Don't be a dick, be a dude. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sabinetzin) wrote2020-06-13 08:23 pm
sabinetzin) wrote2020-06-13 08:23 pm
Entry tags:
And I don't think I even got his name
I was put in mind of this, and I don't think I ever told anyone about it. So I present it to you: the weirdest interaction I ever had with a doctor.
Lest you start thinking this is the worst experience I ever had with a doctor, being discriminated against at the doctor when you're female-presenting/fat/queer/mentally ill is not weird, it's just morally wrong. I go to any new doctor fully expecting that they are against me, then work from that point. But this is not about that, because this story is supposed to be funny, or at least baffling.
And there is a lot of talk about liver cancer in this story, but nobody ended up having cancer. Except Patrick Swayze. I told you it was a weird story.
So I'm in pain for several days, but I have a high pain tolerance, so I thought I'd pulled something in my back or messed up my spine somehow. I couldn't go to the chiropractor (there are Southerners who believe the chiropractor fixes everything, and Southerners who believe chiropractic medicine doesn't exist, and my parents are in the latter category and I didn't have a job) so I went to my family doctor. He took a look at me and did an X-ray, and he was like, you probably did pull something, but we're going to draw labs in case it's something more serious.
So I went home, and several hours later, my doctor calls and tells me to go to the ER.
We'll skip over a lot of ER stuff, but know that my liver numbers were not good. This happened 3 years ago so I can't tell you what anything was, but on the chart it just said "Well that don't look great."
This doctor comes in, and he's like, "You know, with these numbers, you could have liver cancer."
And I was just like, "Uh, cool?" because what in the whole fuck do you say to that, I haven't even been to imaging yet, it could be fucking anything in the world, I could just have a fork jammed up there, and I'm not terrified enough, that this fucker has to wander in here and tell me I might have cancer.
"It's not just alcohol abuse, you know," the doctor says, and I'm like, aw fuck, they've got my psych records, where the hospital made me to go AA because I used to drink too much when I was 22 (I was 26) and incredibly depressed. "Smoking also causes liver cancer."
And I'm like, oh for fuck's sake, because yes, I used to be a smoker. I started in undergrad and quit in grad school, I wasn't a heavy smoker, and at this point I hadn't smoked in about seven years. (Be advised that they do put that shit on your medical records and your insurance if they find out, and they will ask you about it if you contradict yourself. Don't start smoking if you haven't. It's expensive and it smells terrible, and you are inconveniencing everyone.)
But let's say, for sake of argument, I had at this moment contracted liver cancer from smoking for five years when I was young and dumb (despite the fact that I drank WAY more than I smoked), what was I supposed to... do? Like lemme just nip out back and unsmoke five years of cigarettes. It's gonna be kinda hard because they were mostly Camels but you can't get Colonials here.
So this man is in here terrifying me for absolutely no reason, because if I have cancer, what's done is done. I don't smoke now, I'm not adding to the problem. If I don't have cancer and he just wants me to not smoke, good news my man, I still don't smoke.
But I told you this was a weird story, and so far it's just a shitty story, with a whiff of the patriarchy.
"Patrick Swayze died of liver cancer," this man tells me with an utterly straight face.
I am thirty-one years old at this point. Roadhouse came out when I was four. I could just as well not know who the fuck he's talking about.
"People thought he died of drinking, but it was the cigarettes," Patrick Swayze's fucking personal physician I guess? tells me. He said this with no trace of irony, no look like this was just a weird story he liked to tell people suspected of harboring liver cancer.
I didn't and don't have any clue how to respond to this, so I just kind of nodded and looked like I was deeply considering his sage words. And before you start thinking that this was a case from the headlines that he was trying to get me to relate to, I was admitted to the hospital on April 28 in the year of our Lord 2017, so Patrick Swayze had been dead
seven
years
Fucking SURELY somebody died of liver cancer between September 2009 and April 2017. Probably a lot of people, but none so near to the heart of this doctor as Patrick Swayze.
And so, satisfied to have imparted this wisdom, the doctor wandered out, and I never saw him again.
And I just want to make one thing perfectly clear: I had to look up Patrick Swayze's death date for this post, and y'all, Patrick Swayze died of pancreatic cancer. It did eventually metastasize to his liver, and he was a heavy smoker, but the central premise of the story this man came in to terrorize me with I think is somewhat spurious, shall we say.
The good news is that I didn't have cancer; I had pretty severe gallstones that were blocking my- bile ducts? idk, the tubes that go from your gallbladder to your liver, I only know about bones. So I had my gallbladder out, and I'm fine.
Rest in peace, Patrick Swayze, may bizarre men in lab coats not wander the halls of ERs and terrorize random young women who don't smoke in your name.
Lest you start thinking this is the worst experience I ever had with a doctor, being discriminated against at the doctor when you're female-presenting/fat/queer/mentally ill is not weird, it's just morally wrong. I go to any new doctor fully expecting that they are against me, then work from that point. But this is not about that, because this story is supposed to be funny, or at least baffling.
