STD Clinic

Greetings. Today I'm actually going to blog about something medical.

Friday (my birthday) I had the pleasure of spending 4 hours at the city-county health department giving exams to people who think they have an STD. At the end of the 4 hours, I was deciding if I should start with shots or cocktails.

That place was insane. For one, it's a walk-in STD clinic, so you never know how many patients you're going to see. I was assigned to Nurse-it's-my-way-or-the-highway- Sara, who seemed pretty uptight and quite frankly, made me a bit nervous. First, thanks to HIPPA, I have to call a patient by their number instead of their name, then when I get them into the room, I have to ask them all sorts of embarrassing questions. I mean, seriously, when was the last time you went to the doctor and were asked, "do you prefer sex with men, women, or both?" Another classic was, "do you let a man put his penis in your mouth or bottom?". I've never had much of a poker face, but I was proud of the fact that I somehow made it through the morning without giggling. Folks, I'm ready for ESPN's poker championship!

After the Embarrassing Sexual Health History is finished, I have to take their blood for a syphilis/HIV test, then I do the exam. I hate drawing blood. I've delivered more babies than I have taken blood from somebody's arm. I wait around for the microbiologist to tell me if he found anything on the slide from the exam, then I have the fun news of telling S-2 they have trich or whatever. They get a little card telling their "contact" to come in and get checked or else they'll just end up passing the little swimmers back and forth.

In all, the day would have been fine, but I had Nurse Sara constantly riding me about one thing or another and it just drove me insane. Fortunately for me, I get to go back on the 10th and she's already said she's going to make sure I'm assigned to her again!

After that miserable experience, I met with my friend Robyn for a birthday pedicure. She has a blog too, which happens to be much funnier than mine. http://imarriedthepastor.blogspot.com/