shutitdown: taking one for the anecdote

Results tagged “medical attention”

Sexual healing

I had my first run-in with this pinko health care system they have over here last week. I went in for a check-up and did the blood pressure test and they weighed me and measured me and did all the same things that they do in America except that they have to pay for it in the US of A.

Then the doctor asks me if I'm sexually active. I never know what this means. Like, when they ask you this at your check-ups when you are 16, what they are really asking is if you are a virgin. They want to know if you need std checks or lectures on condoms or to be forced to carry around a flour sack in a romper for a week or two.

But at my age, I am never sure how to answer. I'm pretty sure they assume anyone who has suffered through as many years on earth as I have has also endured the indignity of coupling with a cretin or two, so what exactly are they trying to ask me? Do they want to know if I've been "active" lately? How active is active enough to give an affirmative to this question? Is giving the idea occasional consideration enough?

I gave a hesitant yes, which isn't precisely true, per se. But then the doctor, a blond who couldn't have been a day over 22, asked me when I had last engaged in intercourse. I panicked. I managed to cut the exact number in half before mumbling out my answer. She didn't seem impressed but just went on to her next awkward question.

This is what my life has come to. I lied to my doctor about my sexual "activity" so she wouldn't think I couldn't, like, get any.

By Lina on May 24, 2009 6:00 PM

Swiss cheese and the failings of the elderly

"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know." -Ernest Hemingway

For a large part of my life, the majority, actually, I've been operating under the assumption that were I just to destroy the correct section of my brain, I might be a happier person. Normal, even. This was my justification for going to the dentist that gives nitrous for every procedure, including cleanings. I had appointments for six Saturdays in a row, happy to spend the weekends together with my dentist and his tank of laughing gas. "That stuff will put holes in your brain," people say. "That's the idea," I reply. I'm not sure what, exactly, he was doing to my teeth, but I judiciously took a pregnancy test at the close of my series of dental appointments, just in case.

And now, the fruits of my labor--or maybe it's just old age--seem to be paying off. My brain seems to be slowing. Witticisms fly by me, not even stopping to say hello. Worse still, I'm not able to come up with the instantaneous and cutting remarks that I used to. Don't get me wrong, I'm still mean, it's just not as fast or funny. I took an IQ test online recently as a way to bolster my self-esteem and make my day go by more quickly. Imagine my surprise when I found that I had dropped 20 points since my last run-in with one of these things. Surprise turned to shock turned to a smile. Maybe I am a little bit happier, after all.

By Lina on January 23, 2008 10:06 AM

Not fat, but...

So before I left the States, I went for a physical. This was exciting because I like attention when I'm naked. My friend and I made appointments with the same doctor a day apart. His was first, and he came out with a look of shock on his face. "I'm fat," he said. "She said I'm fat."

"Did she actually use the word fat?" I asked. He nodded, and I was awash in the fear. My friend was a big dude, but not a fattie. If she thought he was fat, that probably meant that I was fat. I didn't think I could handle having to hear that, at least not on an empty stomach.

"Do you think I'm fat?" he asked, clutching himself around the middle and rocking back and forth. He made a frowny face and started trying to grab possible fat on his thighs. Since then, he's been having an inordinate amount of sex with strange women, in an attempt--I assume--to feel better about his purported obesity.

The next day I went to my appointment, with a stomach full of Snickers bars and dread. We did the usual things, the usual examinations. She chastised me about a number of boring things, and then made fun of my tattoo. Finally at the end, she told me to quick smoking and then started to walk out of the room.

"Wait," I called after her. She turned and came back to the where I was huddled in a paper gown, asscrack exposed. "So am I like, overweight or whatever?"

She looked down at her chart and delicately placed her finger against the BMI chart on the wall and slid it across. Firmly in the middle.

"Well," she said, with a look of slight disdain on her slightly-gaunt face, "you aren't overweight, but you could use some conditioning." In other words, you aren't fat but you're flabby. This is now my standard first-date dinnertime anecdote, finally throwing the time I was diagnosed with herpes out of its previous top position in my seductive stories list.

