Not eating or drinking for ten hours is bad news for me, especially when it means missing my morning coffee: the diabetic hummingbird running my metabolism starts fizzling, and my mental capacity is reduced to that of a retarded mountain ogre. And here I am twelve hours after eating, hearing the siren song of my coffee cup while studying a framed page from an archaic Bible (the 'f' looking 's' and 'B' looking 'ss' &c.) while waiting for the doc to show up and draw blood so I can have my coffee.
But no, she walks in, an extremely tall lady who's been fighting the extra pounds brought on by midlife and an office job. She didn't introduce herself, didn't say hello, hadn't read my chart, and was oblivious to my jokes (desperate pleas) about drawing blood so I could have my coffee.
But no, we had to do the full physical. The most thorough I have ever encountered. And I must admit, the Bible page lost some of its novelty when she first asked me to bend and spread 'em, then did the cough and squeeze with her eyes conspicuously averted, and checked off the genital inspection without actually looking at--or touching (the cough and squeeze has evolved to some sort of pressure point contact that eliminates interaction between doc and nuts)--my genitals.
Lady, on the other hand, a forty-something native of Chihuahua who had lived in LA and Chicago, worked miracles. Not only did she find a vein twelve and a half hours after eating and drinking, she hit it on the first shot, withdrew five vials of blood, and, in the time it took to administer an EKG, tetanus shot, and TB test, nursed up enough fluid to fill two separate batteries of pee cups.
And back for a final consultation: vital signs are stellar. All systems are running near optimum, although I should try to exercise more regularly (evidently, the 8-20 miles I walk during one shift [I put on a pedometer for a week and those were the averages for slow and busy shifts] do not count for exercise). The only problem is that I'm underweight. She pulls out a little hand-held geegaw and starts navigating through screens: "see, right now, you weigh this, and it's typical for someone who's this height, average for someone who's that height, but you, at your height, need to weigh three pounds more."
Nevermind that my morning pot of coffee and bowl of oatmeal would compensate. I look at her and nod, "okay, so I have your prescription to eat more Big Macs?"
Oops.
We go to a chart and look at the food pyramid. We flip that chart and look at all the dangers of obesity (huh?). We look at a chart about exercising to maintain a healthy weight (I thought I was supposed to exercise more, which this chart says will make me weigh less). We talk about my diet--eat anything I can, whenever I can, most critically with my coffee, and I can drink NO MORE than ONE shift drink.
Ummmmm, okay. Thank you, Doctor Deb. Can I go now?
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