Yesterday was my first visit to my new Texas lady doctor. One of My Singles referred me to her so I wasn’t all that nervous. Until I started filling out the pre-visit questionnaire. It was all downhill from there.
1. “Number of Sexual Partners” section. Well, she’s your doctor so she probably needs to know. Put the real number. Cross out. Fuck that noise, I barely know this woman. Our relationship hasn’t reached that level yet. She hasn’t even bought me dinner. Cross out. She is a doctor, so I am sure she’s seen bigger whores than me. Besides, the number is not that big. Cross out. If she wasn’t going to use the information then it wouldn’t be on the form. Cross out. I’ll just low ball a number. Fuck, I need a new form.
2. Overly perky nurse assistants have no place in the gyno’s office. Although the story of your mom calling you Maria even though your name is spelled Mary is riveting, you are about to see parts of me that my bathing suit covers. Unless you’re about to mix me a drink, give me some E, or hack 50 pounds of fat off my body, you and I have nothing to discuss. Thank you.
3. Did I have had cysts on my ovaries or just had an abnormal pap in 2003? Oh, crap, she’s going to show me diagrams now.
4. I wonder who gets commissioned to draw all those pictures in the office. I bet it’s some guy that has his MFA from Harvard that can’t find a job in a fancy-pants gallery, but his great-uncle’s brother’s niece had a hook up at the “draw people’s insides for physician’s pamphlets” office.
5. Judging from the look on doctor’s face, the appropriate response to “Do you plan on having children?” is not “Hell, to the ne-gro!”. Especially if she is white.
6. Yeah! Doctor is awesome and has a great sense of humor. I love her! Or I did until she made a joke during my pelvic exam.
7. Birth control options. Should I go with the one that last for 2 years, but could rip the walls of my uterus and cause ectopic pregnancy or the one I have to get monthly shots for whose side effects include bleeding from the eyeballs, Tourette’s, baldness, and the growth of a tiny, non-functioning penis. Hmmm. Choices, choices.
8. Monthly home breast exams. OK. Check for green discharge from the nipples? What?!? That happens to people??? Ewwww! if I get green discharge from my nipples, I think I will contact a priest to perform my exorcism first. If there is still green stuff leaking from my boobies, you’re my second call.
9. Let my husband do the exam for me? Then he would have to take time from, what I can only assume is, his testicular cancer self-exam. Clearly his doctor told him he should check once every 10 minutes, so he may not have time to help. (I’m kidding, honey. Sort of.)
10. Make sure you read the labels of everything in the office before you use it. Otherwise, you will end up doing a post-exam clean up with wipes that are intended to disinfected the exam room surfaces and not your delicate lady nether region. Hey, it’s not totally my fault. The damn nurse didn’t leave me a cleansing cloth for my delicate parts and the box of wipes was on the counter. Plus, the damn thing had a picture of a baby with the universal DO NOT big red circle and slash. I thought it was just warning me against using it on my nonexistent baby. If they didn’t want people to use it on people, they should put a picture of people and not just that stupid baby. Fuckers.
P.S. Spellcheck thinks the appropriate substitution for gyno’s is gyro’s. Potato, po-tah-toe.
In regards to number five, I think it would’ve been okay if you had done the fist bump while saying it.
Jokes during pelvic exams….hmmm…was it your standard, “My, I can see you’ve been a bit busy down here.” Or is that only during my pelvic exam?
Gyno’s, gyro’s, gnu’s…it’s all semantics.
I can’t stand going to the girlie doctor… just reading this post gave me anxiety.
re: joking during the whole examination process – even having a conversation is weird to me. You can’t pretend like having your goods checked out is a totally normal thing and, therefore, warrants conversation about work, hobbies, interests, etc.
“So.. when you’re not elbow-deep in vaginas, what do you do?”