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.

Eric Goes To The Doctor

Do you go to the doctor every year for a checkup? I don’t. Or rather, I didn’t. As of early May 2008, it had been almost nine full years since I’d been to a general practitioner for a routine exam. My reasons for not getting annual checkups, despite having had them for 16 consecutive years, were numerous and compelling.

1. I generally felt like a healthy person.
2. My mom stopped making the appointments for me, and I am a lazy and ineffective individual without such assistance.
3. Who wants to co-pay $10? Not this guy, that’s for sure.
4. I am averse to doctors and medication, preferring to let my body build its own immunities naturally.

Nonetheless, after nine years, self-doubt had begun to creep in. People who knew of my long layoff were nagging me to get a checkup. Lipitor ads were playing every 10 minutes on TV, and my dad’s high cholesterol only added to my concerns (“Cholesterol can come from fettuccine alfredo, but it can ALSO come from your Uncle Alfredo!”). So I bit the bullet and called one of the closest doctors in my coverage network, a (name changed) Dr. Mahmoud Ayoub. What nationality was this guy? Was he going to have a lot of facial hair and ban me from eating pork? This was off to a dubious start, but at least his office was really close by. I scheduled a physical with the nice lady on the phone, who, based on my admittedly limited knowledge, did not sound like a jihadist.

Visit 1 of 2: Bloodwork

The first appointment was just to get my insurance information, blood and urine samples, and run some on-the-spot tests. I walked in and was greeted by a short bald man. A short bald man who had the exact same voice as the nice non-jihad lady who made my appointment.

Ohhhh, okay, got it. Nah, nah, it’s totally cool man, nothing wrong with that.

I sit down to fill out some insurance paperwork, which I whiz through in no time. I might have just set the office’s insurance paperwork all-time record. I proudly smile to myself, because I am a complete idiot. Looking around for a magazine to read, I spot an Elle Magazine and a U.S. News and World Report. Lame. I continued searching. I find a Radar magazine, a local gay and lesbian newspaper, and some other magazine with a dorky, yet shirtless Asian guy holding 17 different forms of sporting equipment under the tagline “Big Gay Summer Sports Spectacular”. My confidence that Dr. Mahmoud Ayoub is something short of a raging Islamic fundamentalist continues to grow.

My name gets called, and I am directed down the main hallway into a patient room. The walls of the hallway are literally jam-packed with personalized autographed photos from every “diva” beloved by the flamboyant. Cher, Madonna, Celine Dion, Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey. Maybe Bette Midler. (An aside: my indifferent-yet-mildly-negative stance on Bette Midler changed on a recent visit to Vegas, where a Bette Midler impersonator at the Imperial Palace inexplicably dealt me 4 blackjacks and two 20s in 7 hands.)

After a moment, a medical assistant comes in to start the physical. “How tall are you?”

I am slightly flummoxed. I have not been measured since age 16, and can’t say with 100% confidence how tall I am. “Well, see, when I was 16, I measured 6’2”, and I personally think I’m probably the same height, especially since I wear the same length pants. After age 17, a lot of people kept telling me I got taller, but I think maybe that’s just better posture on my part. But I could be 6’3”, it’s possible.”
“So…you don’t know how tall you are?”
“Well, I mean, no...but I know within a reasonable range.”
“Uhh…okay, I’m just going to put down 6’2” and a half.”
“Can you just measure me?”
“We don’t do that here.”
“What, really?”
“Well, this is a general practitioners’ office. Most of our patients already know how tall they are.”
“Oh. I see.” Isn’t a doctor’s office supposed to be able to measure you? I bet this guy was lying. We were already off to a poor start.

“So when did you last have a checkup?”
“Almost 9 years ago. I like to build my own immunities naturally.”
“Uhh…okay.”
“That works, right?”
“I mean, it could.” Whatever. This guy’s not even a real doctor. I’m not taking any eye-rolls from this jackass.

I proceed to get weighed, give blood and urine samples, and get some kind of body fat measurement (though they don’t tell me the results). Then an EKG. (Holy shit! An EKG? Is this normal? They can’t measure how tall I am but want to give me an EKG? Am I dying? What’s happening here? Fortunately I say nothing, have the EKG, and continue to live.) And then – I’m done. That’s it.

As I walk back to the lobby to schedule my “actual” physical, it occurs to me that I still haven’t met the doctor. I now notice that he is also a photographer, and the lobby is selling postcards of city and nature shots he’s taken all around the world. People always tell me not to have my tailoring done by a dry cleaner – you want your tailor to be only a tailor. I wonder if this also applies to doctors. Is it bad if your doctor is also an amateur photographer and postcard creator? I schedule the return visit for the following week, and head in to work.

It is safe to say at this point, my curiosity about my bearded raging Islamic fundamentalist/flamboyantly homosexual/artistically entrepreneurial doctor has reached an all-time high.

On to Part 2...