Thursday, July 8, 2010

My trip to the doctor - A non-horror story

Yup, I really am:)

I wasn’t going to write about this, partly because my story is simply that, one story; and partly because, well, it’s not a terribly exciting story. But the thing is, if you spend some time in the Fatosphere, you’re bound to hear stories. Stories not like mine. Truly horrible stories. And it can freak you the f**k out, I know it did me. That is why I’m writing this, to show that not every trip to the doctor’s has to be a disaster.
I’ve been having these really intense headaches, and after suffering through about six of them I just couldn’t put off going to the doctor any longer. Both his and mind first thought went to migraine, but since I have no symptoms of migraine other than the headaches we ruled that out. His next thought was that it might be situation based, meaning factors in my life were to ‘blame’, so to figure out if this was the case, he asked me some questions. This was perfectly reasonable, and also something I expected. Among the questions was a question about my diet (meaning how/what I eat and drink). Now, I have recently made some changes to my diet, in an attempt to treat my body better, since I’ve… you know… stopped despising it since I found FA, but up till now my diet has, in my opinion, been pretty atrocious for a longish while. So I told him I’ve recently made some changes, and described how I’ve been eating until pretty recently. He did make it clear that he didn’t approve of my former diet by making the ironic comment “Well, you’re sure clever”, but he did not shame me for eating that way. After I had specified a bit, he did ask me a few questions, like “Do you regularly eat bread? Pasta? Drink milk?”, and he seemed slightly concerned by the lack of nutrients I’ve been getting, but, again, there was absolutely no shaming. During our consultation he did ask how much I weigh, which I don’t really see any obvious reason for asking, but then again I’m not a doctor so I’m sure he had a one. He made no comment, verbal or otherwise, about my weight. I’ve recently moved into the deathfat category (which we call ‘Class III obesity’ in my neck of the woods), so I can’t really see him getting bent out of shape by anyone else’s weight either. He did ask me (not directly after the “How my do you think you weigh?” question), how much weight I was planning on losing, I assume in response to my changed diet. To this I answered honestly that I’m not planning on losing any weight, I’ve simply made some changes to eat a more balanced diet. - On a side note; telling him this felt kinda good and empowering, I recommend it! – He didn’t break out the pompoms to cheer me for not dieting, but he didn’t have a negative reaction either. And that was pretty much it. He had someone from the lab draw some blood, told me why he thought I was having these headaches, prescribed some serious painkillers and told me to contact him if they didn’t work in the expected way, I told him thank-you, and we wished each other a nice summer.
If you made it to the end of this non-action packed tale, I hope to have eased your mind about your next doctor visit just a little bit.

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