Monday, March 31, 2008

J-Man goes to the doctor

So, last Monday I headed to Strike Bethesda for my usual weekly bowling. We’re waiting in line to get our lane when this group of foreign guys (they had that look, you know what I’m talking about...don’t try and judge me) comes piling in and they stink of cigarettes. You know, that "I was just outside smoking a whole cigarette in two minutes since we can’t smoke inside here, I hate America" type of smell. Well, as they walk by me, I realize that I’m slightly allergic to this and my eyes start to twitch a bit. I shrug it off, but my right eye continues to itch off and on throughout the night.

A couple days pass, and my eye is still itching me. By Thursday, I wake up and my right eye has actually gotten red and feels like I’ve got something stuck in it. I ask people to check to see if I’ve got an eyelash or something going on, but nothing. By Friday, my eye is starting to swell, and I’m getting nervous. So nervous that I go the first route I usually never do...buy some sort of drugs to help it out. I swing by Target, grab myself some allergy drops, and actually put them into my eye.

By Saturday, my eye has gotten even more swollen, I have a vicious hangover from a party night after Davidson beat Wisconsin (but that’s another story), and I’m wondering if my eye is ever gonna get any better.

Nope. Sunday rolls around and now I feel like I look like a combination of Rocky from Rocky I (second Rocky reference on this blog in like two weeks!) and Sloth from Goonies (I’ll try to get a second Goonies reference soon). I need to go that next route, the route I rarely ever take. I’m going to go to the doctor.

You see, I don’t like going to the doctor. I don’t like taking the time to drive there. I don’t like filling out all my information, because I don’t know who my "primary care physician" is. I don’t like waiting in the waiting room with sick people, so I can contract a new disease that I didn’t come in with. Or just sitting there reading Us Weekly or watching CSPAN for an hour and a half because I don’t care about either. And most of all, I really don’t like getting bills...I just got over the $3000 price tag associated with my broken jaw of two years ago...and that’s after insurance did their part.

It is for this reason that I have been wearing the same eye glasses for the past 8 years. And why I’m pretty sure I will never be able to bend my right big toe correctly again. But I digress. I’m here and I’ve endured these disasters. And the doctor has come in to check out my eye.

After a quick examination including squirting orange dye into my eye and looking at it under a UV lamp (does this sound normal to you?), she concludes that she doesn’t know what it is, and decides to treat it as conjunctivitis. She’s gonna give me some eyedrops and tells me to call an eye specialist if it doesn’t get better. She doesn’t know? And she wants me to put something in my eye? And call someone else when it doesn’t get better? You see why I avoid this shit. Again, I digress.

I figure I’ve made it this far, let’s get my money’s worth. I mention that I have a bone sticking out funny on my shoulder though the pain associated with it went away a couple weeks ago. She looks at my shoulder and tells me to call a specialist. What can she help me with?

I’ve got nothing else going wrong with me, so I’m like, "how hard is it to get an STD test?" You know, you can never be too careful, and while Mr. Johnson appears to be doing ok, I’ve never had one before, so what can it hurt? She says, ’just need to take some blood and some urine’, and I’m like, ’let’s do it!’ Am I mocking the medical profession by just adding these things on?

Anyway, a few minutes later, a nurse comes in and has the blood taking stuff and a cup with her. She’s actually somewhat attractive, which makes me regret having asked for such a test to be done, but it’s too late now. She takes my blood, and shows me to the bathroom. After taking care of business, I hand her my freshly filled cup and then there’s this awkward moment where we’re both standing there.

In my head, I’m thinking how hilarious it would be if I tried to ask this girl out. I think it would go something like this:

Me: Yeah, I know you’re holding a cup of my pee and you just took blood to make sure that I don’t have gonorhea or syphillis, and I presently look like I want a Baby Ruth from Chunk (told you I’d get a second Goonies reference in), but would you like to go out sometime?

Her: How about I let you know in a day or two after these results come back?

And perhaps this thought in my head lead to the awkward exchange as I had a goofy smirk on my face as I grabbed my box of OJ (she gave me some) and headed out.

And then today, I went to my friend, who is an eye doctor, and he said everything she told me about the eye was wrong and he told me that I’m just having an allergy issue that went a little haywire in one eye.

See...now you know why I avoid doctors offices. Nothing good comes from them except these retarded stories...and this shnazzy new t-shirt with "Disease Free" and an arrow pointing down on it that I got.

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