When I was a child, my mother took me to see a doctor named Robert Wachs. They were practically best friends, although from what I could tell the only thing they seemed to have in common was their enjoyment of discussing the gross things coming out of my body. We lived in a small community, and we would see him out and about in town sometimes.
“Becky is making good bowel movements again!” my mother would shout over the horrified crowd of diners at the Red Lobster. “That medicine you prescribed really works!”
“Wonderful!” he would proudly exclaim back.
I used to love coming to his office. He didn’t have Highlights, he had People magazine, because he saw mostly older patients like my mother who were overly concerned about the strength of Burt Reynolds and Loni Anderson’s marriage. He never needed to look at a chart; he remembered every single detail of my medical history, from the first time I had the flu to the last time I scraped a knee. When he and my mother were finished thoroughly humiliating me with their interrogations about my bodily gasses, he would present me with not one but two lollipops, because I was “extra good this time.”
When I was 16 he spoke to me bluntly about birth control, cutting me off when I feigned sweet Catholic girl innocence about such things. He was the only adult person who successfully talked to me about the dangers of abusing drugs and alcohol, without coming off sounding like a terrible Reefer Madness parody. When I saw him the last time when I was 20, home on spring break from college, he still presented me with those two lollipops.
For the last two weeks, I’ve been thinking about those lollipops a lot. I’m sick with a weird strain of some kind of mutated hantavirus. I’m not the only one—everywhere I go people are hacking and coughing or sharing horror stories about The Virus That Will Not Quit. One day it’s a chest cold, the next it’s a fever; two days later you’re in an isolation tank while the doctors from E.T. surround you covered in hazmats suits. My house is one coughing fit away from being written into a Michael Crichton medical thriller.
But no matter how sick we are, none of us seem to want to go see a doctor. If I literally sneezed out an eyeball, I would probably mutter something about how “it’s just a 24-hour eyeball loss thing” and move on to my next appointment. You can say it’s being tough or hardcore, I just say it’s because I hate the very idea of seeing a doctor.
I’d rather have an IRS agent audit me while singing a medley of Milli Vanilli’s greatest hits than go to a doctor these days. The medical facility I currently seek treatment at resembles a nuclear weapons base except nuclear bases are probably a lot more fun and friendly to visitors. Inside the waiting room are a lot of signs with warnings like “DO NOT CROSS THIS LINE,” “HEY, BUDDY, YOU BETTER NOT BE THINKING ABOUT CROSSING THIS LINE,” and, “SERIOUSLY, WE ARE NOT KIDDING ABOUT THE LINE.” Area 51 is more inviting than this place.
The last time I went, I had to wait in one line for 45 minutes just so I could get a giant stack of forms. The forms were baffling, filled with absurdly complicated questions about the medical histories of my ancestors dating back to the Crimean War. You need the Rosetta Stone to translate these things. Plus, they had very little to do with my actual physical health. “Please list the last six movies you streamed on Netflix” does not seem like a question that’s going to help someone figure out why my head feels like it’s going to blow up whenever I blink my eyes.
I didn’t give these forms to an actual person; instead, I deposited them into a dropbox like the ones gas stations use in really bad neighborhoods to keep robbers from murdering their employees. A red light flashed and a buzzer sounded, which either meant I was approved for treatment, or I have been selected to pilot the next lunar shuttle.
When I finally made it to the actual treatment room, I waited for another 45 minutes, reading a Highlights magazine from 1987 until my alleged doctor arrived. I say “alleged” because he looked like he had about as much medical training as my Barbie medical doctor doll. He was young enough to be a guy who would be too young to date me at the age I pretend to be. He called me “Rachel” at least three times. I think he looked up at me once during the entire five minutes he spent with me. If I had walked in that room wearing a Spider-Man costume and drinking a mai tai, I doubt he would have noticed.
In lieu of an examination, he sat 10 feet across from me, staring into a monitor and rapidly typing as he asked me questions like “where does it hurt,” “what is your level of pain,” and, “do you know how to get to Orgrimmar from Silvermoon in World of Warcraft?” I’m not sure if he diagnosed my symptoms or booked me on a flight to Tanzania.
Yes, I could go on a lengthy Facebook-worthy rant about the importance of health care and how if more of us Americans had easier access to affordable care we’d be less likely to put off regular trips to the doctor that might prevent horrible bouts of sickness and less likely to spread our foul germs to other people who also don’t have decent health care, but honestly, I’m too exhausted from whatever is slowly killing me.
Rebecca Rose will rise from the dead to haunt you all. Contact her at rrose@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Mar 9-16, 2017.