Doctor's visits are the pits.

Today, I had to go to the doctor, not because I was sick, but because I had to have my six-month check-up to get my blood pressure medicine. So I get there and find out the nurse, who has worked there for years, quit and they have this gum popping, cigarettes smelly, brown roots showing, woman taking her place. She tried one time to take my blood pressure and couldn’t hear it and that was it. That was it! So, the doctor comes and takes it and I tell him his cuffs are not working, it’s the bladder, I say, they are not working right. I tell him, the cuffs should be replaced every few years, and that there is no way to get an accurate reading with his old equipment. I said it, I did. Next thing, my husband and I are sitting there waiting and in runs some kid, the nurse’s grandchild, come to visit her, and he is running around. Normally I am good with kids, they love me, but not when I am sitting in a paper gown that is two sizes too small and my breasts are somewhere between here and there and in pops this kid, who, by the way, had way too much sugar and was running wild. I try to cover up and he knocks over the aluminum tray that was holding cotton balls and tongue blades and the stupid nurse put them back, put them back, as if they were clean. I say oh no, those are way too dirty, in the trash they go. She says, they don’t use them for sterile technique and I say, I don’t want a tongue blade that has been in this floor in my mouth, and she rolls her eyes and drops them in the trash, and I break them to make sure. I tell the doctor his nurse smells, pops her gum, has a loud grandchild, and broke clean technique. He says she is a temp. and I say get rid of her. He says you’re right. I say of course. I hope Joyce comes back. I told him to call and beg her to come back. He says he tried. He gives me my prescription and I say see ya in six months. He says okay.