doctor

Had my annual check-up with my own doctor yesterday afternoon. I'm really happy with my doctor; she has exactly the right personality...interested and sympathetic without being too personal, professional without being cold. I found her through a recommendation from Ruth and Kaarel. She mainly treats the Estonian community. The receptionist is fluent in Estonian, so are the doctors, so are many of the patients. I'm not. :-)

Being poked and prodded is never fun, but there's something reassuring about being checked out that thoroughly every year, same as going to the dentist for regular visits. Almost as if getting a clean bill of health was a guarantee that you'd make it to the next year without any hitches.

Still don't like the internal examination, though. (You squeamish types might want to stop reading here) It's much more tolerable than when I got my check-ups from anonymous walk-in medical clinic guy doctors with big hands, but remains my least favourite part of the exam.

I'm guessing that you mothers out there are much more used to this sort of thing, at least when you were pregnant. I never feel as vulnerable as when I'm lying there on the examination table, my feet in the stirrups ("Are You Abused?" the cloth cover on each stirrup reads, "You Can Talk To Me"), trying to think of other things.

It reminded me of the urban legend that circulates every once in a while about a woman who borrowed a washcloth from her teenage daughter before an examination to make sure she was clean "down there", and it turned out (during the examination) that the cloth had been one that the teenager had used to store her glitter. I've received at least a half dozen variations of this story by e-mail.

I told my doctor about my visit to the walk-in medical clinic, showed her the inhaler. I felt a bit guilty as I told her, as if I had somehow betrayed her by seeing another doctor (ever see that Seinfeld hairdresser episode?). I'm Queen of Guilt. Or at least I used to be; I think I've gotten better over the years, especially after my corporate adventure in Philadelphia. If anything, I tend to react overly-negatively to anything resembling emotional manipulation these days (which, by the way, I've added to my list of Personal Pet Peeves in my personal homepage).

Anyway, my doctor prescribed some codeine to take at bedtime so I'll be able to sleep through the night without coughing fits. Jeff and I have been both super-tired these past few weeks, and I strongly suspect this is one of the reasons.

Then I went down to the lab and got my arms poked a zillion times for my blood test. Okay, so maybe that's a slight exaggeration. I don't mind needles in principle, but doctors and nurses always have a difficult time trying to find my veins to get blood. They tell me to clench my fist, they poke, they slap the inside of my elbows, they scrutinize...it's like my veins KNOW what's coming so purposely run screaming from the room (heck, I know how they feel).

It took three tries to get a vein this time, and they used a special "butterfly needle". Unfortunately I can't describe why it had this special label since I couldn't watch what was going on, sorry.

And to think I once considered going into medicine...HA. Though I've always had more of a problem giving blood than getting shots; the advantage with just getting a shot is that the nurse doesn't have to look for a vein. I remember when I used to get flu shots back when I was a kid. Or rather, I remember a poster that was up on the wall that had a cartoon of a manically-grinning nurse holding a needle. The tagline below read, "It is better to give than receive."

I remember having nightmares about that cartoon nurse as a child. I guess that one reason I've never fully appreciated medical humour. :-)

News/Updates

I have four queries out circulating, am hoping to send out some more today, and I have one article to write by the end of the month. I've written 7700 words on my novel so far.

From time to time, I'll remember a photo I posted in my Blatherchat that I'd like to link to...but I won't be able to remember where I posted it. I still haven't figured out a good way to catalogue my digital photos in a way that I can easily search by content, so I've decided to start working on an index of all my Blatherphotos.



Today's Blatherpics:

- Jeff and I went to Sei Sushi last night with Bryan and Elizabeth, then we watched Enterprise on tv last night. Looks like The Bryan Project worked. Elizabeth's asked me to update the page. ;-)

- Sadly, our regular lunch spot, WOW Sushi, has been shut down. They were carrying stuff out of the building when I passed by yesterday.