I've been logging onto my portal site that my doctor has given. Well, more specially, the doctor's nurses and aides have given me. I don't how to address them besides the fact that her aides are comprised of four Chinese American girls running around the front desk and moving in and out of the patients' rooms. From my last two visits I remember the young woman who showed me in and took my measurements as well as followed up on my last doctor's visit, asking me mundane questions such as have you smoked or drank or done drugs? These questions either feel so invasive or they are rather so pedestrian to any doctor's visit that they have lost their umph when I get questioned and am prompted to answer almost instinctively. I like to think that the doctor's visit is no occasion to hit on a woman, and this is mostly true because of an intrinsic power dynamic that is focused between doctor/nurses and patients in general. The rule is pretty towering and obvious: doctors are patients must keep their general understanding that one is an authority figure, above the other, mainly because one diagnoses the other. This power dynamic would be infringed if I had acted out of line with the nurse or aid and flirted with them. This would also disturb the placid nature of my visits; next time it might get awkward if I left an unattractive impression on the nurse. I have always wondered why doctors and nurses are generally, across the board, attractive. I can't say that attractiveness is something that we can all agree on because beauty is in the eye of the beholder, unless the words beauty and attractiveness are not used synonymously. But I use them interchangably and I do believe that nurses are sexy because they don these loose fitting clothes that obscure their real bodies which may be curvaceous. To some extent they also uphold the negative patriarchal belief that women serve men; they do this by taking a patient's weight and measure their blood pressure and doing everything the doctor orders them to (without the doctor being there to order them around). Nurses command a presence of second-tier power in which as a patient, I abide by them left and right or else my test results will be blemished. I also believe that nurses are sexy mostly because of their knowledge that is not overt but it is confirmed through their instrumental abilities to report certain things or certain diseases or to interpret certain terms associated with medical discourse. This intelligence is sexy not simply because of this exoticized field of view surrounding nurses and medicine, but also because this intelligence is wielded in such a subtle way that is almost skin-deep or blood-deep, especially if she is drawing my blood. My question has always been static: Why are doctors and nurses generally attractive and appealing? My prospective answer to my own question is obvious: nurses who double as receptionist need to be attractive because they serve patients and keep them calm and comfortable in times of discomfort, dismay, or uncertainty (waiting for results of a test, etc.). They have a duty to keep surface-acting and to be attractive so that things are manageable phenomonologically.
I've been logging onto Urbanmedicalgroup's Portal website for the past three days, frantically checking my last blood results. A year changes everything. It certainly does. My doctor sent me a message that she needs to see me so that she can tell me how to manage my issues that she has uncovered from the test results: it seems that I have sugar level or some other level deficiencies and also connectivity issues within my body. I Googled these terms and discovered familiar havoc-like terms such as diabetes and cholesterol and ketones and Hepatitis B. I raced through my blood results searching for key terms like non reactive and none so that I could clear my mind of any uncertainties. I saw key terms and numbers for the PH of urine, its acidity, HIV exam, Allergens test, etc. These test results were incredibly ambiguous. One year has changed a lot because last year's blood test surfaced with negative results for everything; I was fine last year. It is this year that I'm having these problems. It proves that I am not a hypochrondriac and that my body is really deteriorating. My doctor said it's not life threatening which is good because I am sure that she would have called me if it was; she wouldn't wait for me to log onto my portal account and then contact her on my own accord. These test results could not be more ambiguous mostly because they are riddled with terms only characteristic of medical discourse and lab technicians at Quest Diagnostics. Now that I have seen my results I can't wait to visit my doctor (not excited) and listen to the advice she has to offer. It sounds like I may have to change my diet and watch my sugar intake more stringently.
I wish I could call Linda and tell her about what has transpired from my doctor's visit. I wish I could tell her that I'm really scared about my health and that what my Dad said has come true, along with other things that he has readily predicted in the long run. But I don't want to call her because I know she might not pick up. She picked up last Sunday because she was waiting for her classmates to do a project together so she had to keep her phone on so that she could be vigilant of any incoming calls. I saw Juan today and I remember the times that I had seen him twice even three times a day back two years ago in my sophomore year when we would sit by the bridge and he would play his Fender Stratacoustic guitar and I would tell him how his action and neck sucked. He would tell me his favorites bands which I don't remember now. He would let me listen to his iPod. I remember that he reminded me of James Morrison. We also jammed to Let Me Go by Three Doors Down; he remembered the correct chords and I struggled with it. The moments I realized that sitting next to Juan was an alienating presence was when I realized how far I have slipped from him. Somehow the distance of time had marred my closeness with him and my memories were not sticking to me readily. It seemed that with Juan's closeness, his Brooks Brothers shirts, his bright colors, his v-neck cardigans, his chem classes, his friends that I have not spoken to in ages, and his shared idea of bromance, I still could not remember the closeness I shared with him four semesters ago. And I was talking to him about how best friends depart and they move away. It is kind of ironic but in a way I believe the distance between me and Juan are of the nature as well, maybe not of the same degree or kind, but there are similarities here. Of course to say that my friendship with Linda is special is clearly indicating the differences in people because Juan is not Linda and vice versa. I believe that life is not that complicated as I make it out to be. The words I use to describe my issues in life are not that profound; there are many ways to say the same thing. You can use whatever words but they mean the same thing, my classmate Melissa said in class one day. Sarah seemed to agree as well that you can mean the same thing but if you use smaller words maybe you can get your message across much better, Ken. In this case my friendships have been distanced by the passage of time and the unwillingness to traverse this time and to reclaim or to renew the friendship. Whatever the friendship used to be, I makes sense to walk back into the past and sift through those memories because Juan means a lot to me; his consideration and mindfulness of me is more than I can ever ask for.
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