List for the doctor

I’m healthy and not a doctor-goer. Dishing out a co-pay for something that will go away on its own is a waste to me. So I compile symptoms until I have at least four.

I came home from my short trip sick. Swollen glands qualified me for my buy-one-get-three-free plan.  I tacked on sore throat to the bottom of my latest ailment list.

1. Barnacles cemented on neck — get scraped,
2. Toes — find out why, for no apparent reason, they cramp to form a victory sign, and
3. General body parts — everything that can droop, does.

Still I couldn’t go. I hadn’t lost the extra ten pounds. Nurses weigh you for anything and everything. “I cut my finger pretty deep slicing carrots,” I’d explain, blood gushing down my arm. “Step on the scales,” they say. Doctors should set the same standards as airports. I’d weigh less after removing shoes, jacket, jewelry, belt, and weapons.

Have researchers found a direct correlation between sudden weight gain and strep throat?

Maybe I was just doctored out. After four adventuresome and inquisitive children, this once long-time single mom saw the stark inside of an ER too many times. My younger daughter once ironed the top of her foot. With almost no effort, she could have found a rumpled blouse. The iron was used so seldom, she had no idea what it did. Matter of fact, neither did I. For a matching bottom side, CoCo waffled the sole of her foot on a friend’s heating vent. It was not a good day. That afternoon the kitchen faucet fell off.

The GAP, the oldest child and toothless for seemingly decades, finally displayed two front teeth. (It didn’t matter that one came in perpendicular to the other.) After two days of permanent teeth, Hot Wheelz, her younger brother, pushed her into the little blue wading pool. She hit her mouth on a floating plastic Halloween pumpkin and chipped her front tooth.

The same pushy dare-devil fractured his wrist three times in three years doing the same catapulting stunt with the same three neighbors. As expected my real estate friend said, “Location, location, location.” If any explanation clarified it, it was dumb move, dumb move, dumb move.

It’s amazing any child lives to adulthood with legs and arms still attached. Makes you believe all those elaborate Sunday School stories, doesn’t it? Like the time Cheezy, the youngest, climbed from the stepstool where the GAP stood washing dishes, to the countertop.

The sink crowded with dirty dishes, splashed water, and soap bubbles proved too slippery. He tumbled into the dishwasher — feet first — knives pointing upward. For once, I lucked out. A single blade poked between two toes on his way down and lodged there as he rolled onto the floor.

The knife-defying act was only the beginning. Hot Wheelz, the Enforcer, chased Cheezy who slipped and fell against a metal bed frame. Within a week, his forehead shared stitches billing with the toes.

Was it Cheezy who ate the tube of lipstick and the jar of Noxema? No, I think it was Hot Wheelz who mistook Noxema for chip dip, but I’m not sure. Maybe it was the neighbor.

But my aversion to the medical profession solidified after being intimidated by a good-looking pediatrician. He’d looked eligible. (But at that time, I thought anyone breathing with a vacant ring finger looked available.)

His name should have been Dr. Callous. He strongly suggested I submit Cheezy to a vision exam or risk imprisonment until he was safe enough to be out on his own. I’d panicked. My son was clumsy and unafraid — a dangerous combination. I made a comic attempt to convince the doctor that the accidents weren’t my fault. “In our home, we learn safety rules by accident.” A gallows laugh escaped.

My humor did little to endear me to Dr. Callous. The eligible, but insensitive doctor took his eyes off the tot for a minute. We both turned to a thud. Cheezy, wandering again, confronted a doorjamb smack dab in the middle of his forehead on top of the set of stitches already in place.

The doctor eyed me. I was familiar with the look — pity mingled with a tinge of gratitude that his life was different.

So until doctors prove to me that there is a connection between bloat and sore throats, I’ll treat myself at home. I won’t even tell Jenny Craig what I really weigh.

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1. Let me introduce you to my family
2. The secret of coping with bad days
3. How NOT to parent
4. Hi, My name is Penny and I’m insane
5. Crash diet