And there is a lot of talk about liver cancer in this story, but nobody ended up having cancer. Except Patrick Swayze. I told you it was a weird story.
So I'm in pain for several days, but I have a high pain tolerance, so I thought I'd pulled something in my back or messed up my spine somehow. I couldn't go to the chiropractor (there are Southerners who believe the chiropractor fixes everything, and Southerners who believe chiropractic medicine doesn't exist, and my parents are in the latter category and I didn't have a job) so I went to my family doctor. He took a look at me and did an X-ray, and he was like, you probably did pull something, but we're going to draw labs in case it's something more serious.
So I went home, and several hours later, my doctor calls and tells me to go to the ER.
We'll skip over a lot of ER stuff, but know that my liver numbers were not good. This happened 3 years ago so I can't tell you what anything was, but on the chart it just said "Well that don't look great."
This doctor comes in, and he's like, "You know, with these numbers, you could have liver cancer."
And I was just like, "Uh, cool?" because what in the whole fuck do you say to that, I haven't even been to imaging yet, it could be fucking anything in the world, I could just have a fork jammed up there, and I'm not terrified enough, that this fucker has to wander in here and tell me I might have cancer.
"It's not just alcohol abuse, you know," the doctor says, and I'm like, aw fuck, they've got my psych records, where the hospital made me to go AA because I used to drink too much when I was 22 (I was 26) and incredibly depressed. "Smoking also causes liver cancer."
And I'm like, oh for fuck's sake, because yes, I used to be a smoker. I started in undergrad and quit in grad school, I wasn't a heavy smoker, and at this point I hadn't smoked in about seven years. (Be advised that they do put that shit on your medical records and your insurance if they find out, and they will ask you about it if you contradict yourself. Don't start smoking if you haven't. It's expensive and it smells terrible, and you are inconveniencing everyone.)
But let's say, for sake of argument, I had at this moment contracted liver cancer from smoking for five years when I was young and dumb (despite the fact that I drank WAY more than I smoked), what was I supposed to... do? Like lemme just nip out back and unsmoke five years of cigarettes. It's gonna be kinda hard because they were mostly Camels but you can't get Colonials here.
So this man is in here terrifying me for absolutely no reason, because if I have cancer, what's done is done. I don't smoke now, I'm not adding to the problem. If I don't have cancer and he just wants me to not smoke, good news my man, I still don't smoke.
But I told you this was a weird story, and so far it's just a shitty story, with a whiff of the patriarchy.
"Patrick Swayze died of liver cancer," this man tells me with an utterly straight face.
I am thirty-one years old at this point. Roadhouse came out when I was four. I could just as well not know who the fuck he's talking about.
"People thought he died of drinking, but it was the cigarettes," Patrick Swayze's fucking personal physician I guess? tells me. He said this with no trace of irony, no look like this was just a weird story he liked to tell people suspected of harboring liver cancer.
I didn't and don't have any clue how to respond to this, so I just kind of nodded and looked like I was deeply considering his sage words. And before you start thinking that this was a case from the headlines that he was trying to get me to relate to, I was admitted to the hospital on April 28 in the year of our Lord 2017, so Patrick Swayze had been dead
seven
years
Fucking SURELY somebody died of liver cancer between September 2009 and April 2017. Probably a lot of people, but none so near to the heart of this doctor as Patrick Swayze.
And so, satisfied to have imparted this wisdom, the doctor wandered out, and I never saw him again.
And I just want to make one thing perfectly clear: I had to look up Patrick Swayze's death date for this post, and y'all, Patrick Swayze died of pancreatic cancer. It did eventually metastasize to his liver, and he was a heavy smoker, but the central premise of the story this man came in to terrorize me with I think is somewhat spurious, shall we say.
The good news is that I didn't have cancer; I had pretty severe gallstones that were blocking my- bile ducts? idk, the tubes that go from your gallbladder to your liver, I only know about bones. So I had my gallbladder out, and I'm fine.
Rest in peace, Patrick Swayze, may bizarre men in lab coats not wander the halls of ERs and terrorize random young women who don't smoke in your name.
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2) My partner has a similar story. There was the doc who, when he was in heart failure for mysterious reasons, was utterly convinced that he must have AIDS as soon as he heard about partner's sexual history (this was in the year of our lord 2004 or so). So partner, 21, spends some time being terrified until some more reasonable medical professional appears (heart failure was due to a virus going after his heart, he got a transplant).
I am SO GLAD the people I dealt with when my appendix was Mysteriously Large were reasonable. They were like "this is probs not cancer, but because it could be, let's get it removed quickly and cautiously". And it was Not Cancer, thankfully.
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And actually, now that I think about it, I see her on the 26th, so there's something to be said for loyalty I think.