No, on second thought, it’s totally you.
Last Friday, I called to break up with the Chiropractor I’ve been seeing since October. I had wanted to end things for a long time but while I am good at a great many things, breaking up is not one of them. I’ve been married for ten years and I’m pretty sure that there are still some guys out there that think we might be still be dating. I actually once told a guy after a first date that I wasn’t dating anyone and only spent time with my friends. “We could be friends.” He said. “Sorry. All my male friends are gay.” I said. “So I have to go gay to be your friend?” he asked. “Um… yeah…that’s right. Because all my friends are gay...” Yeah, I suck at this breaking up stuff. This Chiropractor stuff all started when I got suckered into a set of x-rays and an exam after meeting one of the Chiropractor’s doctors at a fair. Because my back was such a mess and they were very nice and the treatment plan seemed logical, I signed up for a series of adjustments I’d promptly regretted. The adjustments were not the problem, it was the Chiropractor rhetoric that they spouted, that only way of living life that they tried to ingrain in our brains along with inappropriate – I felt - God references to everything they did and said. Husband said I’d joined a cult. He was not wrong. The God stuff was easy enough to ignore but as time went on, I became more and more unhappy with my time in the treatment room. The Chiropractor, Doctor J, would come in, barely say hello, adjust me in the exact same way each and every time and send me out of the room. The adjustments would only change if I mentioned something felt out of place in my back, like when my rib was out or my hip had slipped again. If I didn’t say anything, the adjustment would be the same; mid back while I lay face down, on the side for my left hip, turn over for right hip, sit up for neck and I’d be done. Sure there was some back and forth rapport but only if I started it. I was one in a number of patients and if I didn’t say anything, they would move onto the next patient with a distracted “Good-bye” thrown over their shoulder, mostly in my direction. In fact, the last time I went in, Doctor J came in and adjusted my back before even saying hello! He only acknowledged me AFTER I said a sarcastic “And hello to you.” as I was turning onto my side. He then spent the rest of the short time with me complaining about another patient who said they couldn’t afford to get their child Chiropractic care but got them glasses and braces. Serious fail. Which is why Friday morning found me on the phone attempting to terminate my treatment agreement. The office manager – who happens to be his mother – asked me if I would be okay if Doctor J could talk with me. Assuming she would go get him, I said “Sure”, gearing myself up for it, but Doctor J was “unavailable until Saturday morning” and “could he call me then?” I should have said no. I should have said, I think it’s best if we just end things here. Breaking up with someone and then agreeing to talk about why never works but then she said “we can’t fix a problem unless we know what we’re doing wrong.” And this was something Doctor J could fix so I agreed. Which is why, Saturday morning I was sitting on the couch waiting for his phone call. And waiting. And waiting. And remembering why I hated dating and breaking up with boys I was dating and kicking myself for not just saying no and then the phone rang and it was Doctor J and I was thankful again that I’m married and never have to break up with a boy again. I considered not answering and just sending a letter but this is my year of telling the truth, which is why I picked up the phone on a sunny Saturday morning to break up with a Chiropractor. And it went just as well as my last break up, which is to say horribly. It started off with an awkward greeting from me, a somewhat bitchy response from him – “I’m fine. Well, I’m not fine. This situation is not a good one.” I came back with a painful stuttering explanation about how I was feeling, that I wasn’t great with confrontations which is why I hadn’t mentioned my unhappiness before but that I was trying to be truthful this year (yes, I know I sound like I’m from California), and then he slid right into defending himself by attacking me and my understanding of his “goals” and the whole thing went downhill from there. In the eighteen-minute conversation, Doctor J said the following: This is where my ego comes out for my profession. I’ve never been more focused on my practice and if my tableside manner isn’t what a patient expects… My goal was to correct your spine not… I can’t woo a patient… I tell other doctors that I get through 500 patients a week verses their 100 because I’m not laying my hands on their legs… They think it’s what a patient wants. I call that stroking the patient… It could have gone well, it could