For the past few weeks I’ve been straddling the line between health and sickness.
I haven’t gone to the doctor, or really changed my life at all. However, I secretly want to stay in bed and watch Lifetime all day but somehow I have enough energy to function in everyday life anyway. I’m convinced this awkward purgatory stage is a direct result of fighting germs daily with Emergen-C packets and NyQuil.
Besides…I know the usual cures: drink lots of water, take vitamins, get lots of rest, get a new toothbrush, eat pizza. (Don’t bother disputing the last one).
However, the real reason I haven’t gone to the doctor is because I think doctors are useless.
Strike 1:
In 4th grade I went to the doctor because I felt super sick. The doctor observed me, checked my breathing, sent me home, said I had a cold, and gave me some generic medication. That night I didn’t move from my bed. My breathing was shallow, my mom didn’t know what to do, and I was horiffically unresponsive for a 10-year-old. She finally rushed me to the E.R. and I was hospitalized for 5 days due to a wicked case of asthma and pneumonia. Looks like someone forgot to read that chapter in med school.
Strike 2:
My junior year of high school I went to visit the University I ended up attending for college. While there, my family unfortunately stayed in a smoking hotel. I got so violently sick that I lost my voice, was throwing up, and joking convinced people that I had contracted SARS. When I visited my general practitioner this time they had 3 different doctors run tests on me. At the end of the day they had no idea what was wrong with me, sent me home, and told me to return if things didn’t get better within a week. Things did not get better. I did not go back.
Strike 3:
My senior year of college brought unique challenges. To start, I had a horrible case of insomnia. When I finally couldn’t take the bags under my eyes anymore, I went to urgent care. Never ever ever go to urgent care. The doctor told me I should go to the local psychiatric hospital for an evaluation because insomnia was related to many mental disorders, like bipolar disorder. Some one should have slapped her with the bedside manner stick.
These strikes aren’t even taking into account the time I was perscribed medication far too strong for me, and I was walking around like a meth head. The time my doctor told me I was on the verge of obese, so I better lose some weight. And the time my doctor secretly gave me a pregnency test because she thought I was lying.
All of this has resulted in me only going to the E.R. when I was literally bleeding out of places I shouldn’t be bleeding (and still the co-pay pissed me off), super gluing cuts instead of getting medical care, taking a cold bath when I had a 103 degree temperature, and having a stagnant cold for the majority of 2012.
Will I change my rogue ways? Probably not. Just call me Jack Bauer. The cat from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, not the crime fighting CTU agent from 24. After all, you know he was born in a pool of gasoline on a piece of rusty scrap metal, and jumped through barbed wire into a vat of hot tar. He’s indestructible.
And so am I my friends, so am I.
Ambien and Penicillin,
Swan