All the Millennials are on it

It has been a while since I saw the doctor. Two months to be precise. I had just spent two months traveling throughout China and right before I left I had my annual checkup done. It turned up nothing. Everything was perfect. I’d had the tumor removed a year ago and now my test results were great. All my functions were outstanding, and my body was performing fine. But then a thought occurred to me.

Maybe two months abroad might have set another tumor off, and once that thought had solidified it stuck. What started as a mild distraction grew into something bigger the more I thought about it. I’m aware that I sound like a hypochondriac, of course, but all I can say to you is that there’s nothing quite like getting a life-threatening condition and undergoing major surgery for nurturing your hypochondriasis. It can get so that every lump, ache, or lapse of memory feels like a road sign with the words, “Tumorsville Next Exit,” written on it.

This is why I was here now, at the hospital. I made a quick appointment with a professional to check my symptoms so I could find the truth about what was going on.

“Face the truth”, that’s what they say. Well, I wasn’t just facing it, I was amplifying it, over-interpreting every symptom and then using Google to inflate it some more. Yes, I have a Googology doctorate, digging into this digital fairground hall of mirrors to find what I’m sure is already there. But hey, that’s why we have doctors. We fear the worst and then they tell us what’s what, because they’re the experts.

My general practitioner could not take me in, he was too busy, and I would need to wait at least another week before he could spare that precious 10 minutes with me. Yes, doctors are busy these days, and doctors in NYC are overwhelmed. Have you seen them rush from one treatment room to the next in a happy-hour type of routine? It’s just like they’re scared the bar will close and they'll miss out.

They try so hard. Doctors are multitaskers who habitually push themselves to the limit. They often succeed too, so they have the honor of being the only creatures who can comfortably reside outside of normal 24/7 space-time in a 28/8 universe.

Health care has taken on the same frantic pace and guiding principles that you’ll find in the fast-food industry, so surely it can’t be long before we have a conveyer belt system where patients move past a seated doctor, sushi-joint style.   

“Mr. Denev, what is the matter?” Said the nurse, entering the room. This was the pre-checkup checkup and the nurse was here to take my vitals – temperature, blood pressure, and oxygen levels. I wonder if they make allowances for the fact that I get anxious about scoring well, and that this spikes my pulse and gives me palpitations? Everything else is normal, but my heart hits the nitrous button.

“Your blood pressure is 130 over 72, you don’t have a fever and your oxygen levels are showing normal saturation,” the nurse concludes. “The doctor will be with you shortly. Tell me, why are you here today?” he asks.

Finally, it is my time to share. It is my time to give away all the information which I have been holding tightly in my chest and maybe this is was what caused the pain in the first place. I want to be heard like many others, I have concerns and my concerns are real, or at least real to me. Either way, should be listened to.

“Well, I have been traveling and I had this pain in my groin area, on the left side in my hip area and those lymph nodes seem to be swollen, so I want to have them checked. They feel rather lumpy … and I have this pain that resonates from the front of my mid chest all the way to the back and it is very sharp sometimes.” 

Well, that’s a description of the symptoms, but Google tells me that shortness of breath on top would be a sign of serious, maybe even cancer. So, that's why I added “…and I have shortness of breath too.”

The nurse fed all this into the computer and left me with assurances that the doctor would be along shortly.

A silent doctor’s office. A narrow space, more like a cubicle but enclosed, a computer with my chart, a scale and a stretcher that I'm sitting on the edge of. I relax and lie down, it feels comfortable, and this is maybe the only time that it does feel this way.

A knock and the door opens. Then a white-gown-wearing middle aged female walks in and makes a formal introduction. She is polite. She is the doctor.

“Thank you for taking me on such a short notice…” I say, in an attempt to bridge the gap between us.

“I have another patient waiting on me.”

This tells me that the clock may have started ticking but my time is already almost up.

“Why are you here?” She asks while looking at my health chart on the computer. Her attention is divided between it and me, or maybe between the computer, her other waiting patients and a little spec on her cornea reflecting me.

Wasting no more time, I give her a brief overview of my concerns and try to communicate them as clearly as I can. It's not easy to convey everything accurately under pressure but I try.

“I was traveling, and about two weeks ago I had this pain in my groin area and...”

“Did you search medical assistance?” She interrupts as if the answer to this question will reveal the right treatment.

“I did not and…” I try to continue.

“Okay, so it resolved on its own! It could have been many things, there are millions of things that could have caused it!” Her fast fingers record her interpretation in my medical chart, and I’m reduced to a summary.

