this is where no one is actually surprised at all

The only legitimate defense I have here is that I paid absolutely no attention to the words "Annual Physical" on my appointment notice. I thought it would be a blood pressure/breathing/how's your thyroid doing these days (slowly degrading past the point of having any kind of functionality in my body other than decorative, thanks for asking) kind of thing.

This all changed when the nurse put little cloth covers on the stirrups of the medical bed (pink) and a fresh sheet on it while I stared in incomprehension and then laid out a fresh sheet and gown and told me to put the ties in the back. You would think--anyone sane would know--that this is the point I should have gotten with the program as I slipped on the gown, wrestled with the missing ties (what the hell is up with that, why do I always get one with a broken tie?) and saronged my sheet of choice over unshaven legs while still clinging to my underwear in a state of what at this point must be considered truly epic denial.



Doctor: Okay, slide to the edge of the bed and put your feet in the stirrups.
Me: Huh?

This is when I realized--with the canny brilliance of Sherlock on the hunt for a particularly dim criminal--that apparently, I was getting a pap smear, and the strange equipment that the nurse had been taking out was for the purposes of verifying that my reproductive system was keeping on keeping on.

This is a reproduction of the actual conversation that followed.

Me: I have my underwear on. I also haven't shaved my legs.
Doctor and Nurse: *blank stare*
Me: *shimmies out and tosses without any kind of subtlety toward chair on top of blameless jeans and waffle shirt without losing sarong blanket* This can't be worse than what doctors see on Discovery Channel reality TV shows, right?
Doctor: *knowing me and stops me from reproducing the latest plot to Trauma: Night in the ER, because I would do that* Okay, slide to the edge of the bed.

You may not know this, but to shimmy down a sheeted medical bed with sheet-sarong and one-tie gown intact is a fucking art, one which I excel at. Managing to remain entirely covered even while the stirrups are slowly and inevitably parted is one of those things that science has yet to explain, and I can't even tell you why. I'm not actually all that modest.

My doctor looked at me with the patience of someone who has known me since my teens and still remembers when I came to an appointment after seeing a psychologist to say, "I got a really high score on the obsessive compulsive disorder test, but that's more because I score well on standardized tests. Right?" and that glorious day I said, without any self-consciousness at all, "I don't want to take Ambien anymore. It makes me fall asleep."

(I could explain context on these, but I'm not sure they would raise your opinion of my self-awareness.)

Doctor: We usually do a STD panel and...
Me: About as likely as this being ground zero for a new religion.
Doctor: *again, knows me* We can leave it out, then
Me: Sex is usually involved in getting those, right?
Doctor: *looks fond and whips out the gloves*

Anyway, as I finally stared up at the ceiling to think of England, the word 'travel' came up, and if you've met me, you probably know that I variate between two states of being when awkward or nervous; blank, staring silence that makes everyone around me deeply uncomfortable or saying literally anything that comes into my head. This is the only explanation for what comes next.

Me: I want to go to Ohio.
Doctor: Really? Cleveland?
Me: The state motto is "With God, all things are possible."

(Goddamn Dean/Castiel fic.)

Doctor: *reaches for equipment*
Me: *talks about Ohio, no idea what the hell I said. Possibly the plot to said fic. Your guess is as good as mine.*

Later:

Doctor: Going to check your ovaries now.
Me: This reminds me of the time in college I had a rectal exam and the machine turned me mostly upside down.
Doctor: *grimly checks those ovaries*

Note: this was nothing like that, but now that I think about it, I wonder why those machines don't show up in kinkmemes more often.

Doctor: *stands up* Everything looks good!
Me: No antichrist around?
Doctor: *snaps off gloves* Not that I could see.



After which I got dressed and considered the possibility that I really need to read the notices. As it turns out, it's mentioned on there! Who knew I should read past the time and date?