have been a constructive conversation for him and a learning tool for me but it was none of those things. He alternated between declaring his way was the right way, the only way to treat patients and then asking me to come back so that they could have a second chance. He said that he would do his very best to make me feel like I was getting the treatment I “felt I deserved.” right after saying that his “tableside manner” wasn’t his goal. At one point he even said that I was not the only patient that had complained about his “table side manner of late” and even went so far as to share that a long-term patient had mentioned his unhappiness and he was on the list to call next. “I know exactly why he’s upset with me.” He said in a somewhat dismissive tone. He and his patient, Bob (not his real name), were in a conversation and Doctor J’s wife - also a Chiropractor in this office - came in and hugged Bob and that while Wife and Bob were saying hello, Doctor J walked out of the room without saying anything. “Bob knew I had a patient and he understood.” But dude, if that is the case, then why is Bob unhappy? Why am I unhappy? Why are other patients unhappy? I do not think it’s unreasonable to require the Chiropractor to “lay his hands” on my body before adjusting my spine no matter what my x-rays from three weeks ago said my spine looked like. I don’t care what your overall x-ray results are. I don’t care that you can hold them up against any other Chiropractor's results. If I feel like I’m a slab on your table without a name or feelings, I’m not coming back. Phew. It was rough. But, unlike my break ups in the past, I didn’t lie about my reasons. I didn’t sugarcoat things to make him feel better. I didn’t let him guilt me back into treatment. I didn’t invent a move to another country or an ex-boyfriend I was still in love with or tell him I needed time to figure out who I was. I just ended it. And when I tried to end things on a good note, emphasizing that his staff was awesome and friendly and made a point of greeting me and chatting with me about my day and asking what is happening with me and he said, “Well, I make a point of training my staff so that is a reflection of me.” ?!?!?! Yeah, right! It is not me, Doctor J. It’s you. It is totally all you.
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BUT IT IS NOT RINGWORM!!! (Picture me dancing about the exam room while my doc looked at me and wondered if she should write up the 5150 papers.) She thinks it is most likely Pityriasis Rosea, which they think is viral. There is no treatment unless you’re suffering from a severe case of the itching that can come with it. The really good news, I don’t have a severe case. The really REALLY good news, it is not contagious and should go away in six to eight weeks. AND I can stop slathering myself in expensive anti-fungal cream.
Since I have a tendency to focus on the really horrible things that might go wrong - spinning a simple rash into a deadly skin cancer that will kill me in days - here are five positive things that came from my mistaken diagnosis of ringworm. ONE: After they got the over the image of me submerged in a bleach bath, my friends and family got a really good laugh when Husband informed me that bleach smelled like sperm and that therefore I smelled like sperm. And, apparently, most male friends of mine agreed with Husband - the sperm smelling part, not me smelling like sperm part. I told the chiropractor this when telling him about my bleach bath, "So, funny story. My husband thinks sperm smells like bleach..." and he asked why Husband would know what sperm smelled like... Um. Huh. I did not know how to respond to that comment... I still don't. TWO: I may be out of shape and not the most attractive to look at in my all together but nothing on my body resembles the horrors I’ve seen online. THREE: When I finally got off my ass to see my doctor, I remembered that I really like my doctor. The fact that I found her online and picked her solely because her last name was Payne - wicked appropriate for a doctor - is a bonus. FOUR: My scare distracted me from worrying about several dozen other things for a few days. Like what I should sell first when husband un-expectedly dies because I’ll need some way to maintain my current lifestyle of hard apple cider and French fries? And, when Husband says "Good news! I fixed a tiny gas leak." how many other tiny gas leaks might he have missed? FIVE: Because it was recommended to prevent Ringworm from spreading or re-infecting me, I washed my sheets and towels every day and lived like Oprah for a week. Clean sheets every night is awesome. The washing them part, not so awesome. The putting them back on the bed each and every day really sucks. So there you have it. I'm Ringworm free! Of course, there is a small chance this isn't Pityriasis Rosea and I actually have something worse - like Lyme