Pages

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

A Functional Adult Goes to the Doctor


I went to the doctor with the unassailable conviction that I was getting capital-S Sick.  Not just the kind of sick that I might have used in high school to convince my mom I couldn’t go to school, no, Sick for Real. 

I avoided the terrible magazine selection (mostly periodicals called things like Parents Health Thinks) by shrewdly bringing my Kindle with me.  Mwah ha ha.  Mindy Kaling's new book for the win!  Then, it was just being told to pee in a cup, worrying I hadn’t drunk enough water for that, successfully peeing in a cup (girls get extra credit for this), and sitting around in the doctor’s office.  It wasn’t my usual doctor, a nice lady with a last name that sounds like a soda who seemed to appreciate that despite looking like a 17-year-old, I was a Serious Career Woman with Plans and the Need to Feel Better.

No, Dr. Squirt was on vacation and so I was seeing a doctor who was a man.  Hm.  That’s okay, I mused, my childhood pediatrician was a man and also was THE man, insofar as when I got a concussion at a stupid concert my senior year of high school, he told my mom it was great that I was so independent.  Awesome doctor.

This doctor could be awesome, I guessed.  I listed my symptoms for him, discussing three separate problems since I was already in there anyway, and concluded jocularly that I was pretty much about to die given all of that. 

He looked at me with a wise, doctoral look (none of my friends in med school do this yet, so I assume you learn it during residency) and said, “You’re 25.  It’ll get a lot worse.”

Shocked and concerned he might think I was ungrateful for my generally excellent health, I sputtered that I knew, that I was joking.  Then I realized that perhaps this was not the kind of doctor who appreciated a delightful young woman appearing in his office to make brave jokes despite her illness.  He might not have approved of how getting a concussion in a mosh pit showed independence.  He didn’t even ask me if I had a job!  He definitely did not appreciate my Serious Careeritude.  What he DID do was hand me a paper gown, tell me to put it on, and say he’d be back in a minute.

I put the stupid gown on.  He came back.  As he proceeded to squash my abdomen (why do doctors always do this to me?  What is this even testing for?  MY ORGANS ARE STILL THERE, THANK YOU), my mental processes continued as follows:
  • Consider making a joke about how one too rarely gets the opportunity to wear an enormous paper towel.  Reject idea.
  • Consider joke about breeziness of afore-mentioned paper gown.  Reject as creepy.
  • Return to paper towel joke, this time considering whether it would be funnier with something about me using the paper towel to clean my kitchen counters

At this point, I realized that I might have been staring and failing to respond to questions.  The doctor eventually diagnosed me and sent a prescription to the pharmacy, where I spent the next half hour alternating between reading my Kindle and staring balefully at the pharmacy assistant while subtly twitching in the hope she would sympathize with my illness-induced discomfort.  It worked---she finished faster than she’d promised.  God bless her, because I didn’t think I could be mature for more than 15 minutes more.  I had used up all of my maturity at the doctor.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

A Functional Adult Exercises


Liz (to Liz's body):  It's sunny outside!  We're going to go for a run!

Liz's body:  Wooo!  It's Saturday!  We slept for 10 HOURS last night!  Everything is wonderful!

Liz:  Yay!

-- two minutes later --

Liz's body:  Wait, I'm sorry.  This is what you meant by a run?  I had forgotten what that word means.

Liz:  Shut up.

Liz's body:  Seriously, though, I was under the impression we didn't do this sort of thing anymore?

Liz:  What are you talking about?  I exercise!  All the time!

Liz's body:  Yeah, no... the last time we did this was when you were studying for that test.  That bar thing.  That was clearly just about procrastinating from studying any more about holographic wills.

Liz:  No, no, that was about turning over a new leaf!  Becoming a lean, mean, legal machine!

Liz's body:  Nope, you gave the DISTINCT impression otherwise.  You see, you did some running during your bar-prep thing.  But after that, you spent six solid months eating food trucks for lunch every day and didn't move from that Aeron chair for 10 hours a day.  You had clearly thrown out that terrible "running" thing along with those community property flashcards.

Liz's right glute:  Creeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrnk.

Liz:  I... what?  What's happening?

Liz's body:  And you see, I acted in reliance on that.  I got comfortable with it.  And that means you, bucko, are estopped from changing things.

Liz:  Estopped?  Where did you learn all that?

Liz's body:  I was paying attention in Barbri, unlike you.

Liz's left calf:  PING PING POW!

Liz:  Knock it off!  All of you!  I'm very fit!  Come on, guys!

Liz's body:  I have become accustomed to a certain lifestyle, and you will not take that away from me!  DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?

Liz's lung (just remembering asthma, and how great that is):  Fzzzzzzzzzzzz fzzzzzzzzzzz fwwwwooooooopf.

Michelle Branch (via iPod shuffle):  If I just BREEEEEAAAATHE...

Liz:  DAMMIT, Michelle, I'm TRYING!

(Liz limps dejectedly home)