Yearly Well Woman Exam

I am sure that title conjures up fond memories for anyone reading this with double 'x' chromosomes. Being health conscious myself and not actually having had a Well Woman Exam since before I moved to Norway, I called last week and made an appointment. Unfortunately, they had an opening the next day. So no week of mental preparation, no calling to cancel (like the one I made 6 months ago), no fleeing the country, etc - just had to show up.

Got in the office, take my blood pressure - 120 over 64, looking good (notice we skipped the scale entirely), temperature fine. And no - I am NOT going detail every minute of my appointment - I just felt a RANT coming on....

The nurse pulls two small pieces of tissue paper out of a drawer and says: "Take off everything, put the top on with the opening in the front and drape the sheet over your legs". Yeah. It looks like the stuff I just put in a gift bag ... this is just white instead of purple (which I guess is a blessing right there isn't it?)

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So I'm sitting there, smart enough to have brought my cell phone with me to the table, and I am trapped. When the nurse left, she failed to pull out the 'kiddie step' and I am short, and stupidly climbed up without pulling it out myself. If I tried to get off the table, it would be a bit of a drop and I could see me splayed on the floor, a twisted ankle with tissue paper strewn about.... (the naked part goes without saying, right?)

My cell phone doubles as a PDA so has a multitude of things to play with. I am trying to distract myself by checking my mail, my calendar, but sitting there in a tissue vest made for a 6 year old and trying to keep it shut in front is just too much multitasking for me to handle. I reached over to fix the tissue sheet (we will get to that later) and tore the bottom glue spot out from under the right arm of my 'vest' - so now I just have a 12" long cape on - just flapping in the breeze...

The sheet - is supposed to cover everything else. Maybe if I was, again 6 years old. Take a piece of tissue you place in a gift bag double the length and there you have it - what is supposed to cover the entire bottom portion of my body. So, my thinking is, so as not to flash those opening the door and everyone in the hall - I will start on the right side - yeah - the upper flapping cape side, and tuck it behind me and use what ever I have left to cover the other side. I am tucking and feeling pretty good about myself when the thing ripped almost in half. By now I am deciding that they have seen women with no clothes on before, they probably rarely see them making confetti out of the only covering they were given and so I stopped while I was ... ahead? No ... most definitely behind - and I do mean behind.

They keep the rooms at about 65 degrees, I think just because they are masochistic and leave you in there, waiting for the REAL fun to begin for about 45 minutes - probably just to break your spirit. I think there is some sort of book on the subject because before this lapse in yearly appointments, I was a good girl, going yearly and no matter where I went - It always went the same - except some places had cloth coverings. As my lips were turning blue, I was dreaming about the cloth coverings with a flash or two (no pun intended) of 'do I have any duct tape in my purse?'. Next time, I am bringing my bathrobe and sitting in the chair until she walks in for the appointment. Seriously.

I played solitaire, but it was hard to move the itty bitty cards on my screen while shivering, so I gave up and did what I do - took photos:

Here are my feet turning blue and going numb since they are just hanging out there with the circulation getting cut off.

I discovered quickly that camera phones are a tad lower in quality than my 10.1 mega pixel Digital SLR camera - but you can tell they are feet, right?

For people who do such a great service in bringing new life into this world, you would think that they could come up with a better, less humiliating way to give a yearly checkup.

Or is it just me?

Our Contribution

The other day Ryan was ranting about the stock market troubles and decided to move on to the legacy we have left his generation and his children's generation. Somewhere in his comments he seemed to infer that we were responsible for the financial crisis, gas prices, global warming, wars and rumor of wars and pretty much everything else he sees wrong with the world today. I was sort of seeing his point until he made it abundantly clear (if just sort of kidding ... sort of) that the 'we' he was talking about was not my generation, but Gary and I personally. I was sort of amused since I have to give the kid points for the cleverness of his rant but I still smacked him (a girly smack - don't worry). I am a huge fan of rants - using them copiously myself.

When Gary came home from work, we discussed the days events - he likes to check up on me (my sanity level) and Ryan (see if he stayed in town ...) the usual 'normal' family stuff. I mentioned Ryans rant. We laughed and wondered if we ever worried about the plight of our generation or the world at the age of 18. We pretty much remember the world revolving around us, and could see no farther than oh, the next date.

Gary had apparently given it some thought that evening, and as we were heading off to bed he said: "Next time you talk to Ryan, tell him this is my nightly routine: First I take a 5 gallon container of gas and I pour it in the toilet and flush. Then I take a pile of money and burn it. Then, just for fun, I spray hairspray outside for a few minutes." "Is that all? (No cans of oil dumped in a field? No throwing away car batteries, cellphones, collecting barrels of toxic waste?)" I asked. "Pretty much that's it for now." He replied.

You gotta wonder why the kid has rants ...