By Lina on July 23, 2007 6:46 PM

testing the bounds

amis105: i'm still waiting on my blood tests
amis105: i'm usually pretty careful though
amis105: but it's never fun to wait and find out
lina: when did you get tested?
lina: i do it every 4 months because i'm a neurotic
lina: my health insurance will only cover it once a year
lina: but if you tell them you got gang-raped they will do it more often
By Lina on December 22, 2006 3:11 PM

Triaging and Torsos

Tattoo removal is the black of the aughts. Of course I'm biased--I like to think that everything I do is the beginning of a hipster trend. I was right about legwarmers, wasn't I?

As I've already spent over a grand having my ankle lasered, I have to believe that there is some greater purpose than just turning a mediocre tattoo into a genuinely bad tattoo, which is how it appears now.

I had my most recent session of laser tattoo removal on Wednesday after work. They give me a few shots of some sort of local anesthetic which hurts like a bitch, and then they go to work. There are two of them, one is a nurse, I think, and the other is a laser technician. They like to weigh in about my life and career while they burn the top few layers off my skin. "Watch out for those European boys," the technician told me this time. "They're all drunks," she said knowingly, and then added as an afterthought, as she turned up the strength on the laser, "Living in the suburbs isn't so bad." She knew from my winces that I was trying to decide where I want to spend the next few years of my life.

Usually I'm grimacing and unable to respond to any of the life advice they give me. Sometimes, when the novocaine isn't strong enough, I scream "motherfucker!" and the ladies administering my treatment look away and act as if they hadn't heard.

I went home after my treatment this week and was in bed at my normal, early hour. I had a dream that my right foot and lower leg were on fire, and I woke up in terror around midnight. I realized that there was no fire, but the pain had not been imagined. My leg resembled a small tree trunk, if trees were red, swollen and tattooed. I took a few ibuprofen, checked my email for marriage proposals, and went back to bed.

I was unable to sleep, however, as the tears that were sliding down my cheeks refused to abate. I briefly considered calling my mother, as she now lives horrifyingly close by. (Hi Mom!) However, I thought it would be a good test of my mettle to take care of this minor incident on my own. If I plan to move to a country filled with spotted dick, I'm going to have to learn to fend for myself.

So I headed to the nearest emergency room at approximately 2 am. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Bay Area, I'm not going to give you a lesson in socioeconomics or how the crack trade has influenced the population here. Suffice it to say, I would not recommend using Oakland emergency rooms in the dead of night as a source of health care.

I was greeted, as I limped towards the door by a man in a crown. A crown made of rich burgundy velvet and bejeweled gold. In addition to the crown, he was also in possession of a princely coach (read: wheelchair) and an overwhelming stench. Ignoring the royalty, I forged ahead and found myself waiting to be triaged in a near-empty emergency room. The only other patient ahead of me was a hipster boy with angular cheekbones and precision sloppiness. I tried to diagnose his illness, but there was none apparent. After noting what appeared to be a squirm of discomfort (could it have been from my examination?) I decided he was obviously the possessor of a rectal foreign body and acknowledged the veracity of him being triaged ahead of me.

As it turned out, the staff having naptime was also triaged ahead of me. Interestingly, this did not include the woman who took down financial information. She, I was able to see within 10 minutes of entering the hospital. After filling out about a hundred papers where I signed my soul away in exchange for two minutes of medical attention, I returned to the emergency room and my brethren. A man in a wheelchair appeared. He seemed to be in possessions of only a single limb, which grasped a greasy bottle of Tropical Fantasy.

The Torso, as I dubbed him, had a companion with him, who was pushing his chair. The Torso, much like the royalty in the lobby, stunk. He was not only willing to bring the music, but the funk as well. The funk of forty-thousand years, from the smell of things. But what really hit me was that the Torso was not here in the emergency room by himself. He had a friend, willing to not only be his source of mobility, but to provide him with low-cost sugary drinks. If you counted the gerbil in the cheekbone boy's ass, I was really the only person there who was on my own.

It wasn't until I had been sitting in the emergency room for two hours, and had broken into loud, uncontrollable sobs, that I was allowed to see a doctor. He prescribed the antibiotics that I had requested when I first arrived, and after gauging my tear-stained face, enough painkillers to cripple an elephant.

