Sweet Seventeen

I went to the doctor yesterday for my 6 month check up, because how else would he get my business if he didn’t make me come in every 6 months so he could read the notes from my previous visit to me? It’s really a lot of fun to go in there and sit while Dr. Hotstuff glances up at me as he very literally reads off our history together. It’s a beautiful moment, one in which I shed a little tear and we both smile in anticipation of our future together. Either that or I sit there bored while he reads the chart, bored, and then we do the usual “Let me look at your ears and throat and say doctorly things like, ‘Tonsils look a little swollen. You’ve got some red streaks in your throat.’” He says that EVERY time, y’all. EVERY.SINGLE.TIME. Apparently my tonsils are in a constantly swollen state and my throat is constantly irritated. Occasionally he’ll throw in a new little doozy like, “Your left sinus is completely swollen shut. How do you breathe?” It’s time like those I’m so glad I picked my doctor by the scientific method of choosing the first on the list. Nothing like a little research to really get the best physician around.

So yesterday was proving to be pretty normal except for the fact that this little old lady was sitting in the lobby with gauze stuck in her mouth, patiently bleeding onto her chin. I felt really guilty because she reached out in anticipation when the nurse came to call me and the nurse, being the kind woman that she is, shut her down completely. I mean, I’m not sure how you blow off a little old lady with bloody gauze in her mouth and then smile about it later, but she did it. It was AMAZING. I made a mental note to be extra nice to this one.

Anyway, normal doctor’s visit. I got weighed while refusing to look at the scale. I had my blood pressure checked and found it was normal. I sat on the (new!) uncomfortable bench thingy and crunched up paper. I laid down and dreamed about how I hate my doctor when I was left alone. Normal.

So then Dr. Hotstuff came in and we began our dance. He always asks if I’m in school or working. I always tell him I’m working. He always asks how life’s treating me. I always say, “Fine.” He always wants to know if I “feel” good. I always say I “feel” fine. But today something different happened. After “breathing for the stethoscope” time, he says, “You’ve lost a lot of weight!”

What? Who? Huh? This is new! He noticed something!?

He went on to ask me about what I’ve done to lose the weight and I was really nervous that he was going to tell me that I was doing it all wrong and putting my health at risk. Or that my heartbeat was somehow completely screwed up because I do too much cardio or something. I realize that sounds stupid at this point, but at the time it made a lot of sense to me.

Fortunately, he wasn’t asking to chastise, he was asking because he was proud of me. He proceeded to go on and on about how I lost the weight the right way and that he doesn’t see this very often and how amazing it was and that I should get a gold star and by the way, he loved my hair. I was all, “Thanks Dr. Hotstuff! I noticed my pants were smaller!” So he was like, “Do you know how much weight you’ve lost?” And I said, “No.” And he looked at that chart (that I now adore) and said the magical words that every girl wants to hear, “Seventeen pounds.”

!?

Seventeen pounds!? That’s the number after 16! That’s 3 from 20! 17! Seven-freaking-teen! I had NO idea. None. I’ve lost almost 20 pounds! I somehow managed to control myself and not do the patented Cora happy dance when he told me. How, am I not sure. Apparently I do have a modicum of self-restraint and dignity and every once in a while. I was all giggly after that and I barely managed to hear him compliment my hair and talk about how different I looked. I just kept going, “Seventeen! Seventeen!” over and over again in my head. Oh well. I don’t think he noticed, because Dr. Hotstuff? Not so much with the patient/doctor relationship. Which is fine, because seriously? Seventeen is the best number EVER.