I've been defiled

Okay, I've only been for my yearly pap but it sure feels like it. YUCK. Ah, the wonders of modern medicine. Is there any other place where I can wait for almost an hour in a room for the privilege of having a grizzled Asian man stick his hand in my junk up to his wrist? Maybe Singapore. Where, co-incidentally, my doctor is from. Fancy that.

And is it just me or are these things getting worse and worse as I get older? Dr Sim, bless his heart, has been my ob/gyn since I moved to Ottawa in 1990. He's a great ob/gyn and delivered all my babies but he can be bossy. And distracted. And he's got zero bedside manner. I mean ZERO. I never told you guys the about the time I called him from my daycare telling him that there was Fifth's Disease going around. I wondered if I should worry about the baby. After telling him that I was 24 weeks pregnant he says to me in his thick Asian accent "No, no, you okay. If you 20 weeks or under maybe baby die but you okay". And he hung up on me. Wha? You never, EVER EVER say "maybe baby die" to a first time pregnant woman. Ever. I burst out crying and couldn't stop so my director had to send me home anyway. Not cool Dr. S.

Anyway, back to the pap. I tried to make small-talk to make it go by faster but is there anything you can say to block out the fact that a relative stranger is inserting cold greased up instruments into your privates? "So, Doc... it's hot out, eh?" "Who do you think will be the next housemate voted out on Big Brother? Kaysar really screwed up with his nominations, didn't he?" It's so not working. Then it happens. He TAKES A PHONE CALL. While I'm wearing a paper gown, in stirrups errr... demonstrating the proper use of a speculum. Yanno, Doc, there's only so much I can take. I've driven halfway across town, waited an hour in a room with no magazines, the kids are all still in the waiting room (I hope), you've ignored my desperate cries for idle chit chat, now this. All I can do is throw my arm over my eyes and repeat "it's only once a year" over and over again.

Thankfully everything's where it should be again and I'm trying to put the horrors of yesterday afternoon behind me. This blog can be good therapy. Sorry you all had to live through it too.

kxx