Two weeks ago I had to visit a specialist for a few post-partum issues that were not clearing up on their own. What specialist, you ask? Why, none other than Colon and Rectal Surgery Associates. Try making an appointment for that one while whispering in your cube at work. (No, I'm not back at work -- that's Friday -- but I couldn't help but think about that when I made the appointment and had to list, in detail, exactly why I needed to be seen).
Apparently when you reach your golden years it's not uncommon to visit this type of doctor. I suppose I should have felt better when I told my parents where I had to go (you give birth and nothing is sacred any more) and my father started telling me how much he liked that doctor, and how he once joked to him that he knew our family better from the back end than the front. This did not make me feel better, and sort of reminded me how the gynecologist that I first saw in high school was the same one who delivered me. Too much shared information.
I sat in the waiting room still debating how exactly they examined this part of your body. Did it require laying on your back (ahem)? I had no idea. I hoped not.
When I was FINALLY called back, I was told I would be meeting with the doctor "in his office." Wasn't I already in his office? Wasn't this technically a doctor's office? No, I actually met him in his office. There sitting behind a GIGANTIC mahogany desk was a man as old as my grandfather, with the same bad sense of humor. I thought people met with doctor's sitting behind desks only in movies about cancer diagnoses and maybe commercials for prostate medications. I didn't think it ever happened in real life. What the hell were we going to talk about? This couldn't be where the exam was going to take place. Please, god, no.
I sit down and immediately blurt out that he knows my family, because I have no idea what else to say. He acknowledges this briefly (and by briefly I mean mostly not at all, and with a marginally courteous mumble), and then proceeds to ask me what brought me to the "man who wrote the textbook." I shit you not, he actually tapped a large textbook (Colon and Rectal Surgery, no less) that just "happened" to be on his desk. Is this guy for real? I'm surprised his head fit through the doorway.
I'm wearing a Minnesota t-shirt so he asks me if that's where I went to school. I've already noticed the University of Minnesota business cards on his desk (I did not realize one could have so many italicized consonants after their name) so I tell him, yes, I did. He asks me what I studied and I tell him English.
"Ah yes, English. You can do anything with an English degree," he tells me. I can't decide if he is being snarky with me or not.
"Yes," I say. "You can. But I actually started school with Biomedical Engineering in the IT Honors program and switched after two years." Why am I telling him this? Why do I feel like I have to impress this snotty old man? Why do I think that saying that will do anything even close to impressing him anyway?
"Oh, what happened?" he asks me. "You figure out those people were too smart for you?"
Did he just insult me? Are we serious here? And you want me to take my pants off for you? "No, actually, I just decided that I was happier doing something else."
"You can do anything with an English degree," he says. I am so confused at this point. And a bit pissed off.
And then somehow we get into a discussion about education funding, and he's drawing me a graph on the back of a prescription pad about how costs have gone up and government dollars have gone down. I have no idea how we have even gotten to this point, but I stupidly bring up that my husband is a teacher, so I know all too well how pathetic educational funding is. I brace myself for the comment about how teachers make no money, and I half expect him to ask me if we live in Section 8 housing. Instead he just continues his soapbox about education, and I smile and nod.
Then we finally get to the appointment portion of our morning and he tells me that the nurse will lead me to the exam room. He just sits at his desk while the nurse (we'll call her Nancy) takes me into the room. He couldn't walk me there?
Nancy leads me in and I see a frighteningly narrow table (but thank god, no stirrups). I am still confused about how this is all going to work, and then Nancy tells me to take off my pants and underwear to my knees and kneel down on the ledge (that magically appeared) with my forearms on the table. I've barely made contact with my knees when he walks in again and I think I start to sort of hyperventilate. He adjusts the table so my bare behind is about chest height. My shorts are at my knees still, and I have decided that they tell you to leave them on because having them around your knees makes fast escape impossible. I do not think I have ever been in a more compromising position, ever. This makes a pap smear seem like a trip to the grocery store (OK, maybe a trip to the Edina Super Target on Saturday afternoon -- not entirely painless, but for some reason you'd do it again).
Again with the off humor, he says to me, "Well this certainly isn't the worst I've ever seen. Don't worry, I'm not getting the knives out. Nope. No knives." I think the entire exam maybe lasted three minutes, and I'm glad that I was face down so no one had to see my eyes.
He leaves the room and I pull up my shorts. Things feel a bit funny down there... I remember feeling like he was squirting air of some kind at one point, and now my cooter felt like it was tooting. Weeeeeird. The nurse then leads me back to his office (are you serious?) and says he'll be right with me. Five minutes later he walks in (where was he?) and pulls out this three ring binder full of diagrams stuffed in sheet protectors. He shows me my "condition" and says that it doesn't look chronic, so I won't need surgery. Just a re-check in three weeks. Which means I have to do this, again. He gives me some sort of laxative to use, and I have to admit, two weeks later, I have yet to use it. I know, I know.
I tell this story to my father and instead of also being offended at his "they were too smart for you" comment he tells me that he thinks he has a great sense of humor. Then I just must not.
Speaking of doctors, tomorrow afternoon is Sadie's two month check up (how has it already been two months?!) and she has to get her first round of shots. I'm not sure who will be more traumatized.
And then Friday I go back to work. I won't even talk about it, because it makes me depressed. People say that I'm lucky that Matt will be home with her all summer, and I know that I am, but I can't help but be monumentally jealous of him. My mother-in-law says that maternity leave should start at eight weeks, and I totally agree. She's finally acting more stable, we can go places, do things... and I get to go back to work. And Matt gets her now. For the rest of the summer. Part of me thinks it would almost be easier leaving her with a third party so that neither of us could claim her for the day. Or it would be easier still if I could just stay home, but that's never going to happen unless I really do want to live in Section 8 housing.
Stay tuned.
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