Love Is Extremely Nearsighted

Ooh, the new doctor at my optometrist's office is cute! Or he might be. That might have been the coatrack. It's hard to tell, since they had me take out my contacts before he came in.

Every other year I get my eyes dilated, which is always lots of fun. First the doctor had me read off a line of letters while flipping lenses in front of my face, determined that my prescription hasn't changed any since last year - and thank God for that, because if it gets any worse, I will only be able to see things that are actually behind my head - then tilted my face back, put drops in my eyes, and sent me back to the waiting room to ripen.

So for about twenty minutes I sat there among the new arrivals, as the room grew brighter and brighter. I was bored. It's not like you can read a magazine. I thought about leaning over to one of my neighbors. "Psst! Hey, buddy!" I would whisper, glancing around furtively. "The letters are S, J, X, P, B, Q!"

But I was feeling blue and mopey, and not really up to any hijinks. Too bad, because wouldn't that be funny? You're just sitting there, minding your own business, leafing through a three-month-old Newsweek while you wait for the nurse to call you, and someone with pupils the size of dinner plates tries to get you to cheat on your eye exam. Well, I think it'd be pretty cool. But bear in mind that I'm the kind of person who tries to flirt with furniture.

"Are you driving today?" asked the doctor, shining his light into my eyes. "No, no, I'm on my bike," I told him. "Oh, good," he said. Biking blind is much safer.

Actually (once I got my new contacts in) it turns out he is pretty cute, although he's much too young, probably fresh out of medical school. "The first two years, all my classmates and I had to dilate each other's eyes a couple of times a week," he told my sympathetically when I complained about the sensation. "Partly for practice and partly so we'll know what the patients are going through. I hate it too."

It has to be done. I'll be back again in two years, so if you need to schedule an eye exam, you might want to get it in before then. Because who knows what kind of mood I'll be in?

The U.S. Healthcare System: Works Just Fine

Another reason never to go to the doctor is that you end up on a mailing list where they send you a whole bunch of incomprehensible paperwork.

Take what arrived in the mail today. "COVER SHEET," it says in big capital letters.

No, well, I understand what that means, although I'm not entirely clear why an otherwise blank piece of paper labeled "COVER SHEET" is necessary. It doesn't seem very environmentally friendly, but okay, I guess I get it. What confuses me is the following page, which says, "This letter is in response to a request for service(s)/procedure(s). The following service/procedure has been approved as medically necessary as defined by the member's Health Care Benefits booklet or Summary Plan Description." Then it says I can have an "ADMISSION" in a "PHYSICIAN'S OFFICE."

Whatever! I'm not admitting anything without an attorney present.

What this is presumably in regards to is that the doctor I went to see about my leg, who drew on years of highly specialized training and experience to arrive at the conclusion that I should maybe stretch before exercising, actually referred me to a physical therapist to show me how. It's hard to tell, but I think this is my insurance company's notice that they might not deny all the charges if I do.

But I'm pretty sure it's a trap.

It's not the first incomprehensible mailing I've received, either, since my office visit not two weeks ago. There was another procedure approved - I think - and there was a notification that my co-pay was adequate to meet my financial responsibility for the office visit itself. I think.

Frankly, I'm glad I can figure out stretching on my own, because I can't afford any more pre-approved procedures. Earlier this year, Katie went to the doctor for recurring stomach-aches that were causing her to miss a lot of school. The doctor recommended a battery of tests, and some weeks later, we received a $279 bill (somehow, the invoices are never quite so difficult to make out as the approval notices). Katie - on my friends list on MySpace - posted a response to a survey bulletin a bit later. "When was the last time you were sick?" read the question. "I fake sick all the time, but I can't remember the last time I was really sick," responded Katie, serving as an object lesson in the dangers of an active Internet presence.

She's not in traction; that would cost a fortune.

Is There a Duck in the House?

Nothng against doctors, really, but unless something is fairly seriously the matter with you, they won't tell you anything you didn't already know.

Drink plenty of fluids and get some rest. Eat sensibly. Get up off your ass and exercise every once in a while. A little fresh air won't kill you.

If you're feeling really lousy, your doctor might prescribe an antibiotic. Theoretically, this is just because (1) it can't hurt, and (2) it makes the patient feel better to take something. But lately I'm coming to wonder if the medical profession, in addition to corporate interests such as Lysol and Dial, is actually run by some master race of superintelligent bacteria as part of a breeding program so that they can take over the world.

Or maybe not, because strictly speaking, I think bacteria probably already do own the world, and creating more drug-resistant varieties only works towards wiping out some of their more successful hosts - not really in the bacteria's best interests, not that I know a lot about these things. Still, I don't think it makes sense in the long run. Perhaps the bacteria are Republicans.

Anyway, I went to the doctor this morning to have a look at my left calf muscle, which - only during chilly weather - sometimes sort of snaps when I spring up off my toes, say, to jump over a puddle, or to dodge traffic on Riverside. If I do it hard enough, it hurts like a mofo and I'm limping for a month. It did that thing again Monday, and since this is the third winter in a row it's happened, I figured what the hell, I'll go get a professional opinion on it.

It's been a while since I sat around in a doctor's waiting room. They never have any magazines I want to look at, so I sit and look out the window, or just stare at the walls. There was a row of paintings opposite me, in different styles, all apparently by different artists.

One depicted a woman sitting in a chair, her legs crossed. Another displayed a seated figure. A third, very abstract one apparently was of a chair and human occupant, and - hey! The waiting room was decorated entirely with paintings of people waiting!

I meant to ask the doctor about that when he came into the examining room, but all he wanted to talk about was my leg. He looked kind of like William H. Macy. He asked a whole bunch of questions about my exercise routine, family history, medications, etc. and then felt my leg up and down for several minutes asking if it hurt (it didn't). Finally he told me I should just stretch before I go walking.

So that's it: a $20 co-pay, and I get my leg felt up and told to stretch. The second one I could figure out, and the first I could probably have found somebody to do for free.

But at least he didn't prescribe antibiotics.