34. Let’s Get Physical

I hate the doctor. I hate the doctor. I hate the doctor.

In the waiting room, I couldn’t even focus. Wanting to run out and then run home, I had to make myself stay. Having luckily been healthy my whole life, I had never had much call for doctors, so their tendency to make you strip naked and stick you with things was not just terrifying but also completely alien to me. But I needed this physical, and was glad Thad had hounded me to book it, and was pleased that I had garnered the fortitude to just have them just go ahead and run all of tests, but what if they found something? What if I had cancer? AIDS? Chlamydia? SIDS?  What would I do then?

But at least if they found something early I would be able to act on it. I didn’t think I had anything horrible, but being raised by a hypochondriac mother, I always thought I was dying of something or other. My OCD was in overload, creating phantasm after phantasm of back braces and head gear I would have to wear, needles the size of gleaming silver piccolos, and diseases that would eat away my nose like a syphilitic Henry VIII, all the while skeletal nurses laughed and pointed at my fat naked body.   

“Jennifer?” the Nurse called out into the waiting room.
A woman got up and followed the Nurse away to her doom.

My breathing increased. I wished Thad had been there to distract me, to calm me, to make me laugh at my own fears. But apparently getting HBO turned on was much more of a priority to him than me. He had called a number of times last night to apology and I finally talked to him, but I did not forgive him, and I let him know that.  He would burn in Hell for this.  

“Michael?” the Nurse called.

I bolted up, and almost ran away, but did not. I made myself follow her.

The Nurse took me to a side hall where she had me step on a scale that also measured my height. 

“246.” She said.

“You are kidding?” I gasped. “That’s as much as a small Howitzer tank.”

“Well, not really, the Nurse smiled checking a wall chart. “But you are about 66 pounds overweight, so you might think about a diet.”

I turned to slap the saucy little bitch then and there, but refrained and just pitifully moaned instead.

The Nurse tested by eyes and then took me to a small sterile room where she took my pulse and did some other innocuous tests, as I shook and tried to return her small talk with something other than the curse words I wanted to scream at her.   

She let me alone in the small hermetically sealed room. Sitting on the paper covered gurney, I felt small.

Moments later Dr. Deeds came in, a sweet woman about my mother’s age, the perfect doctor for a gay man riddled with fear. She had been my doctor for the last few years and had seen more of me than most women. She wore a lab coat and green eye shadow, inexplicitly.

Dr. Deeds started by looked me over and talking to me about my weight and my diet, hit my knee with a hammer, and then before I knew it she had me stripped down naked and bending over a table, and all without her ever even buying me a drink first.  

All I can say is that after once she completed her special ‘procedure,’ I felt I needed to go pick out a ring and make an honest woman out of her, as she had so made it to third, and maybe even fourth base. 

After I redressed, she smilingly told me all seemed good and fine with the checkup, and began to talk to me about the upcoming blood work.

“Can I go ahead and get…” I began. “I mean, I’m not having symptoms, but I thought since they were already drawing blood…”

She craned her head and smiled, “Yes?”

“STD and HIV tests? I mean, I don’t feel sick or anything, I just thought…”

“Oh, it’s no problem at all.” She said in the best, most chipper way. “Let’s just go through the list.”

Still all smiles, she pulled out another clipboard and began going over the additional tests, ticking off what I should get. 

She went through a few until she got to “Oh, Hepatitis B, you probably don’t need. I mean have you ever been with an IV Drug user?”

Reddening, I shrugged, “No, I don’t think so. But it was the 80’s. We didn’t ask a lot of questions. I mean, Kajagoogoo was big, so what do you expect?”

“I see,” She said with a glass eyed smile. “Well, we’ll get that one too just in case.”

I just smirked and tried not to look like a big fat dying whore.

After a few more questions and a more green eye-shadowed looks of reassurement, she sent me on for the lab work.

The bloodletter was a Vietnam Vet looking man, pale and wispy, with pointed yellowed nails. I again almost ran, but he handed me cups to pee in, and that distracted me enough that I just followed orders, and later joined him in his big burgundy bloodletting chair. As this Vampiritic Nick Nolte leaned into me with his needle, his breath on my body, I had to stop my urge to hit him in the face and scream “No! You can’t have it! It’s my blood!” but I just turned away not to watch the needle enter. As I felt the small prick I could not stop myself from looking back over, to watch my life essence seep out…my blood leaving me…as my forehead beginning to bead thick sweat and I got dizzy.  

