Guest Blog: Kristen's Visit to the Doctor

A note about this post: Recently, Kristen has told me a highly amusing tale about her visit to the doctor, and after asking/ bribing her with food (which she grabbed quickly and ran into a dark room like a flea bitten raccoon), she has agreed to write the story for this blog. Enjoy.

My entire life I have always had some sort of medical annoyance or injury going on. Nothing major ever, just an allergy to bubble bath here (which ruined my childhood) or an accidental self inflicted hammer injury to the knee there (thanks a lot, Lindsay). However, no matter the injury, no matter the illness, I always refused to go to the doctor. Even when I took a wall vent to the face, which looked a little like this:

Thankfully my important documents survived.

Or when I chopped my hand open on my mother’s birthday.

It may have been the worst birthday, but it was also the most exciting.

So it was a pretty big deal when I forced myself to go to the doctor after days of agonizing throat pain and a fever that just wouldn’t quit. I forced my then boyfriend Trent to drive me to the doctor. I figured it could double as a date cause I’m cheap like that.

The paper bag date was the only one that topped it.

So on we went to the doctor, with me wearing my entire winter wardrobe in the middle of a blazing St. George summer to try to ward off the chill I couldn’t escape. When we arrived, I had to fill out some paperwork. Which was nigh unto impossible in my chilled, trembling, low blood sugar haze of near death.

My known allergies.

Finally, after watching what seemed like the entire National Geographic catalog about elephants, we were admitted to the back. The doctor poked me in the neck with his doctor stick while muttering about white girls. Or gills. Or spots on my tonsils. I don’t really know. He decided I needed to stumble down to the blood drawing room of horror because, really, I hadn’t suffered enough.

Now, something I should note here, I have tiny veins. And when I’m nervous, my veins contract. When I’m cold, my veins contract. And here I was nervous and freezing, so I’m pretty sure my veins were the size of half a human hair at this point. The nurse looked at my both my arms, trying to figure out where my blood was. Finally, she just decided to poke me with the hope of finding blood similar to how one just digs hoping to find oil.

There be oil in them there veins!

After twisting and digging around she finally got a bit of dusty blood from me. The second the needle left my body, I bolted out the door in a panic looking for a bathroom in the unfamiliar building so I could upheave every scrap of upheavable upheavables. And then some.

Unfortunately, as stated above, the building was unfamiliar to me. At this point I was so desperate I started flinging open every door within sight. I finally couldn’t take it any more and picked a random door and ran in screeching as best as I could with my mangled throat “I need to puke! Help!”

A flustered woman in a white lab coat thrust a garbage can in my direction just in time. She and Trent stood there looking at each other awkwardly while I heaved. Once all of my organs were in the garbage can, she muttered something about getting some water while backing out of the door as fast as she could. Once she left, I took in my surroundings. It appeared I stumbled into one of those lab rooms where they look at x-rays. It was pretty dark in there. Either that or my vomiting broke my eyes.

The remainder of my day is something I don’t really remember. I’m fairly certain we went to say hi to my future mother in law, who worked in the building at the time. I’m fairly positive I laughed uncontrollably at inappropriate times during the conversation. And then maybe sobbed on the way home. I’m not sure. Honestly, to this day I still don’t remember if we went and got a prescription or if I even got a diagnosis. And that my friends, is why I don't go to the doctor.