A little after 5 am, I arrived home. The pain in my ankle had been nearly replaced by a headache and the return of the repetitive stress injury that I've diagnosed myself with. I took a handful of antibiotics, and went to sleep for two hours. I dreamt of the things I would tell my co-workers when I arrived at work that day. I imagined my hardcore rap career flourishing once the tale of how I survived a gunshot wound circulated around the water cooler. "Oh," I would say, blushing, "It was nothing."

By Lina on December 18, 2005 10:32 PM

A clean bill of health.

One morning, a number of years ago, I woke up with a sore throat. This, of course, was not completely unexpected, as most of my waking hours in recent weeks had been consumed with screaming matches and mentholated cigarettes. I went back to bed, and when I woke up again in the late afternoon, my throat was burning and dry. I grabbed wildly at the glass of water next to my bed, and brought it to my parched lips.

The pain was excruciating. It felt like I had, instead of drinking a slightly dusty glass of water as I planned, gulped down a mouthful of paint thinner which stripped the flesh from my throat in long, painful strips. I gathered my strength and went to the mirror, whereupon opening my mouth I saw a horrifying sight indeed. My throat was apparently the new gathering place for weeping open wounds--for there were dozens of them--frolicking gaily from my palate to my uvula.

I sat around the house complaining loudly and watching television in the hopes that my raw and inflamed sores would go away. Finally, I threw myself into some clothes, and slumped my way towards Sixteenth Street, to the �family clinic� I had chosen as my healthcare provider. By the time I got there, my mouth sores appeared to have joined forces and become one giant ulcer, and I was unable to drink, breathe or think.

I eventually made it to an examining room, and opened my mouth obediently for the doctor.

She looked at me condescendingly and said, �Miss, you have herpes.�

�What?� I squealed indignantly. �I do not!�

We went back and forth for a while, she trying to convince me of my herpes-positive status, and me defending my virtue to the teeth. Finally, she took a swab from my throat and left the room.

She left me there, paper clad and on a cold metal table for twenty long minutes, while I contemplated a future filled with internet dating sites aimed at those with STDS. Time passed interminably�as I sat there I began to worry about all of the other possible diseases I might have contracted during my many years of befriending sailors during Fleet Week.

The doctor finally came back in, with two lackeys trailing after her. They all examined my throat again, and after some whispers and nodding, the doctor announced that I did not, as previously assumed, have herpes.

I sat there, triumphant, as they quizzed me, trying to determine the cause of this strange and wonderful disease they decided that I had.

�Do you work at a daycare?� they asked.

�No,� I replied, firmly stating that I hadn�t spoken to anyone under thirty in at least six months.

The doctors then gave me my diagnosis�Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease�and claimed that she hadn�t recognized it as such because she hadn�t ever seen it in anyone over the age of two. Apparently my youthful charm and good looks had somehow left me susceptible to the maladies of childhood well into my own golden years.

It took another ten days for my mouth to return to its previous pristine state, and during this period I spent a significant amount of time reflecting on how I could have contracted this disgusting illness. Unfortunately, I had no specific children to blame, so I decided that it must have been the subway or from one of my petite, childlike friends. To this day it remains a mystery, and the story of how I was diagnosed with herpes has become standard first date dinner table conversation, much to the delight of all of my potential suitors.

By Lina on March 24, 2005 10:00 PM

The wisdom of the teeth


On painkillers and wearing a contraption called "Cool Jaw" that strapped ice packs to my mug.

Eight years ago I had my first appointment to get my wisdom teeth out. Didn't happen. Then, last year I had another appointment. Didn't happen. So when my 2004 appointment rolled around 2 weeks ago, I approached it with a zen-like calm, under the assumption that this surgery too, wouldn't happen. But woe is me, it did happen. Now I have four less teeth than the last time I updated, and a seriously disgusting hole in my mouth known as a "dry socket." I'm not going to go into details here, but it's freaking nasty and my mouth still hurts. I've had seven dentist appointments in the last two weeks, and as I type this I have a wad of gauze sticking out of a hole in my gaping maw.

