sometimes you eat the bear

I just read this story about a guard dog that freaked out and ripped up a priceless teddy bear that had once belonged to Elvis. I completely empathize with that dog.

Another agonizingly hot day. I thought that it was a little cooler than yesterday but today the storms kept threatening around the edges, never quite following through on the promises of lightening and thunder.

Another long hot car ride out to where there are signs of civilization, like doctors' offices and such. Today's ride ended with a surly receptionist who had NOT entered my appointment in the computer when I made it more than a week ago. I stayed calm, ish. I asked her to see if I had messed up and come on the wrong day. She looked me up. "No, you don't have an appointment in here. The last appointment was in March..." she started to read me the exact date and time of the appointment, like that was somehow relevant. I interrupted her "I know I didn't imagine making the appointment. I just rode all the way out here in an unairconditioned car. Is there any way he can fit me in today?" She flipped through my chart, looked things up, walked away from the desk twice, came back and did some more flipping through my chart. "It's a $25 copay" she said.

This apparently meant "yes, I checked and we can fit you in". I said "Ummmmm, ok. Do you have any idea what the timeline would be? I mean, how long?" She huffed and said tersely "I don't know. He'll try to fit you in..."

I stopped writing my check, "So uh, do I get my money back if it's five and he hasn't been able to see me?" More attitude "No. We close at 4:00." Oh no she didn't! Oh yes she did. "Do I get my money back if it's 4:00 and he hasn't been able to see me?" I said. I'm quite sure I said it with a whole lot of tone. I don't recall because my attention was not on self monitoring but rather turned inward, where I was throttling her like a dobermann with a teddy bear.

Very shortly after that, a nurse took me in. You know, it's funny how shocked they get in a doctor's office when you swear. There's extra shock when you swear in a gynecologist's office. Although for me, I was reserved, I know I said "fuck" and "bullshit" at least once each. "Maybe we'll just wait on your blood pressure" the nurse said stepping away from me like my potty mouth might be contagious. I watched her tanned french manicured fingers, ornamented with a white gold solitaire diamond engagement ring and wedding band, while she checked my pulse. When she finished my vital signs, I stood up. Now, second only to swearing for that "clutch the pearls" kind of response is if the patient who has been seated by the medical provider has the impudence to actually stand up. It's ok if you start off standing, if they didn't tell you to have a seat here or there. But for god's sake, don't get up unless you want to scare the shit out of them.

The nurse with the pretty hands backed up until she was pressed against the counter - I remained standing, speaking to her and the plastic larger than life movable parts display of the female reproductive organs. I remained standing while the nurse told me my doctor would not have time to perform the exam but his resident would. The plastic vagina sat safely mute on the counter behind her.

The nurse scurried off to find the more steel willed or at least less candy assed resident. I changed into the sheet they give you to change into and surveyed the room. One of my friends has told me that one way she deals with the demeaning effects of this sort of shit at the doctor's office is by taking things. Not shit like needles and stuff, they don't leave that out and anyhow, it's not what you'd take. I love this idea btw. Unfortunately, unless I wanted to try to jam the removable parts plastic twat into my purse, there was really nothing else that whispered "Take me!" Fortunately, A___ and I had stolen a pair of the paper shorts from the Ortho surgeon's office yesterday. I savored this memory for a moment, then pulled apart the adhered pages on the patient pamphlets on Lupron and shoved them back into the holder. Not much but it made me feel a teeny bit better.

So the exam was all good, said the Uber-gynecologist (the one I was supposed to see....the reason I drive all the way the fuck out there because he's an expert in Endometriosis which is what I have). All super duper great. Fucking fabo, oh yeah, except that my left ovary is fucked. This one has always been a problem and it is on the same side as the fucked up hip. But this did not bother Uberdoctor. It seemed to rattle his resident a bit during the exam though.

Because she was a resident and, I suspect, relatively new at this, she narrated her exploration with the ultrasound probe. "That" she said crushing a very tender part of my anatomy with the tip of the lubed condom wrapped probe "is your ovary" "Oh." I said. Because what else do you say? "It's...have you had problems with cysts before?" she asked wrenching the probe around some more to see it from a different angle. "Well, yeah...in college. I passed out. Ended up in the hospital" I offered. "This one has some, ah, well, and um....it's a little, well big. It's not as big as it looks on the screen. It's magnified. I'll just get some pictures" she said as she used her free hand to set the machine to capture various images of this large mutated looking thing. "And that's your other ovary," she said brightly, subjecting my other side to the twisting probe crush. "Oh yeah, that one's way back there....much smaller."

Again, what do you say to that? I guess I'm glad she didn't treat me like a slab of meat, but I have very little to say to her on the topic of a comparison of my ovaries. The way it works is they do the exam, then you wipe up and get dressed, then go wait (in a special interior waiting room) to be called into the office. It feels a little like going to see the principal. "Shit. What's he going to say? Am I in trouble?" So I figured I'd get the full report in the office. I know from experience that asking "what does it mean that my left ovary looks like, well, like that?" during the exam would be seen as jumping the gun. They don't like jumping the gun in doctor's office land.

Exam over, wipe up, dressed, wait, and then into Uber-doctor's office where he told me everything looked 100% great and normal. What about the ovary? I thought. But at that point, I was fed up with being there, sick of doctors and nurses and annoying peevish receptionists, and tired of trying to curb my desire to flip the fuck out.

I decided the brush off was my "get out of jail free card" and took the opportunity to flee. I will go back if the ortho approach to whatever the fuck is wrong with my hip doesn't pan out, I swear I will, and I will insist that a note be put on the chart and appointment record saying only my doctor will do the exam. At that moment though, I just wanted to make a break for it before someone else did something else to piss me off. Days like this, it's just too easy to lose your cool.

Well, a wiser fellow than myself once said, sometimes you eat the bear...