Why I Hate Doctors

As if my dive medical wasn’t bad enough.

Before my rediscovery of my ego, I feared for my sex drive. I simply didn’t enjoy kissing or fooling around. I would get bored easily, and start looking at my watch or thinking about class. It was infuriating. This absolutely contributed to my refusal to follow up with the French boy. I couldn’t figure it out. Hell, was I straight after all?

Against my better judgment, I asked my mom for help. She asked me if I was a top or a bottom. Trust me, you never want to hear your mother ask you that. Apparently, I had not yet conquered my gag reflex.

She followed up by suggesting I may have low testosterone. An open-minded straight boy with low testosterone and low standards. Thanks, mom. However, the idea didn’t seem too impossible. I decided to go back to Health Services for a hormone test.

I needed an excuse. So I told the doctor my libido was dead. That wasn’t a huge leap. In reality, I continued to be horny as fuck; I simply was bored once I got in the door. But a string of bullshit lies was all it took to get him to sign off on my tests and have it covered by insurance.

Remembering what the other doctor said about me having “small lungs”, I decided to take a peek at my 80-dollars-not-insured chest X-ray.

“Hey doc… what’s this odd spot on my lung?”

He looks at it, and scratches his head. “Not sure. It’s rather far away from your heart. Get a new X-ray in a few months.”

The man was awfully nonchalant about potential lung cancer. I suppose his non-alarm is a good sign though. I got my blood drawn, booked an appointment for next week, and was on my way.

The appointment was for 10, annoyingly early for me, but its all they had. I forced myself out of bed to go. I showed up on time, early even, only to discover the appointment was for Thursday, not Wednesday. Motherfucking hare-lipped bat guano from hell!!

Returned the correct morning:

“How’s your libido this week?.. Seems there’s nothing in your bloodwork that explains a poor sex drive. Your testosterone levels are normal. Your liver is functioning properly. In fact, the only thing strange is your shockingly low blood iron.”

I stared blankly. “Is that a big deal,” I ask.


“I’d say it’s significant. I’d almost call it severe. You’re highly anemic.”

Abnormally small lungs, check. Possible lung cancer, check. Inexplicable anemia, check.

“That doesn’t make sense, doc. I would understand something like Scurvy or Rickets, but this makes no sense. I hate vegetables, but red meat is the one thing I get plenty of. Hell, I’m the opposite of a vegetarian, I’m a carnetarian!”

He looked genuinely puzzled, and thought for a moment. Then, like any good academic, he assigned more tests. More blood taken, fair enough. Piss in a cup, easy enough. But what is Faeces Hemoccult?

“We’re looking for blood in your shit, Scott.” The man seemed to read my mind. “If you’re being honest about your iron input, it’s going somewhere. If your piss is clean, there’s only one other way it’s getting out.”

But how am I going to collect it? He continued.

“We usually recommend getting an ice cream bucket. Not only is ice cream tasty, but you can shit in the bucket, then use this little scoop [he held one up] to collect some for us. Store it in your fridge until you can get it to us.”

The problem with this plan is that I live in a dorm. One bedroom, shared bathroom. I absolutely refused to do it in my room; there’s a reason you’re not supposed to shit where you sleep. And the bathroom, I couldn’t just pop a squat on the tile floor. No, I needed a new plan. But I took the scoops anyway, and made my merry way.

My prayers were answered in the form of dinner. It was Mexican night. Perhaps the softer-minded readers would like to skip ahead, but the outcome is pretty obvious. Sit on the edge of the toilet, squeeze hard, and let the chili do its work. Presto, loose shit sticks to the toilet’s inner wall. Scoop a little, flush the rest down, and store the container in the communal fridge.

I showed up the next morning, paper baggy in tow, proud of my ingenuity. The ladies behind the counter greeted me by name. Goddammit, am I here that often? Well, doesn’t matter. Those dumb bitches were too preoccupied with Judge Judy. Its not enough they work in Health Services; they have to feast on all forms of misfortune. I apologized in advance for the contents of the bag, made a new appointment, and went to go have a lizard shit on my neighbor.

The week goes by, spent waiting with bated breath to hear about my bloody stool.

“Your serum iron is low and your Ferretin levels are low. Your urine test is clean. Your faeces hemoccult is clean. I have no idea where your iron is.”

I asserted from the very beginning that the outcome was likely a fluke. If my blood iron was that low, why wasn’t I experiencing any symptoms? I’m perkier than a nipple on a cold day with a botox injection.

Seeing as he had no clue otherwise, he conceded I may be right and instructed to get retested in a month. And hell, why not? If waiting a few months cures lung cancer, surely it does wonders for anemia. Has nothing to do with the commissions from all these fucking tests.