disease or Syphilis - but I'll worry about that Tuesday. Tuesday is far, far away and I don't smell like bleach and I don't have to spend 45min slathering cream on the hard to reach parts of my back that may or may not be creepy spreading Ringworm because I don't have Ringworm! (More happy dancing.) I was in such a good mood on the way home from the doc that I actually looked around instead of driving in that tunnel funk that we all get into. And as I was driving, I spotted this guy removing the out of control winter jasmine bush from our new neighbor’s house pulled over and asked the for some of the roots. I have no idea if they’ll take but I managed to plant several rescued pieces that may someday become beautiful bushes that will bring a color to the grey winter landscape that is currently my yard. I have officially become my mother. And I’m okay with that. When they gave me three tubes of cream at the pharmacy for my surprise case of ringworm, I thought that they were being a bit excessive. I was only to “spread a thin film past the boarder of the inflammation” for ten days. Did I really need three tubes? And then, I spent half an hour in the bathroom panic spreading cream on every little bump that could be something icky; ingrown hairs, zits, moles, wanna be freckles, old scars all got a slather of cream. Pretty sure I went through half a tube and at least five near heart attacks every time I spotted a potential spot that might have grown while I wasn’t looking. By the end of the processes, there was a “thin film” of cream over every inch of me and I was not in the least reassured that it was working. I did not sleep well that night.
Then, a friend of mine who is a nurse told me that you could use bleach to kill the fungus that is ringworm. I, of course, verified this pseudo medical advice via the Internet. Even my good ol’ faithful WebMD actually had information on this. Putting bleach on your body on purpose and not just because you’re clumsy and can’t get it into that tiny slot in the washing machine is an actual thing. But putting bleach on my spots would involve Husband having to put bleach on my spots and, let us face it, that is a lot of ick to add to a marriage where one of you is an OCD weirdo and the other has a flare for the dramatics. Guess which one I am... Thankfully, Internet Doctor Google also suggested a bleach bath as a possibility, which is why Saturday morning found me pouring a few capfuls of bleach into a perfectly good tub of water. Picture me, lying in a tub of hot water and several splashes of lavender bleach trying to convince myself that I’m not crazy and that I won’t smell like bleach for the foreseeable future… and failing. Side note: Husband - and the majority of my male Facebook audience - thinks that bleach smells like sperm. Which means, with that twisted sort of opinion I currently smell like lavender sperm. It is not at all an appealing scent. Or image. It was at this point in the day when a friend of mine called and happened to mention that it could be worse. I could have pinworm. “Don’t Google it.” she said, like she doesn’t know me at all. One Google search later and I spent the next few hours convinced I had pinworm and all the other interestingly gross skin infections that popped up in the image search. What the hell did we do before Google was there to horrify us? Why do horror movies have such a strong audience base? I mean, all it takes is one afternoon of gross disease Googling and I know I won’t sleep at night. Why add a dude with a facemask and a knife into the mix. He’s never going to be as scary as worms that COME OUT OF YOUR BUTT AT NIGHT AND LAY EGGS!!!! I mean seriously. AND THEN, the web page said its common for kids to scratch their butts and then put their fingers in their mouths and start the cycle all over again!!!! SO GROSS!!! I am looking up plastic bubbles you can purchase to live in because that is totally what I’m going to have to do to survive. The only silver lining I’ve found in this lavender sperm weirdness that is currently my life was this article in the UK telegraph about a study at Stanford university in 2013 that “proved” that bleach could reduce ageing. Brilliant. I’m now two bleach baths into apparently reversing my ageing process. It’s possible I could die of excess exposure before my skin hits my wrinkle free teen years but I’ll go out smelling clean. Unless you’re one of my male friends and then apparently, I’ll die smelling like spunk. Sigh. Soooooo, it started with this weird patch on my back just under my bra strap that I was sure was skin cancer and Husband was sure was a zit I’d been picking. I talked about going to the doctor – which means I said, “I probably should go to the doctor...” But I didn’t. It was the end of the year and the insurance situation was obnoxious and my “should” turned into just putting some cream on it and ignoring it.