On the bright side, however, I've decided that nitrous is the nectar of the gods. I'm now in the process of looking for a dentist that uses it for all his procedures, and when I find one, I'm going to stop brushing completely. I was awake for the surgery, but the fact that they were sawing open my gums, chipping my teeth into pieces and yanking them out really didn't bother me because I was listening to Skinny Puppy on my walkman and the grinding and sawing just seemed to blend in.

I'm on my way to New Jersey for a family reunion, but since I only update once a month nowadays, I guess you won't miss me. Don't worry, I'm bringing my painkillers.

By Lina on June 16, 2004 9:45 AM

More validation from the medical field...

I've had a very busy week, hence my lack of updates. I started school this week, got in a car accident, and got fired from my job (yet still work there).

More exciting than any of these things is the trip to the dentist that I made last week. I had a sort of introductory exam with my new dentist, and along with all the other standard things that dentists do, she instructed me to open my mouth as wide as possible. She then whipped out a metal ruler-like impliment and measured my gaping maw. I said, "So doc, how did I do?" She proceeded to tell me that I, shockingly enough, have the ability to open my mouth wider than the general population.

This, in conjunction with my incredibly inviting cervix, would make me the perfect woman if I would only consent to the voicebox removal surgery. Not yet my friends, not yet.

More news from the therapy front--yesterday I went and signed up for therapy, as I can hook it up for free at school. This is very exciting, because I have been talking about doing this for more than six months. I'm hoping to work through my daddy issues and perhaps get diagnosed with something more exciting than, "hysterical neurosis" or plain old depression (BORING). I had to fill out a form that, among other things, asked why I was choosing to seek therapy at this time.

I wrote, "Because people keep telling me that I am 'crazy.'"

In other news, I have once again crashed my car into another car. In reality, she crashed her car into me, but because I was making left-hand turn, this is my fault according to the police at the scene. Nevermind the fact that she was coming out of a driveway and had about as much right-of-way as a fat woman on a tightrope.

By Lina on August 29, 2003 4:35 PM

Teeth...the revenge.

So all of teeth are intact and still in my head. Why you ask? Because my doctor is an incompetent moron. Needless to say, I am switching doctors, and I now have a large supply of pudding that I'm not quite sure what to do with. For those of you who were feeling sorry for me, I apologize, because as it turns out, it was unecessary.

Not sure what else to report at the moment. As usual, the Friday Five sucks, and I vowed to never do it again. Does anyone have any questions? I just might answer them.

Also, in honor of the Freddy vs. Jason movie, I've decided to learn a little more about blood splatter. Can anyone help me find the film, "Blood in Slow Motion" released in 1991 by Home Office Main Laboratory, London? If you have any suggestions, please post them in the comments. Thank you!

By Lina on August 15, 2003 4:10 PM

What do you do for fun?

Here's a funny story that my friend, let's call her "Jamie," told me the other day. And no, it's not really me. I do have friends, really.

So, Jamie goes to get her HIV test done recently. She tells the guy who is administering her test about her risk factors, which includes a couple of episodes of unprotected sex. He asks her if this decision making was the result of drug or alcohol use. No, Jamie says, she actually hasn't had even so much as a drink in five years, when she quit drinking and doing drugs in her early twenties. She also mentioned that she quit smoking last year. Her tester seemed shocked. He couldn't believe that a girl so young could have so few vices. He said to her,

"You don't drink, you don't do drugs, you don't smoke--Jeez, what do you do for fun?"

Jamie deadpanned, "I have unprotected sex."

By Lina on March 30, 2003 10:23 PM

like it's 1999.

Yo. The other day I got to second base with my gynocologist and she said to me, "You have the most approachable cervix ever!" Actually, it might have been "accomodating," but I know it began with an A and was complimentary. Basically, I have an adorable cervix. And no, you can't have pictures.

So I am in nyc right now. Good times! I just didn't want you all to think I was dead. I'm having a great time, and will post some pictures when I get back home. It's nice to be here as a tourist, I actually like it. Does that make sense?

By Lina on March 9, 2003 1:11 AM

:(

I'm sick. :(
By Lina on May 11, 2002 8:31 PM
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