After three vials, three vials, three vials full, Lestat topped me off and sent me on my woozy way, saying I would have results e-mailed to me within a week.

And that was it. I was done with the doctor, with a good bill of health and no immediate problems, and I was so happy and proud of myself for going, but now I had “within a week” to wait to find out if I had anything else, like, say, oh, I don’t know, AIDS. I didn’t think I did, I had always been careful and Thad had been tested many times, but my beloved OCD certainly did, and, boy, did it begin playing out some of the most creative death-and -disease scenarios in my head.

I left the Doctor’s only slightly less paranoid than when I got there, but definitely lighter on blood.     

In the car I noticed Thad had texted: “HOW R U? I LV U. CALL ME.”

Bastard.

But I called him anyway and told him my harrowing story of medical woe.

“So you’re okay?” he asked at the end of my story.

“Yes, but I still have tests I have to wait for.”

“Oh, you’re fine,” he scoffed. “But good you’re having them done. It’s very adult of you.”

“Well, I only did this with your encouragement, so thank you.”

“No problem.”

“Oh!” I continued, “She did tell me I’m 64 pounds overweight.”

“Wow. Well, maybe you should start your Program back up,” he said. “You know Oprah’s weight fluctuates too.”

“That’s good to know,” I said dryly. “So how is your cable?” I tried to make it sound as ironic as possible.

“He’s still not here!” Thad sighed. “And I don’t have any food." He paused. “What are you doing for lunch?”

“You rat bastard!” I exploded. “You can’t come and be with me when I need you and now you want me to bring you lunch?”

“Would you? That’s so kind,” he said, just full of himself. “Hush-up, you’re fine. I knew you would be, but good to have a doctor tell you. And next time don’t wait three years. Pick up some sandwiches, oh, and chips. And maybe a pickle.” 

“You have got to be kidding?” I was exasperated.

“Oh, stop it. You’re fine. It was just a doctor’s visit. What? A prostate exam and one needle? Welcome to old age. And when you come over I have a big surprise for you to make up for not being there.”

I paused, “What kind of surprise?”

“Do you know the definition of surprise, Dr. Stiles? I’ll show you when you get here-with sandwiches-and you will be thrilled! And pickles. ”

“Okay, whatever,” I sighed.

I showed-up at his house with sandwiches and cokes and pickle-o from Sonic, to find that the cable man still had not shown.

Thad rushed me in and sat the food down on the table in the mirrored dining room, “Close your eyes and hold out your hand.”

I frowned at him, not in the mood for games after so recently being probed by an elderly green eye-shadowed woman.

“Do it!” he shrieked and I automatically closed my eyes and put out my hand.

He sat something there.

“Now open them!” he sang.

And I did to see two tickets sitting there. I brought them up closer to read, ‘Lady Gaga…Tulsa…April 4….’ I did a double-take and looked up at him in surprise. He looked thrilled.

“What are these?” I asked, turning them over. “I thought you were going with Bettina?” Last fall she had found out Gaga was coming to Tulsa in the spring and gotten the two of them tickets and I had been mortified ever since that I had been left out. But he was just ecstatic to be able to go, and had been practicing his best Little Monster poses in ridiculous large sunglasses in the mirror lately as the concert was next Monday.

“She just found out yesterday she can’t go. Some kind of hair show in Dallas she has to be in, so I bought her ticket from her and now you and I can go!”

“You’re kidding?”  I said, mouth open, thrilled, as Gaga was the gay’s latest greatest messiah.      

“No!” He screamed, dancing around. “Its Gaga, bitches!”

“Oh my God! You’re kidding!” I said, hugging him. “That is so great! And it’s next week!”

“Yes! On Monday. Can you take off?”

“Hell, yeah! Someone else can teach those little snot noses Romeo and Juliet for once! This is so great!”    

And we kissed and danced and jumped up and down as he sang Paparazzi and we waved our arms frantically.

Running out of breath, we quickly stopped, holding our sides, wheezing.

“Now I did this,” he gasped, “to make up for not being able to be with you at the doctor this morning. So now do you forgive me?”

“Yes, of course,” I lied. “These are great! Thank you!” and I waved the tickets at him and yelled, “Its Gaga, bitches!” and we jumped around some more until we wore out and had to sit down.

A forty year old body can only celebrate so much in one day.