Recapping My First Doctor's Appointment In 10 Years

So as I blogged about yesterday, I went to the doctor’s office for the first time in over a decade. I feel like many stoolies out there are in a similar boat. Basically go through all of college and your early 20’s without ever getting a physical or even stepping foot into a hospital. So here is a step by step recap of what I had to do for everyone else thinking about seeing a doctor.

Lobby area

There were about 20 half dead people sitting in the lobby being old and gross. If I had to do this part again I would have brought one of those SARS masks Asian people wear on airplanes.

The Room

I don’t know if this is a new thing or not but I feel like when I was a kid there was way more shit you could steal in the check up room. I looked and it was basically just gauze. Dissapointing to say the least.

Weight

First thing they do is take your weight. I weighed in at 222, sort of an awesome number. Deuce City. I also refused to take off my shoes or empty my pockets. If you do this you can convince yourself that you really weigh roughly 20 lbs less than the weight on the scale. Old hockey Trick. I weigh about 195 in real life.

Blood Pressure

Mine was 127/74. The nurse said that was good which to me means I knocked this portion out of the park. Good, adequate, average, ok, these are all words that I embrace with open arms. Not trying to break any records here. Don’t be a hero guys.

Height

6’2.5”. Should have kept my shoes on for this one, that half inch will haunt my life.

So after the routine check up stuff the nurse leaves and the doctor comes in and basically asks you a bunch of questions. A lot of the questions were just basic do you feel healthy, are you eating ok, blah blah blah. Some of the more notable questions included

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Do you sweat while you sleep at night?

I said yes, every Sunday night, they’re called the Scaries, self diagnosed by Big Cat, M.D. Do you even drink bro? (I didn’t actually say the do you even drink bro part but I thought it in my head and I feel like the doctor saw me judge him for being a nerd).

Sex life

They ask you if you use protection, then they ask you if you have sex with men, women, or both, at least that’s what he asked me, which now that I’m thinking about it I think he was calling me gay.

AIDS test

They ask if you want an AIDS test. Don’t get the AIDS test. If you don’t get the AIDS test you can’t get AIDS, that’s actually a scientific fact.

Drinking

This is where things got awkward. When asked how many drinks I have on an average week I went with 12-18. I think that’s a fair number, sometimes its far more (like all of football season, holidays, every day in the summer, march madness, and NHL/NBA playoffs), sometimes its far less (the 2 weeks in February between the Super Bowl and March Madness) but overall I thought that was ok. Well I was wrong. Turns out doctors don’t think you should be drinking at all. I was told that 12-18 was at the high end of the spectrum and extremely detrimental to my health. Lot of talk about cholesterol, liver issues, and I’m pretty sure he mumbled the D word (diabetes). No bueno. So I guess my advice on this question is don’t stop drinking, just say you did to your doctor.

Do you test yourself for testicular cancer?

This is key guys, the answer is yes. Do I actually? No, I mean I touch my balls a lot, but I’m guessing that wasn’t the question. It wasn’t “Hey Big Cat do you jerk off all the time and constantly have your hands down your pants like a mouth-breather?” it was do you do that mammogram shit but for you balls. If you answer no here my guess is you end up getting your balls touched by a guy. This is the biggest piece of advice I can give, unless you want your balls touched, then definitely say you have no clue what you’re doing.

At this point the head doctor came in so it was a tag team effort. The first thing she said was “I was told you were 222 but didn’t look too overweight and I have to agree” which is a sneaky way of her saying you’re obese but you don’t look obese but just remember you’re technically obese. Duly noted Doc.  She then asked to hear my heart so I took off my shirt and hopped up on the table thingy.

Now two things happened here. One she listened to my stomach which was awkward because she basically had to maneuver my fat rolls and we both felt super uncomfortable. Two, she spent a lot of time around the breast area so I’m almost positive she checked for lumps. That was humbling, having the doctor make the executive decision that my breasts are large enough to contract Breast Cancer.

Anyway at this time we were basically done. The overall prognosis was that I’m in relatively good health , should try to drink less and exercise more, and that I don’t have AIDS, which all loosely translated into go ahead and pound some chicken fingers and ice cream in the Hospital cafeteria, which I did, obviously.

So there it is. Would I say everyone needs to see a doctor? No, definitely not. Web MD is probably more than adequate. But it was pretty cool to learn that I don’t have AIDS by not taking the AIDS test.