurt like a mother ( I feel sorry for his boyfriend, if you catch my drift). And his shoes...but I won't go there. Meh.

Sitting in the waiting room...surrounded by sick people who are coughing and hacking and wheezing and generally propelling their illness into air that I am breathing. I generally try to find the most remote corner to wait in, but invariably, someone with lesions, sweating and shaking profusely, sits down right next to me. Or, the only available seat is over by the kids area...you know the spot with the toy box teeming with pathogens surrounded by kids with glow in the dark snot running down their cheeks waiting to be launched into the free air with every hack and sneeze as their mothers look lovingly on over the pages of last Octobers Womans day magazine as they cough, uncovered, in your direction.

Ah...medicine.