I Love Dr. Jimmy (In a Completely Hippocratic Way, Of Course)

Not too long ago, I published a post ranting about my frustrations with some of the doctors I’ve encountered.  Telling people in my blog what I really wish I’d said to them in person is what this site is all about.  But not every missed opportunity to speak up is a complaint.  Today’s post is dedicated to a compliment I wish I’d given.

When I don’t feel well, I call Dr. Jimmy’s office.  A Real Person answers, not an automated voice with a confusing menu of choices, none of which actually apply to your situation, advising you to listen to all of the options because they have changed, then tricking you by making zero, the former talk-to-a-person option, into a non-choice so you have to listen to the blasted menu all over again.

The Real Person at Dr. Jimmy’s calmly listens, and finds a time to fit me in.  Not in a month.  That day.  At a time that is convenient for me.  There is a millisecond of a moment that I’m on hold while she looks up my chart, but there is no irritating scratchy music or ads for new treatments I didn’t know I needed.  And no accidental hangups.

I arrive early for my appointment and the Real Live Person gives me a three-inch sheet of paper with about five things for me to fill out.  I don’t have to fill out three pages of questions that I’ve already answered ten times before about my entire medical history and all of my allergies.  Just check off that nothing has changed since the last time I was here, which for your information, People Who Think I’m a Hypochondriac, was two years ago.

I turn in my little paper stub and my copayment.  I sit down and pull out my iPad.  Two minutes later, I am called back to the exam room.  Yep, you got that right, folks.  Before. My. Appointment. Time.

Weight and blood pressure taken, I wait in the reasonably temperate room.  I am not freezing my butt off in a transparent napkin that covers nothing because I am actually still wearing all of my clothes.  No paper gown dress code for Dr. Jimmy’s office.

As I contemplate taking my iPad out again, in strides Dr. Jimmy.  Casually dressed in jeans and a button down shirt, he shakes my hand and greets me like an I’m an old friend from college he happened to bump into at the grocery store.  In a manner of minutes, he has helped me to identify my physical ailment, empathized with me because he’s suffered through the same symptoms, offered over-the-counter treatment, and asked me to call the office back if this reasonable prescription doesn’t help within a day.

No over-dramatic orders to go see five specialists, get blood tests and x-rays, and to stop eating anything if I ever want to feel better.

I am back in my car within 25 minutes of my arrival.  I could actually go back to work if I want to.

But I don’t.

Thanks, Dr. Jimmy.  I haven’t taken my medicine yet, but I feel better already.

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“I’m not a big fan of that.” This is what Dimples says when she does not like something – usually the food placed in front of her on the table.  What she really means, of course, is that she wants to know how exactly much of this vile food she must force down her throat in order to qualify for dessert.

It would be easier for me to list the foods she is a fan of, than to try to log all of the ones that disgust her.  Scratch that.  It would be easier to list all of the nutritious foods she likes (all three of them) than the ones she pushes around her plate indefinitely.

It does no good to remind her that she claimed to like that particular food two weeks ago.  Or to point out that one of the foods on her current short list of favorites was actually a deeply detested food the first three times it landed on her plate.

As picky eaters go, Dimples is actually pretty good about it.  She might declare that she’s “not a fan”, but she still grudgingly sits through the movie, so to speak.   She just makes sure we are aware of her distaste and then takes as long as possible to ingest it – leaving herself more time to make a deal with her father regarding what percentage must end up in her stomach instead of the plate.  (I let her father make the deals, because he’s usually the one who served her up triple sized helpings to begin with, apparently either suffering under the delusion that Dimples is a 300 pound cowboy who needs to keep up his strength for bull riding or fearful that our daughter will die of malnutrition before her next meal.)

So, I’m trying to think of a clever retort for the next time she publicly denies fandom to a food item.  How about one of these:

“You don’t have to post the picture on your Wall.”

“I’m not asking you to friend it on Facebook, just eat it already!”

“Just eat it, don’t Tweet it.”

“The last I checked, Yelp wasn’t asking for ratings of your mother’s cooking.”

…Oh my God – there’s not an app for that, is there?

The Gradual Emasculation of Wonderbutt

It Started When He Was a Puppy...