“Well, then I got this lump like inflammation that took shape in the area of my groin between...”

“Ok so this is a pimple on the side of your thigh, correct?” Again she cut me in mid-sentence.

“It was not a pimple and it was not on my thigh...”

I tried to explain that the lump was more in the perineum.

“Okay, so did it go away?” She cut me off again.

“Yes.” I could have said more but she only seemed to want quick answers.

“Okay, so if it resolved on its own, it must have been a pimple!” I’m no scientist, but that didn’t seem to me like a watertight conclusion based on a thorough examination of the empirical data.

“Okay, I have lumps in my groin and I’m afraid they may be abnormally swollen lymph nodes.” I emphasized “abnormal” and “lymph nodes” to draw her attention towards my concerns and away from pimples.

“Let me take a look…ah,…no, those are nothing… I have seen much bigger than this, nothing to worry about.” And with that she turned and typed in her findings.

“I also have this pain in my chest and shortness of breath”. I offered in desperation, hoping that once she had all of the pieces she could finally put the whole picture together and understand what was bothering me.

“Wait, wait, wait”, she said as if I was breaking down the door. All I could do was look at her like a rabbit in the headlights.

“Are you irritable?” She asked it like someone who has just made a dramatic discovery. 

“Yes,” I said, but I could have added, “I’m very irritable because you never let me finish what I have to say,” but you already know that she preferred short answers.

“Okay, this is anxiety!” She turned back to the computer and mouthed the words, “The patient has dyspnea” as she was typing them.

“Dyspnea?” I repeated.

“This is just the medical term for shortness of breath,” she said, grinning like she’d just won a small trophy.

“Listen, I will put you on medication. I will give you “Lexapro”, this will help you.”

“I don’t take medications! Plus, maybe I can go back to the gym and …”

Physical activity seemed like a better option for fixing this dubious diagnosis than chemicals.

“No, no, no! You are irritable, this will totally interfere with your relationship, and people have their limits. Your irritability will affect your relationship!” She finished her notes and filled in the dispatch so I could get the prescription at my local pharmacist.

I was amazed at how quickly she diagnosed me, assuming the role of licensed psychotherapist and finding the thread that would lead me out of the maze of my psychological conundrum in only five brief minutes. This may have been a world-record.

“Maybe, I should try to really go back to the gym!” I insisted. Dr “Meet you first time” gave me a steady glare and reassured me “Don’t worry, all the millennials are on Lexapro!”

To my ear it sounded like a laxative for professionals, and I wondered at the logic of her apparent sales pitch. Maybe peer pressure and millennials is part of the Lexapro sales model.  Maybe the strapline is, “Reduce anxiety and save your relationship”.

But she misjudged this approach. I was born in 1980, at the tail end of Generation X, which means I have “…a casual disdain for authority”, (among other things).

She chatted on so briskly that I wondered if this made her short of breath too.

“But you have to take it over time, it might take a month for the Lexapro to change the chemical balance of your brain! And it is not invasive, it will just help you realize how much calmer you get with time.”

She said this with a faraway look in her eyes as if she was already on the stuff herself.

I blinked. I blinked a few times and only then did I become aware that my mouth was slightly open. I was feeling as if I’d been ushered into a closet and treated by one of those people who get their kicks from masquerading as a doctor.

That seemed like the only way to explain how all of the different symptoms I was experiencing could be shoveled into a conveniently labelled “anxiety” bucket so they could be conveniently treated with prescription medication. And it also seemed like the only way to explain how not taking it was unconscionable because all my peers were already popping these pills. FOMO!

Maybe I am missing out on this wonderful life with no irritability where unicorns run along the streets of NYC and roses grow on all the high rooftops! Maybe I could see them too if only I would put my Lexapro lenses on.

I swallowed what felt like an 8-ball in disbelief. I had failed to clearly communicate my symptoms. Either that or I’d done too good a job and was now being viewed as a hypochondriac whose effervescent somatic bubbles did not need any validation, they just needed popping. 

“Okay, I have another patient waiting on me!” And off she went, disappearing in a flash of pragmatism. Her time with me had been well spent and her duties fulfilled. This is good as automated health care gets. The conveyer belt turns over patient after patient, driving round the medication conveyer belt that sits right next to it. It’s a wonderful system that does everything except address what’s actually wrong with people and try to fix them.

The pharmacy called to tell me my medication was ready.

I hadn’t even left the building.