You're Going to Put That Thermometer Where?!

For most of us, visiting the doctor is not something that tops our list of fun things to do. And no matter how many times we visit our doctor, things take place there that we just don't understand. See if the following doesn't sound familiar.

When visiting the doctor's office, sometimes I'm given the cup and sent to the bathroom to give a urine sample. Of course when making the appointment, I was never told to be prepared for this, and I inevitably use the commode before leaving home, arriving at the doctor's office with a bladder as dry as the Sahara Desert.

The next thing I know, I'm locked in a tiny closet of a bathroom, straining hard enough to break a blood vessel just to get a drop or two of liquid into the cup.

If, by chance, I suspect a sample request will be forthcoming, I hold off using the bathroom at home and arrive at the doc's with a bladder so full my back teeth are floating. And this brings up another dilemma.

When handed the cup there's one important piece of information that seems to always be omitted from my instructions, just how much of a sample am I supposed to give? I mean, with a full bladder I can easily fill the cup to over flowing, but I'm fairly confident the gang at the medical lab who test the stuff really don't want more from me than what's necessary.

On the other hand, if I don't give the lab enough of my urine, will they call and, after I've emptied what's left in my bladder, ask that I provide more? These are serious questions to those of us on the giving end of this whole ordeal.

Another apprehension I have about visiting the doctor is being forced to wear those hideous hospital gowns. Obviously these gowns were designed by some fashion school flunky. Not only is it impossible to cover my derriere while wearing one, but they're so blasted short that when I lie down on something, like say an x-ray table, I could serve as the poster boy for a college anatomy class. I'll bet I've flashed my bare essentials at more people than did Lady Godiva.

And why is this piece of hospital attire called a gown? It's not like it's some fashionable piece of clothing to be worn at a cotillion.

Then there's the blood pressure cuff. I remember the time the doctor was concerned because my blood pressure was elevated. HELLOOOOOOOOO! Of course my blood pressure was elevated.

I was at the doctor's office, anticipating all of the poking and prodding about to commence upon my body, when Nancy Nurse comes in the room, slaps this Velcro thing around my left bicep, and proceeds to pump that hummer so tightly around my arm it feels like I'm in the grasp of a 9000-pound gorilla! You'd have to be dead to not have elevated blood pressure from an experience like that.

Well there you have it, just a few of the things concerning doctor visits that a lot of us don't understand and would like to have explained. In the meantime, let's thank our lucky stars that rectal thermometers aren't used anymore.