I Went to Five Doctors’ Appointments and All I Got Was This Scar

I don’t mean to brag, but I’ve gone to five doctors’ appointments over the last two weeks. I’ve had a stress test, an ultrasound, biopsies, and several blood tests. I know. Don’t be jealous of my summer holiday. It’s kinda chic to get poked and prodded by sterile medical instruments.

It all sounds very dramatic, but I’m fine. I’m middle-aged, and these things have to be done. Like, apparently once you reach a certain age, your body becomes a group project and everyone gets a turn to study you. That sounds a whole lot sexier and hornier than it actually is. Alas.

Another thing: when you’re a single woman, it may not be obvious (or maybe it is) but you go to these appointments alone. You drive there alone. You sit in the waiting room alone. Then you get what’s coming to you (again, considerably sexier and hornier than it sounds). Afterward you go back to the waiting room alone and drive yourself home. To be alone.

There’s a lot of rhetoric in the single-woman community about how going to medical appointments alone is just another example of the additional emotional labour single women have to endure. And I suppose that’s true. But then I know couples where one partner doesn’t even ask how the other one is doing, let alone know she went to the doctor. So I guess the grass continues to be greener on the other side, where, presumably, someone is watering it.

Personally, I’m proud that I can go to all these appointments by myself and not bat an eyelash. I’m not saying I don’t experience anxiety, because I do. But it’s so low on the Richter scale compared with five years ago—or thirty years ago—that I barely recognize myself.

When I was growing up, my dad took me to most of my doctor’s appointments. My mom used to say she couldn’t handle me because I was a fainter. Which, in retrospect, is fair. It’s probably exhausting to take your daughter to the doctor when there’s always a chance she’s going to suddenly lose consciousness.

The first time it happened, I was at the dermatologist’s office and collapsed after seeing photographs of severe cystic acne. The doctor had barely approached me with the liquid nitrogen when my head started spinning and I was out like a light. I woke up on the floor with my mother screaming over me, asking if I was okay.

That was it. My reputation as a fainter was firmly established. It really could happen on a dime. Once, the sight of my own vomit made me want to pass out. Another time, someone was describing an injury and I nearly passed out just listening to it.

So, understandably, my mom retired from taking me to anything remotely medical. She skipped my wisdom teeth removal and my first mole removal, both of which happened within the same year, when I was seventeen, and left my dad—a firefighter who was used to blood and bodily fluids—to handle me.

The wisdom teeth surgery was a legitimate surgical event. I was knocked out with twilight gas, and I remember telling the dental team that I would thank them at the Oscars. I suppose I thought I owed them my award-winning smile. I drooled all over my dad when he picked me up, but that was to be expected.

The mole removal, on the other hand, was supposed to be a quick little local procedure: lie down, get numbed, have the mole removed, walk out.

Instead, I was wheeled out on a gurney, in hysterics.

That mole removal was not dissimilar to the moles I got removed a couple of weeks ago. Both were preventative. I had a mole on the inside of my nose and was told that it could be cancerous or grow to be three times larger, and as a teenager, the latter freaked me out more. I had a friend at the time who was actually disappointed I had it removed. She said my mole was my “trademark,” which only made me more grateful that I got it off. If my mole had become my trademark, then clearly it had been there for far too long. What was I going to do next, have T-shirts made for the mole?

This time I had a mole removed from my foot and another from below my right breast. My derm here told me that it would leave a scar and asked me if I was sure I wanted the breast one off because she thought it was okay, and I said, I don’t care about the scar. Who’s going to see my breast? Just me and some lucky guy(s), and honestly, breast play doesn’t even do much for me anyway.

It turns out she was right — the mole was just a normal mole — but oh well. Now I have a little scar that I’m sure will come up at some point when a man has a good look at it. And if he doesn’t say anything about it, I think I will be a little miffed.

Most of the time I don’t even think about the consequences of these appointments. It’s not the diagnoses that scare me the most, or even make me feel things. At this point, I can walk out of a doctor’s appointment without being wheeled out on a gurney and consider that a successful visit. I didn’t pass out!

But what affects me the most—and what I think is saddest—is that my emergency contacts are my parents. And I don’t mean sad as in, “Oh, this pathetically old single woman. She still has her parents as her emergency contacts?” I mean sad in the sense that one day I won’t be able to put them down as my emergency contacts anymore.

And then, if not them…who will that be?

Because, honestly, I’m at the point in my life where I don’t know if I want to marry or even date someone seriously. And this isn’t coming from the place of “marriage only seems to satisfy straight men” (even though, statistically, we know that it does), but from the place of: Fuck me, I’m REALLY sick of looking at men on dating apps.

Like, girl…

I AM SO DONE WITH IT. I CAN’TTTTTT.

And no offense to their very bad photos, their gym selfies, how much they apparently love that first sip of morning coffee, a good run, and a partner in crime. But I CAN’T STAND TO LOOK AT THEIR DUMB FACES ON APPS. I know we’re all looking for love and sex and maybe someone to split a Costco membership with, but I really don’t give a shit about them! I’M SORRY!

Maybe it’s the decline in estrogen. Maybe it’s because, for the first time in my life, I feel like I just want to live a good life and be happy. But I don’t want to look for a man. I want the man to look for me, thank you very much. I can’t be bothered. And even then, he’s got to be worth it. Like someone I’d actually want to pick me up after dental surgery—and wouldn’t mind drooling all over.

PUT THAT ON YOUR DATING PROFILE AND SMOKE IT.

Or maybe I feel this way because I’m casually dating a younger man who is the most consistent and healthy guy I’ve ever dated. We’re not exclusive, and maybe that’s enough for me right now. Maybe all I actually need is good companionship and some regular sex. Maybe I can be like Cher and take on young lovers and not settle down. Or maybe I’m just saying, Jesus, take the wheel. I don’t know.

I don’t even care.

Because the thing is, when you start dealing with your health, you start paying attention to your life differently. You realize your body is changing, your parents are getting older, and suddenly you’re the person filling out your own medical forms and hyping yourself up so you don’t pass out. You start asking yourself questions you’ve never asked before. Who is my person? Do I even want a person? What happens if I never get married? IS EVERYTHING GOING TO BE OKAY?

And maybe that’s the weird thing about midlife: you can be completely capable of taking care of yourself and still not know what happens next.

And maybe that’s where I am now. I don’t know who my emergency contact will be ten years from now. I don’t know if I’ll get married. I don’t know if I’ll even want to. I just know that I can walk into a doctor’s office by myself, sit in the waiting room, get my blood drawn, get a mole cut off, and drive myself home.

For now, that feels like enough.

****

What I did this week as a 43-year-old single woman:

• Took myself to two doctors’ appointments—one for a stress test, another to remove stitches from my biopsies. (All good results, by the way.)

• Lamented the possibility that I’m shedding more hair than usual. Thanks, declining estrogen!

• Bought a very expensive bathing suit that I now feel I must be buried in.

• Planned a summer Friday and went to the local pool with a book because of said bathing suit.

• Picked up my estrogen patches from the pharmacy, then got scared when the pharmacist gave me some warnings about them, so naturally I made another doctor’s appointment to discuss it.

• Cooked myself a new dinner outside of my regular rotation and treated myself to a bottle of wine. (Didn’t finish the wine. I’m 43, not 23.)

• Continued drafting my book after a long day at work, even when I didn’t feel like it.

• Played pickleball and then had dinner with a friend.

• Cleaned my apartment as best as I could. Sometimes you don’t feel like doing a deep clean. I MEAN, I DID HAVE A LOT OF APPOINTMENTS TO GO TO.

Thanks for being here!

Love, Brie xoxo

Share