Skin in the Game
I had a doctor's appointment by referral today - a family doctor that does dermatology, because I had a couple of moles that my doctor thought should be looked at but dermatologists in this city tend to be booking a couple of years out. It was across town in the afternoon so I was a little anxious about the driving, the parking, the shirt removing, the getting back home in rush hour - I think that covers it. A little anxious, but less anxious than I would have been a few years ago. We call this growth.
The drive was fine. I found a parking lot close by, and then was briefly confused because it said note your license plate and pay at the meter and I couldn't find a meter. It turned out that I was parked in a tiny adjunct part of the lot that was quite large and involved several levels, but walking to find the meter brought me closer to the doctor's building, not further away. This is in stark contrast to that time my doctor was still downtown and I was trying to get to an appointment in a snowstorm, saw a sign for a street closure, panicked and parked three blocks away, walked forever in deep snow and then realized the street closure wouldn't have affected me at all, never figured out how to pay for parking and drove away worried that bailiffs were going to show up at my door. Why am I such a giant dork?
The wait was much shorter than I expected, given that it was so late in the day. I'm not even sure why I'm telling this story because it's so MAGNIFICENTLY BORING, which is a great thing for a doctor's appointment, but not for a blog post. Anyway, the doctor was awesome - friendly, funny, we're the same age, she asked about the book I was reading (We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler, amazing read, highly recommended) and I felt remarkably comfortable considering I was naked and wearing a sheet. She checked me over thoroughly with a magnifying glass with a light on it and then said "all your moles are benign - I'm sad for me but happy for you" and I burst out laughing and told her about the doctor I went to see when I had a weird immune response that gave me a vicious case of pompholyx eczema and my hands were unusable and he was typing on his little computer basically saying "this is terrible, sucks to be you, but wow, fascinating" and she said "we're a sick bunch, I know". She said I could get the moles on my back burned off for aesthetic reasons and honestly I couldn't care less about the aesthetics of my back skin but I might go back just so I can ask her out for a drink.
Now I'm home and it is still very dark much too early and I just realized that I've probably been a little weepy all day because this appointment reminds me of the friend I lost to skin cancer, and Matt is working late, but Eve is here, and maybe I can convince herself to take forty-five minutes away from physics and watch an episode of Veronica Mars with me. And we are more than halfway through November.
The drive was fine. I found a parking lot close by, and then was briefly confused because it said note your license plate and pay at the meter and I couldn't find a meter. It turned out that I was parked in a tiny adjunct part of the lot that was quite large and involved several levels, but walking to find the meter brought me closer to the doctor's building, not further away. This is in stark contrast to that time my doctor was still downtown and I was trying to get to an appointment in a snowstorm, saw a sign for a street closure, panicked and parked three blocks away, walked forever in deep snow and then realized the street closure wouldn't have affected me at all, never figured out how to pay for parking and drove away worried that bailiffs were going to show up at my door. Why am I such a giant dork?
The wait was much shorter than I expected, given that it was so late in the day. I'm not even sure why I'm telling this story because it's so MAGNIFICENTLY BORING, which is a great thing for a doctor's appointment, but not for a blog post. Anyway, the doctor was awesome - friendly, funny, we're the same age, she asked about the book I was reading (We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler, amazing read, highly recommended) and I felt remarkably comfortable considering I was naked and wearing a sheet. She checked me over thoroughly with a magnifying glass with a light on it and then said "all your moles are benign - I'm sad for me but happy for you" and I burst out laughing and told her about the doctor I went to see when I had a weird immune response that gave me a vicious case of pompholyx eczema and my hands were unusable and he was typing on his little computer basically saying "this is terrible, sucks to be you, but wow, fascinating" and she said "we're a sick bunch, I know". She said I could get the moles on my back burned off for aesthetic reasons and honestly I couldn't care less about the aesthetics of my back skin but I might go back just so I can ask her out for a drink.
Now I'm home and it is still very dark much too early and I just realized that I've probably been a little weepy all day because this appointment reminds me of the friend I lost to skin cancer, and Matt is working late, but Eve is here, and maybe I can convince herself to take forty-five minutes away from physics and watch an episode of Veronica Mars with me. And we are more than halfway through November.
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