A few weeks ago, I went to get a physical, to a new clinic and new doctor. I was quite nervous about it, for obvious reasons, and it went fine, it was just really awkward. Does anyone else ever experience this? It's beyond fluorescent light awkward and beyond waddling like a duck embarrassing....it's just all together weird.
The nurse checks me out first. She asks when the first day of my last period was, to which I reply, I don't really know, but my last regular period was in September. I tell her I've had brief spotting a couple of days since then. She thinks I'm pregnant. I say I could be, but highly unlikely. She then says with bliss abounding in her eyes, "oh you're lucky not to get your period very often!" Lucky, yeah.
I fake a polite smile. She then takes my blood pressure. She is obviously concerned, so I ask for my stats. BP 79/50. Great. She asks me a few more questions, tells me to wait in the cold room, and says the Doc will be in soon.
As I'm waiting, I'm debating an issue in my mind. I've never been to this clinic before. They don't have my medical records. They don't know about my past with EDs. I'm wondering if I should tell them, or should I play a little game and let them do the math themselves. They would win by either asking me if I could possibly have an ed, or saying they think I have an ed. I win by going undetected.
I don't have courage to tell them the truth, so I decide to play the game.
The doctor comes in swiftly, closes the door quickly, looks me right in the eye, her eyes wide open, and says, "Why is your blood pressure so low?" I shrug. Nice to meet you too.
She tells me how concerned she is about that. She asks several leading diagnostic questions, trying for an explanation, all to which my answers are negatory. Part of me wants to tell her that I just don't eat that much, and when I do eat, I throw up, and I take laxatives, and I take diet pills and sometimes I exercise too much, but I'm too scared.
She looks at my chart and says, "You are 5'8.5 and you weigh XXXX pounds. How much do you normally weigh?" I tell her it varies depending on how much clothing I'm wearing. When I entered the office they weighed me in my clothes, and I purposely wore big cargo pants to the appointment for that very reason. It sure sounded OK to me that I'm 5'8.5 and XXXX pounds in FULL clothing and high heel BOOTS! If anything, it needs to be less.
She had me lie down and she began examining my stomach. When I lay down, my ribs and hips stick out....quite visibly sometimes. This concerned her again, and I could tell she was bordering with THE question. She went over and got a calculator and then tried to explain what a BMI is. She says, "Listen, I know these numbers don't mean anything to you, but if you could get your BMI to XXX...."
Bullshit. These numbers mean ALL TOO MUCH to me.
I know what my BMI is to the half pound for my height.
She asks me how much weight I've lost, and if it was rapid. I ask her to define rapid. She asks for my weight loss history. I tell her about a year and a half ago I lost about 30 pounds in 3-4 months. She's unfazed, which was weird to me,but I can tell she is thinking about how to approach this. She then asks if I will gain weight. She says if I could get up to 135 lbs that would be healthy and great. I just say I don't know if I can. She then asks if I can get up to 130, I say no, she then asks if I will at least go up to 125, to which I once again respond that I don't want to. She could tell I wasn't going to gain.
And that pretty much ended our conversation about my weight and low BP.
When I got up from lying down on the table, I got dizzy. This upset her, but I'm thankful I didn't pass out in front of her. In the end, she ordered some blood tests, scheduled another appointment with me in mid-April, and never mentioned a thing about an ED.
So I guess I won the game.
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