Bad Blood

[A PSA For the Tl:dr People - You should always go and get a blood test at least once a year. It is responsible and sensible, despite the horror that results in the following novel of a blog post.]

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I mentioned earlier that I had to go to the doctor a couple of weeks ago with a really bad allergy attack. At the time I was running a fever (probably due to a minor sinus infection) and so the doctor wanted to do a full blood work-up to make sure it wasn't anything more serious. Since I had missed my normal blood test on account of me being a lazy bastard (I usually get tested once a year on the week of my birthday), I agreed and had them run the whole thing.

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A week passed and I didn't even think about it, since my allergy problems cleared up after a couple of days. Then last Tuesday arrived and I went to check my mail after work. Inside was the envelope that the doctor has you address that usually contains your test results. I popped it open, but rather than a list of lab results, instead there was the most ominous letter I have ever seen in my entire life that was not written by a kidnapper.

[Note: This is a literal transcription of the letter, not an approximation.]

"Dear JASON," the letter read. "We have received the documentation from your recent blood test and they contain ABNORMAL TEST RESULTS. We need to discuss these results with you! Please contact our office as soon as possible to schedule a time to come in to meet with the doctor."

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First off - Seriously, how ominous is that? I went from zero to ready-to-vomit in about 7 seconds.

Secondly - Who the hell came up with the wording of their form letter? Do they have Satan on retainer as a copywriter?

You really feel the need to bold and CAPSLOCK the part about the abnormal test results? Yes, I understand that it's an important part of the letter, but short of springing for color and putting it in blood red, you're not going to make it any scarier.

And that little exclamation mark after the next sentence? I don't know why, but I read that line in this relentlessly perky voice that just grates my mind like a block of cheese. I mean, really, after that whole capslock adventure from 0.2 seconds ago, I get that it's important. That exclamation point just puts me in a bad mood.

The only way that letter could be more ill-advised would be to include a pre-tied noose in the envelope.

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Anyways, continuing. So I freaked the hell out in as hardcore a fashion as one can. Because really, if you're a gay male in his early twenties who's already something of a hypochondriac, you tell me where your mind jumps first. Yeah, within 5 minutes of letter receipt, I was entirely sure that I had The Aids, and they were all over the place. Never mind the fact that I'm way less of a whore than I let on (almost monk-like, usually) - the deviancy had finally gotten me, only after 5 years as a practicing member. I felt like the first kid out in a game of freeze tag. Only with a lot more nausea.

I ran inside and grabbed my phone to see if I could catch the doctor's office before they left for the day. Of course I missed them by 3 minutes and got the office-closed recording instead. At that point I then realized that I would have to stew on this horrifying letter and what it could possibly mean for at least 18 hours, and probably more if I had to go in to get the results.

So I barricaded myself into my room and continued to freak out for the resulting rest of the night. Talking online, Jim tried to comfort me with the idea that maybe it wasn't so sinister. Maybe my diet of nothing but Pixi Sticks, Dr. Pepper, and pie had finally caught up with me and I had The Diabetes, instead. Which made me even more nervous, because what if I could never have Pixi Sticks or pie ever again?

This letter was the source of all evil in the world.

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The morning finally came after the longest night in recorded history. The doctor's office opened at 9:00am. I managed to hold off calling until 9:01. The nurse who answered the phone managed to discern my name from my incoherent babbles and grabbed my file.

"Oh yeah, here we go," she said. "Yeah, we need you to come in in person to discuss the results. I can't do it over the phone. Will this Friday at 3:00 work for you?"

Note: At that point it was 9:00am on Wednesday. If two more days like the previous 12 hours were to pass before I found out the results, I would probably be a puddle goo at the end. I explained that fact to her and asked her if she could maybe at least give me an indication of how serious we were talking here: "Come on. Just tell me. Oh, is someone watching you? How about you cough once if it's life threatening. I promise, no one will ever know."

She was less than cooperative.

Finally, (perhaps sensing my imminent mental breakdown) she agreed to try to fit me in that afternoon as a walk-in, but couldn't guarantee me a time. I managed to make it through half a day at work without losing any excessive amounts of money or yelling at anyone, which considering the circumstances, I thought was very admirable.

Then, after an interminable 2 hour wait in a waiting room packed with (conservatively) 3,000 small children, I was finally able to get into an examination room. By that point I was as close to total insanity as a human being can get. And then just to top it all off, the exam room they put me in was not a normal one, it was an interview room with a literal fainting couch. Like they had this room specially reserved for giving homos bad news.

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Then the doctor came in and told me that I had high cholesterol, and should really consider going on a diet.

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SONOFABITCH

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Ahem.

Well, that's the short version. She actually came in, glanced over my file, cocked her head to the side and said "So tell me about your parents."

Umm, my father is a minister and my mother is devoutly religious? Is this the part where we pour salt in the wound? Is that really where we've decided to start?

"Because you're very thin, but your cholesterol is near the range expected in the morbidly obese."

Oh.

Still.

Rage, man. Rage unlike you have ever seen. I would have probably exploded, except for the fact that I needed to watch my blood pressure, what with all that cholesterol I've got going on.

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So now I'm supposed to be on a diet, where I don't get to eat things that are good, and instead have to only eat things that are gross. And oatmeal in the mornings. It's uniformly horrifying and I'm really bad at following the rules.

Considering where my mind was at before, though, I'm totally pretty cool with it.

But yeah, screw that doctor's office.