In Which Bekah Goes For a Physical

Last week, I had to get a physical. Like a lab kind of physical. Nothing invasive {though I consider breathing the mere air of a medical facility invasive}. After it was over, and I recounted the story to my mother, she said she wished she could have been a fly on the wall...so I thought maybe I'd let you be a fly on the wall.

{You should know that when I'm uncomfortable, I compensate with humor. When I was a kid, and I'd get the flu, my mom would sit in a corner and try to mask her laughter as I paced the living room and begged, with great flamboyance, anything in the scope of my life that God would possibly want, if He would PLEASE not make me throw up right then. Mom said I was the funniest sick kid she'd ever met.}

I went to the screening room and checked in with the very kind gentleman running check-in. He took all my info, had me sign my life away, and proceeded to begin with height and weight. I asked if I could use the bathroom first {an hour and a half drive and a lot of water in the car were starting to lay a little heavy, if you know what I mean} and he said "Oh it's okay; this will only take a minute." So he measured my height and I stood in front of the scales, closed my eyes and climbed on, wondering just how much a full bladder weighs.

"I'm closing my eyes because I get obsessed with numbers. It's just better if I don't know." He promised to not utter those numbers out loud, and I climbed back off the scales.

He handed me a little device that looked like part of a gaming system and explained that I  should hold tightly to it and an electric current would run through me. The current shouldn't be felt, and would pass more quickly through those with less body fat. "So," I said, "You're telling me it's gonna be in me a while, huh?"

I squinted my eyes shut and had my BMI taken by the little game piece. Then he handed me a measuring tape and asked me to put it around my waist. I wondered how many inches could be added by a full bladder.

I sat down to wait my turn behind the closed door, and finally it opened, and the lady inside called for the man who took all my info. She spoke in low tones, but I could tell something was wrong already...she couldn't find me in her system. My blood pressure climbed...and right about then, my phone buzzed with a text. It was my mom...asking about a tornado in Indianapolis.

So to recap...I'm in a doctor's office on the third floor of a building with no windows, a tornado is somewhere in the distance, and no one can find me in the system. Sweet mercy.

The nice man finally realized he'd confused me with someone else and began to correct the issue. I called out, "Is that other girl skinnier? I can be her if I need to be."

When the lady called me into the office, I sat down across from her and said, "Let me just tell you. I have white coat syndrome and my mother is texting me about tornadoes. I'm gonna be a real treat for you today."

That sweet lady was so wonderful and she offered to just take it slow...starting with the finger prick for my blood. I told her I'd just look away for that - just to be on the safe side.

While she worked, she asked if I'd fasted that day. It was 3 in the afternoon. Do I look like a girl that can survive until 3 pm with no food? I told her I had not, and she said, "Oh it's okay.The machine will actually look back over about a three month history of what you've eaten."

"Well I've eaten a lot in the last three months," I told her.

"Oh? Stressful time?"

I shook my head. "Nah. I've pretty much eaten a lot since birth."

She took my blood, put it in a little thingiemadoo, and in no time at all, she had a history of my last three months of eating and who knows what else...and she launched into the news.

She informed me my BMI was normal.

I leaned forward.

"Say what?"

"Your BMI is in the normal range."

"Are you sure that's my info and not that other girl's?"

She laughed and assured me it was mine. Then she said my waist measurement was normal as well. I leaned back and shook my head. "Well that's new," I said. "Really? With all this fat, it's normal?" Ruffled shirts cover a multitude of belly fat sins, you know.

She went on about this number and that, and I nodded as though I had an osmosis medical degree from years of Grey's Anatomy.

She urged me to watch my caffeine intake {I let her know that wasn't possible} and she said if I wanted to lower my cholesterol, I might want to think about cutting down on meat, dairy and eggs. {So basically, stop eating.}

She told me my hemoglobin numbers were good and I said, "I just don't even know what that means." She laughed and said it meant I didn't have a sugar problem. "Oh, I have a sugar problem," I assured her. "We are GOOD friends."

In the end, she admonished me that should I decide to try to lose weight, I shouldn't lose more than a pound or two a week. Not a problem. That's not even going to be possible.

With that, she slapped the blood pressure cuff on me, and I breathed in and out, ignoring my phone, still buzzing with tornado news. The verdict? Normal.

The sweet lady leaned across the desk, looked me in the eye, and said, "What I'm telling you is that you're a lot healthier than you think you are."

"Well, SWEET CORN," I told her.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm the one she told her family about that night. "You will NEVER BELIEVE this girl I had to deal with today," I'm sure she said.

I walked out with a spring in my normal-weighted step and drove straight to the coffee shop for a latte. It may have had dairy and caffeine.

Sigh.