I wasn’t planning to post another Wonderbutt blog again this soon, but, true to type, the bulldog pup had his own ideas.

8-year-old Dimples decided to wear a barrette in her hair last night to Meet the Teacher.  Dimples has not worn barrettes since she was three.  She discovered the box of her baby barrettes the other day, and proceeded to act like she had found a buried treasure, showing me each barrette I had bought for her, and she had refused to wear, like she had made some unique discovery.  “I wonder where this came from,” she would keep saying as I finally resorted to rolling my eyes instead of saying, “I bought it for you!”

This particular barrette of Meet the Teacher honor was suddenly her favorite.  A small metal barrette with a pink bow made of tulle, it suddenly began to adorn, not only her hair, but her new sparkly white newsboy cap.  In the interest of some fashion statement I have yet to translate, Dimples decided to forgo the hat and just go with the barrette last night.  Fine.

We got home from meeting the teacher and finding out that the one person she was happy to have in her class was the one person I wasn’t thrilled about, and I left her to her own devices in the living room with Wonderbutt.

About ten minutes later, the girl-who-has-cried-Wonderbutt far too many times started yelling for me.  “Wonderbutt has my barrette!”

“Well, get it back!” I returned from the back of the house, where I was trying to compose a witty comment to someone else’s blog.

She didn’t, and after the third scream, I meandered out to the living room to fish the darn  barrette out of his mouth.

Nothing there.  The problem was, it wasn’t anywhere else either.  Which left one other place.  Great.

So, I called the emergency vet clinic.  Bear in mind that Wonderbutt was racing around happily chomping on his most annoying squeaky toy while I tried to converse with the nurse.  (Yes, I rhymed that deliberately.)

The vet’s advice via the nurse boiled down to: bring him in so they could induce vomiting OR feed him fiber and hope it would pass.  Based on the fact that he was currently cavorting around the living room and obnoxiously squeaking his toy in the Golden’s face, I decided to choose the latter.

As of this post, I am still checking his Pen of Poop every few hours, hoping to see a pink bow adorning his latest, uh, bowel evacuation.

And back to my Congress and the National Debt reference in a previous Wonderbutt post – you can put a pink bow on it, but it’s still…

Take a Xanax and Call Me in the Morning

I am listening to a man talk about having to take Xanax every night because he can’t sleep.  He is not on T.V.,  and he is not talking to me.

I’m not being rude.  He just happens to be seated about three yards away from me in a chair at the bookstore talking on his cell phone.  He is not using his “six-inch voice”, as we teachers like to call it.

I came to the bookstore to write so I would avoid the temptation of trying to type during a television show or the various other distractions at my house.  I don’t know what I was thinking.

I probably should get up and move somewhere else, but I don’t want to give up my chair.  I lingered in the magazine section for twenty minutes so I could score this nice, comfy seat in the sunlight.

I’ve already learned that: this man has sleep problems, he has a daughter about to return to school, and that his wife, Kim, is going to be an Empty Nester.

I thought he was about to hang up, but apparently someone new came on the line, and now he is repeating the saga of his sleep problems.

I am wondering why he is at the bookstore.  Did he need to find himself a quiet place without distractions in order to talk on his cell phone?

Now there is a trio of teenagers looking at the gaming magazines right across from me, which really makes me question my chosen location.  Cell Phone Guy has hung up, so I am eager for some new entertainment.

But they walk away after barely thirty seconds of chatter, leaving me to wish the Man Who Can’t Sleep would call someone else.  Otherwise, I have to stare at my blank iPad and try to think of something to type out of my own head.  This is much harder than noting down annoyances in my surroundings.

There are some oddly fascinating magazines on the shelves.  There is one called Hi-Fructose in front of me with a girl with no eyes on her face and butterflies and flowers framing her head.  And Harry Connick Junior is giving me a disconcerting grin from the cover of “Success” magazine.

My eyes fall on the magazines next to Harry, all about finance and money, and I feel my anxiety level ascending.  I start to think about all of the things that I should be doing to make my future more financially stable, and sitting here typing about the strangers I see at the bookstore begins to seem like more and more of a really bad idea.

I look at Cell Phone Guy, and wonder if it would be rude to ask him for a Xanax.