On Impressing Your Doctor
I like to think of myself as a (somewhat) confident guy. I know that I exist in the space somewhere between gutter-trash and superhero. Where, exactly, I fit on that spectrum depends on the day I’m having and if I’ve recently scarfed down an entire pizza in a dark room (it doesn’t count if no one can see your shame!). So, I always find it kind of weird how nervous I get whenever I’m going to see a medical professional and I wanted to explore this phenomenon…so here we go!
As someone who grew up with bad eyes, bad teeth, and the proclivity to throw myself off and through objects and people, I’ve seen a lot of doctors, dentists, optometrists, ophthalmologists, orthodontists, anthropologists, archeologists, cryptozoologists…wait, I think I lost the plot somewhere in there. Back to what I was saying, I’ve seen a lot of medical professionals, and even though I know it’s their job to help me be my healthiest self, and I know that I’m paying them (oftentimes a LOT of money), and I KNOW that part of their job is to not be judgmental… I still get super nervous and feel like I need to impress my doctor!
I know I’m not the only one who feels like this because most people can relate to the shame you feel when you go to the dentist and that sadistic son of bitch spends fifteen minutes jabbing and prodding and sawing at your gums only to ask, “how often do you floss?” And if the answer is anything less than, “every single minute of every day since I last saw you my denticular demi-god.” They’ll quietly scoff and say, “hmm that’s not enough, that’s why your gums are bleeding thusly.”
The thing about me is, I feel this way before I see ANY kind of doctor! I get worried my blood pressure is too high and that will make me unlikable. I get worried my vision is too poor and that makes me annoying. I get worried that my bones are all wrong and my joints are just terrible and my spleen is too big and my gallbladder has the gall to be too close to my bladder and all of this will make a professional (who has spent thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars to make it to the top of their field)…think I’m not very cool or good.
Oftentimes when my back is hurting or my nose is stuffed or I’ve eaten too much pizza in the dark like the little gremlin I am, I think of my body as this weird meat prison that my dumb brain drives around like a car. I’m not this body, I’m not these bones. I’m not these eyes, or this heart, or these teeth…so why the heck do I feel like my doctor is going to judge me just because my hearing has gotten slightly worse in the last 30 years?!
Does anyone else feel this way or am I alone on this wild-ass island?
Other than my bad eyes (glasses since age 10), lopsided overbite (braces for three years that made only minimal improvement, unlike the author's, which helped create a smile that now looks commercial-ready), weak arches and the baseball collision involving multiple torn ligaments at 35 that left me with surgical scars on both sides of my left knee, a knee that now resides in a leg slightly shorter than the other causing hip alignment issues I will deal with until I drop, I actually felt like I was in pretty good shape the last 30 plus years or so. Then my blood pressure starting creeping up. I was convinced it was all situational. I even thought I had proof. A couple years ago at my physical, the nurse took my blood pressure when I arrived, and then later, after my doctor and I had somehow got into talking about how much Trump enraged us, he took my blood pressure again and it was up 20 points. But eventually I had to recognize that time, age and heredity have an impact and now I'm on a blood pressure medication so effective I can think about Trump and that cloud of red no longer floods my vision! So what I'm saying, I guess is, Yay drugs!
Will, I think EVERYONE feels this way! My husband won't make a Dr. appointment until he has lost 5 pounds and gone off wine for three weeks.