Unexpected fun

When was the last time you heard someone exclaim, "I had the best time at my gynecologist's office today" ?

But I did.

It was the last appointment I needed to get me all up to date with exams, tests, procedures, etc. (nobody has found anything alarming in any body part or oriface, so I guess I'm good for another 10,000 miles).

I like my gynecologist, but I've only seen her once, three years ago. She used to be married to an internist who shared one wing of a medical building with the women's health office I managed, so I got to know him casually until he to become an internist for Kaiser (after which he was my internist for a few years until he left that job to start his own private practice). We were on a first name basis, but I had never met his wife until three years ago, my last gyn appointment.

I made this appointment several weeks ago and when the time came for the appointment, I just didn't feel like going, so I rescheduled the appointment the day before I was supposed to see her. I rescheduled for several weeks ahead of time and then yesterday realized that the time was finally here.

I guess I was channeling my mother or something because I was doing everything I could think of to get out of going today. I realized I couldn't not go and tell Walt I had, because he would need to have the receipts for the co-pay. I couldn't tell him they had called to cancel the appointment because we have caller ID and no call from Kaiser would show up on the screen. (Damn modern technology!) I almost had an out when her office called me (a-ha! it showed up on the caller ID screen!), but they were calling to ask if I could come like now because they had a big gap in the schedule. So there was no chance to conveniently "forget" or to "get held up in traffic." I figured I might as well just do it and get it over with.

I did the dreaded weigh-in and the blood pressure check and then sat there, well ventilated aft, and read my book until she finally showed up (a bit of a wait, since there was one patient ahead of me--probably someone who lived closer than I do!)

She was delightful and I was glad that she volunteered something about "her boyfriend," so I knew not to ask her about her husband, now her ex-husband. We started chatting about theatre and she noted that I was wearing the Broadway socks I bought in New York, so there was more talk about theatre and kids' involvement in theatre.

We talked about medical transcription and the mutual acqaintances we had in the medical community here. We laughed at the foibles of one and concern about the welfare of another. She made me feel very good when I brought up what had happend with all of the office managers in the wake of Big Medical Company's take-over of ten private medical offices and she gave me a knowing look, sighed and agreed that BMC had been underhanded in its dealing with the office managers.

She asked about grandchildren and expressed surprise that we had only one, but before I could say anything, held up her hand and said "I know the story, so you don't need to go into it." She remembered that we had lost two sons.

I did something I had never done at a medical appointment before--I started to cry about a couple of things that came up, and after we compared notes on animal behavior (her dogs and mine, her boyfriend's cats) and I told the story of Paul's cat Scab's anguish after Paul's death, we both cried.

Somewhere in the middle of all that chit-chat the exam was done and she said everything looked fine and that I probably wouldn't need another Pap smear, but should come back in 2 years or so just to check that there were no unusual growths.

Eventually she said that she was enjoying our conversation and could have sat there talking to me for a long time (which made me feel weird, because I'm not generally speaking much of a talker!), but she had to leave.

I left on a real high. I had had a breast exam, a Pap smear, and an abdominal exam and I hadn't even really noticed it because I was having such a good time chatting with her. It was almost as much fun as going to my dentist's office, which I've always compared to going to the hairdresser.

Best of all, I don't need any exams by anybody until February, when I'm due for an eye exam--and that is an exam I'm looking forward to because I am aware that I need new glasses.

Life's good.

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Has anybody heard about Dropbox, an online site for storing and sharing files? Like some of the others, they give you 2 gig free storage 50 gig for $10 a month and 100 gig for $20 a month. If you're interested in trying it out, you get an additional 250 MB if you accept an invitation and I get an extra 250 MB because I sent one out. So if you're interested in checking it, you can do us both a favor by letting me know you'd like me to invite you to try it out! I'm thinking that being able to sync up my desktop to my laptop or accessing the files I want on line at someone else's computer will be a great help for doing this journal while I'm traveling. Anyway, it's free for what I'm using it for now, so I thought what the heck!