Check-Up or 7-Up? You Tell Me

ALERT: THIS POST PROVIDES YOU WITH ENTIRELY TOO MUCH INFORMATION. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Visiting the doctor, to me, has never been a good experience. 1) I'm disappointed because none of the doctors look like Dr. House at all. Instead most of them look like Oprah. 2) I wait too long every time. I don't mind waiting in the actual waiting room because they're usually playing Baby Einsteins or Clifford on the miniature television, but I don't like waiting in the doctor's office. 3) The concept of personal privacy is totally crushed in the doctors' fist and tossed onto the floor like a headless rag doll.

My issues with going to the doctor might just have rooted from one of my visits in second grade. I was such an innocent and bright child--just like one of the child stars from "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?" except just a little more dim-witted and a little less cute. The nurse, (who I might mention was nearly obese,) asked me to step on the scale. What did I weigh? I don't remember. But whatever it was, she just had to make the remark, "Ooh, you're getting a little tubby there, ain't ya?"

That was when I punched her.

Actually, I didn't punch her. I wish I did. Instead, I sobbed hysterically right then and there. Her only comfort was "Clothes weigh a little bit too." I was not tubby! I have never been tubby. I was born a fit baby, like a tiny Arnold Schwarzenegger with a slightly less detectable Austrian accent. I still think that nurse was just feeling insecure about her new haircut, and she had to take it out on me.

And then there's the blood pressure test. That has always been a nightmare for me, not because my blood pressure is any different from average, but because until a few years ago, I always tried flexing my muscle for the first ten seconds so that my arm didn't look too fleshy.

But this is all baby stuff, all entirely painless when compared to

THE HOSPITAL GOWN.

I hope that everyone here is nodding in agreement. Is the doctor who created the hospital gown not either totally perverted or entirely under-qualified as a fashion designer?

The doctors totally deceive you. The doctor enters the room, shakes hands with you and talks very professionally to you and all of a sudden you feel like a very mature adult. That impression is shattered the next moment when she says "Now your Mom and I are going to leave the room for a minute and I want you to take all of your clothes off except for your underwear, and put this hospital gown on. Knock twice if you need any help."

Totally humiliating. If I had a stylish hat to wear with the hospital gown, then we could talk. If I had a stylish had and a nice pair of shoes to wear with the hospital gown, I'd be wearing it to school every day. But in this case, it's just embarrassing.

If the process of changing into this radical new fashion of gowns isn't embarrassing enough, the examination is unbearable. Of course I won't go over the details with you, but is anyone else totally creeped out that while the doctor is examining you, half-naked, there's a nurse just standing there, looking at you? And what's the most awkward of all is when they try to make conversation! It's like a bad comedy. Maybe the likes of American Pie or Sex Drive.

Arguably the most aggravating things that doctors do during your yearly "check-up" is when you have to travel down the halls in clothes that should belong to only the New Years Baby. Meanwhile, other patients are also walking the halls in hospital gowns and is it me, or are all of them either toddlers, siblings, or acne-ridden teenage guys? Never a cheerleader in a hospital gown. Never.

I think the humiliation that we undergo at check-ups is definitely justified by the lolly pop they give me at the end, (disregarding the fact that I'm usually taller than they are). But sometimes, my friends, it just seems so long until I get that lolly pop.

This post has been both remarkably on-topic and frustratingly over-informative.

Thanks for reading.