Eric Goes To The Doctor Again

If you missed part 1 of "Eric Goes To The Doctor", start here to get caught up.

Back in the office, I attempted to impress my coworkers with the fact that I had, all on my own, scheduled a doctor's appointment and then managed to actually go. Since I didn't have the results of my body fat measurement, I asked people what percentage body fat they thought I was. Sujit guessed 10%, Cristine went with 10% before revising to 12%. They are either trying to not hurt my feelings, or have never heard of a body fat measurement, and are just making up numbers to humor me. In either case, I appreciated it.

Truth be told, my bigger (and really only) concern was cholesterol. My dad has bad cholesterol - if this was a genetic thing, I might be forced to change my diet, which would be a complete and utter disaster (oatmeal, here I come). My favorite foods include beef, dungeness crab, cheese, oysters, bacon, french fries, scallops, pork, clams and butter. I mulled over the situation - in a week, I would know what my cholesterol situation was. If it was good, hey, who cares what I eat, cholesterol can't faze me. If it's bad, then my last chance to eat high cholesterol foods totally "guilt-free" would be this week.

My dinner consists of two bacon cheeseburgers from Five Guys. Mmmmm. If only they also had sides of deep fried oysters.

If I were a comic book character, my primary weakness would have to be "bruises like a peach". I noticed that the spot they drew my blood sample from had grown into a bigger-than-a-poker-chip-but-smaller-than-a-coaster size purple bruise. That was okay, though - that happens all the time, and was at least explainable. But then two nights later I slept on my elbow on some hotel sheets in a funny way, and awoke to find that my elbow now contained a pattern an ordinary person would not characterize as a bruise. Either I had joined some sort of gang which required members to tattoo their elbow with an abstract picture of a blue waffle (what a badass gang, right?) or I was a desperate heroin junkie who had run out of needle spots on my arm.

I returned to the Islamic fundamentalist/proudly gay/postcard salesman doctor's office the following week, this time ready for literally anything. They send me into a patient room, which I am told is the "Disney Room". (I am now forced to retract my earlier statement, because I was most definitely not ready for that.) Sure enough, one corner of the room has about 50-60 stuffed animals, with a bias towards Mickey Mouse, the Nemo fish and Winnie the Pooh. The walls have framed photos of Epcot Center and the Magic Kingdom. Other paraphernalia abounds. This would all be okay if this were a pediatrician's office or the gift shop next to Space Mountain but alas, I am in neither of those places.

In comes a guy who looks like he's my age, wearing a tie. He says that he's a medical student on rotations, and asks if I would mind if he conducted the survey portion of my exam. I'm fine with that, although I am starting to wonder if I will ever actually meet this doctor. He nervously asks me 100 or so questions, and then starts to look even more nervous.

"Umm...so...uhhh....are you...umm...sexually active?" Ah, I see. I have never gotten this question at the doctor before, since my last checkup was at 16. And if you knew me at age 16, you can attest that it was probably not necessary to ask me that question at that point in time. You could just check the box and move on to the food allergies section.

"Okay, now I'm going to take your blood pressure."
"Okay." The blood pressure thing is hanging on the wall, but unfortunately for this medical student (and maybe me, too) hanging over that is a Winnie the Pooh necklace and a large Pinocchio book with a chain attached to it. The medical student seems very wary of not messing up the "Disney Room" and tries to remove the blood pressure reader without disturbing Winnie the Pooh or Pinocchio. He is, as you might guess, having a hard time.

"Uhh...hang on just a second, sir...I just need a moment here.." He continues to fiddle with the Disney merchandise, and swears under his breath.
"I'm sorry sir, just a moment...uhh...I'm sorry normally this Pinocchio book is not on top of the blood pressure reader..."
I am at a loss for words. "It's okay man, just take the necklace off the hook and then put it back on later."
"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea."
"Sure does buddy, sure does."

The student starts walking me through my results, and has good news galore. I'm not anemic, I'm probably not diabetic, my blood can clot, nothing weird happened on that EKG, and in the biggest news of the day, I have high good cholesterol and very low bad cholesterol. My body fat percentage is 20.0%, which is a few percentage points too high for someone my size, but forget that, I'm eating another bacon cheeseburger for lunch to celebrate this whole cholesterol thing. Bacon is just so good.

Finally, I get to meet the doctor. It's a meeting that lasts less than 5 minutes. He's wearing an untucked linen shirt that would be professional if he were a member of the Buena Vista Social Club. (I wonder if the medical student feels like an idiot in his white shirt and tie.) I decide to ask some questions.
"So, this is the "Disney Room"?"
"Yes it is." There is a pause, which the doctor decides not to fill with an explanation of why he has a Disney Room.
"Why do you have a Disney Room?"
"Oh, I just like it." I can think of no follow-up to his concise answer, and abandon the 100 other questions I have.

It's not that obvious he's gay, other than the fact that I'm in a room with 60 stuffed animals and the lobby has 30 or so gay magazines and newspapers and his male receptionist sounds like a woman. But without all those hints, I'd probably only be 65-70% confident he was gay. It doesn't look like he shaved his face this morning, which is either out of laziness, or is day 1 of his plan to grow a beard so he can hang out with the radical jihadists and not get made fun of. There is some talk about a hepatitis A vaccine and some other assorted pleasantries, but soon after, I am on my way. All in all, a somewhat anticlimactic meeting. He doesn't even bother to try to sell me any of his postcards. I wonder if he is assuming I am cheap.

Although I gained some peace of mind, the real net result of going to the doctor was that I become unhealthier by 3 bacon cheeseburgers. I'm told by a variety of friends that most trips to the doctor are somewhat different than mine and that I should change doctors. I don't know though, I got a lot of stories out of my $10 co-pay, and I'm very curious to know if there are other theme rooms. Realistically though, I probably won't get another checkup for at least 2-3 years just due to sheer laziness.

Perhaps on that visit, I will finally learn how tall I am.