Jun. 30th, 2003

katallison: (fresh hell Scully)
I was thinking vaguely about doctors this evening--prompted, I suppose, by another day of this massive exhaustion I've been feeling lately, which is like exhaustion at the cellular level, the kind where getting up out of my chair to go to flop on the couch becomes a major project. And so I was thinking "Hm, maybe this is something I should see someone medical about," and then I thought nah. Especially not until my employer decides if they're going to cut out of their coverage network the clinic I've gone to most of my adult life, a prospect which pisses me off.

I mean, OK, even if they did that, I'd still *have* coverage, albeit elsewhere, which makes me insanely lucky by the standards of 21st century America. But ... I don't want to start over at a new place, dammit, and I most especially do not want to lose my beloved Dr. J., my gynecologist, who really is the only medical person I see with any regularity. She's the one who used to send me registered letters to prod me to haul ass in for checkups after the glorious hoo-ha of "We think you have cervical cancer, whoopsie, guess you don't after all, never mind" that made my 37th birthday so much fun. She gives me regular grief about the crap-ass care I take of my body, and she knows the general topography of my fibroids, and she laughs at my lame jokes, and all in all she rocks.

But apart from her, I was reflecting, I've had some less-than-wonderful doctors in my time. Including the guy who was basically responsible for the cancer-whoopsie situation--the one who was annoyed when I broke down sobbing in his examining room. ("But you don't appear to have cancer after all! Aren't you happy?") And then there was the (possibly somewhat senile) wowser who, after giving me an exam, asked me if I'd ever considered getting electrolysis for my (ahem) bikini line ("Your boyfriend would like it, I bet!"), and when I said no-thank-you, went ahead and handed me a business card anyway for some sleazy storefront clinic, saying, with a sort of innocent happiness, that they gave him a fruit basket at Christmas for each new patient he referred. And my childhood dentist, who did not believe in that new-fangled novocaine stuff, and the guy who certainly didn't think I needed local anaesthetic for a simple little procedure like having a ginormous needle shoved under my kneecap to draw off fluid.

My favorite, perhaps, is the ER doc who saw me when I was 16 and in horrific abdominal pain, the guy who gave me my first-ever, extremely rough, pelvic exam, which was so excruciating that I literally leapt into the air, trying to get away, and who then decided I probably had gonorrhea (I discovered this by checking medical records later), without bothering to ask any questions to see if such a thing was actually possible (which at that point in my life it assuredly wasn't), and who shot me bung-full of penicillin, prompting a massive allergic attack that left me covered in hives for a week and unable to ever have penicillin again.

Not that I'm bitter or anything.

But anyway, I tend to avoid doctors unless it's absolutely clear that there's something wrong with me that won't improve without clear direct medical intervention. The exhaustion is almost certainly due to the aforementioned crap-ass care I take of myself, and can best be dealt with by cutting out the cigarettes, cutting back the alcohol, getting to the gym, and remembering to take my vitamins once in a while (since proper nutrition is likely a lost cause). This getting-older business...I tell you, kids, it's wonderful in the life-wisdom-accumulating way, but the physical aspects of it suck.

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katallison

November 2009

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