And then one day there was a weird patch on my neck that didn’t look like the one my back – like I could see the one on my back -and I still ignored it. I’m a dork. Husband joked that I had shingles. I laughed. Brother and Sister-in-law laughed. I still didn’t go to the doctor. And then yesterday, I noticed a tiny weird patch on my arm and another teeny patch on my wrist and two more weird spots on my shoulder and I figured my “should” really had to become a “must go now!” So off I went, looking for a clinic at 5pm on a Thursday night. Because I was a dork and didn’t decide I needed to go to the doctor when this thing first showed up and even more of a dork to spend the day wondering if more than one spot was a sign of something bad. I rolled up to the CVS clinic just after 5pm, signed in and the computer told me they had no space for me before closing. #$%#$%#!!! Off I went to Kroger across the street, which apparently wasn’t the one with the clinic. Fail. Seven miles down at the other Kroger, she wouldn’t accept my insurance because we’re in Network E and they “tried but we couldn’t get a contract…” I told her I’d pay out of pocket but she just gave me a wincing smile and told me they needed to “scan something...” I restrained myself from telling her what body part she could scan and went back to my car, on the verge of tears over stupid skin rash that hadn’t killed me yet, would likely not kill me right then and seriously kicking myself for being such. A. Dork. Sitting in a car in a dark parking lot next to a dumpster talking to yourself when it’s 28 degrees is not a healthy place to be. Thankfully, there were no witnesses – see above 28 degrees – and my laughter kicked in before I became officially crazy. I made the decision to give this clinic thing one more try and went off to Walgreens.. Finally at the Walgreens clinic a very chatty Family Nurse Practitioner diagnosed me with –wait for it – RINGWORM!!! AAAAACCCCCKKKKK!!! How is it that I can make it through twenty-five plus years of teaching theatre and working in various elementary schools and preschools without getting this and then now, when I’m not working with kids, get one of the things on the dang checklist letter they send home as a warning??? Dear Parent or Guardian: Your child may have recently been exposed to ringworm. Ringworm is a common fungal infection that may affect the body, feet, or scalp…. YUCK!!! And you know what’s really yuck – Google ringworm and click on images. AWESOME nastiness. And none of the pictures really look like what I’ve got but once you start looking, you can’t stop. And when you can’t stop, you can’t help thinking you’re going to die of whatever that dude in the picture has on his junk – cause his junk, that is on display for all to see, is covered in some NASTY shit!!! And get this; according to my mother who I called to share my saga with, I had ringworm when I was a child in Zambia. I don’t remember being in Zambia as a child. I don’t’ remember having ringworm. And I don’t remember the woman who apparently told my mother I got it from a strawberry patch. WHAT??? I now have an expensive cream I have to spread over my spots twice a day for ten days. Joy. I’m also out $150 bucks since my insurance card was rejected. Dang you, Network E! And then there is the stupid shame because; I if I’d actually followed through with my “I should go to the doctor….” I wouldn’t have had to do a mad dash all over the county last night looking for someone to tell me I’m an idiot. Ugh. I am a dork. Now, to figure out where the heck I got the stupid thing and make sure they aren’t giving it to anyone else! Totally think I got it from the chiropractor’s office and the neck thing they use... Then again, you can get it from dogs… Yeah, I’m off to disinfect my house and everything in it. ICK! |
AuthorMy name is ej. I'm a girl. I say that because with the short hair and the short initials, folks aren't always sure. More brilliant insights to who I am in About me Archives
April 2019
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