I know what you're thinking--this has been a learning experience. I want to remind you that I am still amazed by the coming of my period and currently my phone is set to alert me that I'm going to want to listen to my "cut your wrists" playlist and stare into the backyard pondering the meaningless of life and file truly sarcastic defects at work. Sometimes while thinking I could have been an astronaut (I'm claustrophobic) and why I fail at knitting as a life skill (I stab myself with the needles; it's weird). I've learned nothing. Check back here June 2014, and you'll see what I mean.

Final Note: You may not think this, but in general, if my doctor had chosen to Surprise!Pap me instead of stating it very clearly in unambiguous terms on the appointment notice, I wouldn't blame him. Historically--and he knows this--anything more than a blood pressure/breathing/how's your thyroid doing these days (it's being a lazy fucker, we're not speaking right now, thanks for asking) kind of thing results in the blank, staring silence that makes the entire situation feel about as comfortable as an autopsy, requiring him to fill the silence, hearkening back to the days that we all stared in bafflement at my lung x-rays after those two bouts of atypical pneumonia when he said "It's just interesting, how the ones now (April) are identical to the ones from November! Your hospital-requiring bouts of pneumonia are weird, you know? No idea why this is happening." because he's a doctor and this is what they like to talk about. Generally, it's much better to set me off into a monologue on the relative merits of Ohio.

(Similar to the specialists who during the second bout came into my room while I was gripping an oxygen mask before breakfast to crowd around my bed and say excitedly "It's not cancer! Or Legionaires! But we have a ton of possibilities to go! We need to bioposy your lungs!" and ten minutes later I remember to ask the space where they'd been standing "Wait, cancer?" because again, the blank staring silence thing is apparently desperately uncomfortable.)

I live life like a box of chocolates without fingernail marks on their bottom to check contents before consumption. Why don't I fingernail mark them and find out if this is a lemon or a caramel? Like the love of God, it passeth all understanding.

Comments

[azurelunatic]

I am deeply, deeply curious on the context for the Ambien one.

I think the worst I have nonplussed a medical professional was the time I showed up at an unfamiliar dentist with a broken wisdom tooth all smiles as I threw myself into the chair. I had self-hypnotized myself into being able to do things like walk and drive(!), and from my perspective, I was enthusiastic that the pain was about to STOP.

[seperis]

The Ambien one is--weird. Ambien didn't actually make me sleepy, but achieved sleep with something not unlike how people on tv blink and realize they've been in a coma for thirty years, but in my case, eight flat hours. Much, much worse--and because this is me and I really should have called this one--if I wasn't lying down in a sleeping position, the blink effect would occur without the benefit of sleep and I'd have to reconstruct my evening via surrealist chat logs and have a mild panic attack that at some point during lost time, I'd taken a second Ambien, at which time I'd apparently achieved a state of sleep that didn't respond to attempts to wake me at various volumes all uniformly being in the area of 'loud'.

(In case this sounds horrifying: my dose was super low, which is probably why the loopy effects could happen so easily if I wasn't careful to actually be prone before I took it. The loopy thing happened I think twice and the lost time second dose once, but that was enough to settle for just taking some benadryl and occasionally suffering insomnia when my tolerance got too high and I had to take a break.)

[azurelunatic]

It ... sounds about right, for Drugs Designed To Put People Out.

It seems that I know relatively few people for whom drugs work exactly as intended. There are the Very Sensitive folks, the Hit Them With A Brick, Maybe folks, and the I Don't Ever Think I've Seen That Side Effect Outside Of A Tiny Footnote Once folks.

[seperis]

It was weird. I also get teh nerve equivalent of sunburn taking certian antibiotic--it doesn't cause physical problems, per se, but it makes my skin feel, starting from my shoulders and slowly working down depending on how long the treatment lasts, like a light sunburn and super sensitive to touch. My doctor tilted his head and looked fascinated when I told him. It's not damaging at all, but it's freakishly annoying.

Or the fact I now take benadryl in conjunction with hydrocodone because I itch like crazy when I take it, but non-opiod upper painkillers cause nausea, life-endingly awful nausea. Not uncommon at all, any of them, but it's like "really? That too?"

There are the Very Sensitive folks, the Hit Them With A Brick, Maybe folks, and the I Don't Ever Think I've Seen That Side Effect Outside Of A Tiny Footnote Once folks.

*dies laughing*

[akacat]

This reminds me of the time in college I had a rectal exam and the machine turned me mostly upside down.

Wait, what? There's a machine for doing rectal exams? That can turn a person mostly upside-down?? Obviously I've been having the far less interesting (yet deeply horrifying) sort of rectal exam. (No pun intended.)

slowly degrading past the point of having any kind of functionality in my body other than decorative, thanks for asking

I'm now imagining what a decorative thyroid would look like. This should lead to interesting dreams.

[lydiabell]

That was my reaction too. Machine?

[seperis]

If I'm remembering the sequence of events correctly, I had to kneel on this thing and the motorized thing lifted me into something not unlike the traditional mounting position as seen in nature documentaries.

I'm currently googling for an image of it without success, which is making me deeply curious what the hell they had me in that day.

[seperis]

Okay, keeping in mind that it would be something like this, but used in hospitals circa 1995 without the spread arm thing and with the ass, as it were, in a more uplifted viewing position.

http://www.gmecorp-usa.com/ME/SG/TB/SHAMPAINE/4900/P/FROMWEB/Shampaine%204900%20Series_files/Castle_Shampaine_4900_Series_pic12.jpg

[akacat]

Wow. That is really bizarre looking!

[seperis]

I asked my mom, who vaguely remembers as well, and said that looked about right for what she remembers, and I remember the barium I had to drink and the diet I had to have before hand and trust me, my bitterness in memory is legion because that was when my college--who was catered by Marriot's--happened to have steak and shrimp night.

You would think I'd gotten over that by now.

Can there be a TMI/TW for a comment? Because be warned.

[geekturnedvamp]

This should have a warning for laughing because that conversation literally made me choke on my coffee just now! I'm the opposite of you in this way--like one of my doctors fondly called me a walking experiment yesterday when I said I was fine with them taking more blood if they needed it--but, picturing your doctor's reactions & just DYING.

Also the rectal exam machine WHAT I CAN'T EVEN. I've never had to change positions for one of those, they just do it as part of the normal exam with feet in the stirrups & me on my back, but true story: once I was at an STD clinic getting a checkup and it was a teaching clinic so there were a couple of med students observing. As you know, the doctor is always supposed to tell you what they're doing before they do it, eg. "now you'll feel my hand", "now I'm inserting the speculum", etc., but I was chatting with the doctor about something else and she just switched over from the vaginal exam and started doing the rectal exam without saying a word, and I didn't even NOTICE she hadn't said anything until SHE noticed and was like "Oh my God, NEVER do that!" to the students. I was just like, well, you told me we were going to do one of these today, so it's not like I wasn't expecting it! But I think even I would have been all WTF if they'd had me turn over and get on that machine.

Re: Can there be a TMI/TW for a comment? Because be warned.

[seperis]

Also the rectal exam machine WHAT I CAN'T EVEN. I've never had to change positions for one of those, they just do it as part of the normal exam with feet in the stirrups & me on my back

This was actually an advanced one in conjunction with a barium enema, and from what I remember, it was part of a group of tests because of unexpected and worrying rectal bleeding. I do admit it was funny at the time and made teh exam weirdly less horribly invasive, because I couldnt' get over how I was in a wildlife mating position for most of it.

I was chatting with the doctor about something else and she just switched over from the vaginal exam and started doing the rectal exam without saying a word, and I didn't even NOTICE she hadn't said anything until SHE noticed and was like "Oh my God, NEVER do that!" to the students. I was just like, well, you told me we were going to do one of these today, so it's not like I wasn't expecting it!

*DIES AND DIES* Oh the poor intern. Though you know, unless something actually hurt me, I probably wouldn't notice either, as yeah, I get kind of lost in the conversation, which is the point of me conversing with my doctor. *g*