At 30 I had my First Medical Exam and it was Disturbing
Is it strange that I am a 30-year-old woman and I have only seen a physician for a real doctor’s appointment twice in my life? Maybe that makes me lucky for staying healthy or moreover that others may come to realize that being a doctor’s daughter is the equivalent of being a shoemaker’s kid. The shoemaker’s kid was known for wearing the worst shoes of any child in school. The doctor’s kid then might be known for never getting to fake sick, exaggerate an illness, or have to go for a medical appointment to get a physical or a prescription. It is challenging being sick when you have a physician as a father. He knows too much about medicine, symptoms, and conditions. He deals with things far bigger than your sore throat or swollen ankle so consequently, sometimes injury or illness seem less traumatic than they might in other circumstances. The great benefit of this situation, however, is that for most of my life, I lived with a medical professional! If I had a question or something was wrong, I always had someone to go to, which meant I never made appointments to “see” the doctor. I mean, I saw him every day, so what was the point of paying additional medical expenses or waiting in the lobby of his office? I never got into the habit of scheduling or attending doctor’s appointments so when I had my very first real physical as a college athlete with another doctor who examined me and touched me, I was anxious for the duration of the new and terrifying experience.
Aside from that mandatory physical, I have had a few X-rays and minor medical procedures, but Dad was always at the other end of what was happening and for that reason, nothing ever felt formal. Rarely did I even encounter a nurse or a technician when visiting Dad. For the majority of my childhood and young adult life, Dad looked after the health of my siblings and me. I never really thought much of it until I turned 30 and Dad, still practicing medicine, told me I need to have one of those Women’s Wellness exams and it was something he could not take care of for me. I protested. He laughed. But he was quick to remind me that this routine appointment was also something I had put off for the entirety of my 20s.
I fought him on making an appointment, even though he kindly recommended another doctor he thought I would be amendable to. I felt that because I had always had this physician-father figure, I was immune to all illnesses or the need for shots or check-ups or even preliminary cancer screenings. What did he mean that I had to go to a medical appointment? I was an adult capable of making my own decisions. Was I above going to the doctor or something? Sometimes privilege looks a lot like entitlement. I did not want to go see a doctor and still do not want to go back again. But nevertheless, I went for the Women’s Wellness exam and the testing Dad urged. I scheduled the appointment at his office as it is the only medical building with which I am familiar. But as anticipated, the appointment was not with him and it was not at all benign like I had expected.
The whole process of Woman’s Wellness testing with mandated shots and awkwardly invasive check-ups made me more than just physically uncomfortable. It was an emotionally distressing experience for me. As I sat in the exam room of my Dad’s office — a man who has been practicing medicine for nearly 37 years — I realized it was not just the appointment that was disconcerting. It was not just the fact that I did not trust any doctor except for my father. It was not just the reality that I was 30 and I needed to grow up. And it was not just the feeling of being naked, poked, and prodded, even though none of that was enjoyable. What I realized in the exam room that day was the perplexing haziness that life can hold. All I wanted in that moment was to be Dr. C’s daughter again, whom everyone recognized because I looked just like him. Everyone loved my father, and as such adored me and my family.
Sitting on that exam table in a soft, rose-colored gown — something I had never worn until that day — I wanted to go back to the days when Dad filled out my forms at home and I went on my merry way without a care in the world for things like HPV, vaccines, blood tests, blood pressure, Vitamin deficiencies, shots, weight, heart and lung health. Yet when I was sitting in his office as a 30 year-old— the office that my brother, sister, and I would clean during the evenings in high school and for me, a bit in grad school as a way to earn extra money — it suddenly felt like I was old and Dad was old and this gaping part of me didn’t want the cycle of life to be as it was. As the female doctor my dad had arranged for my exam began talking to me, I wanted nothing but to be playing with toys in Dad’s room or yes, running wind sprints up and down the halls of that building at 11:00 PM during basketball season or during the off-season from softball or tennis when Dad with his clipboard, whistle, and stopwatch, reminded me that, “Players are made in the off-season, kid! Get moving!”
As the doctor present with me kept spewing factoids about the female body and hormones and things I already felt like I knew too much about and did not care to hear more of, I thought deeply and felt I was in the midst of discovering a poem forming in the synapses my mind. But as I tried to piece it together, I could tell I was too overwhelmed to have any kind of condensed clarity in that moment. So many flooded memories came to me of late nights with Dad at the office growing up and the Looney Tunes stickers I would steal from the front desk or the copy machines where I would print out notes for Sunday school or for classes at the high school where I taught English because I didn’t want to wait for the crowded printers on Monday mornings.
And then I remembered being in an operating room there where I was naked, anorexic and cold and my siblings were strapping suction cups to me to find a heart rhythm that would give them hope. The abysmal echo-cardiogram made the doctor’s daughter a medical disappointment. But what would have happened if the intensive therapy I went through at that time didn’t work? The therapy even Dad did not think his own, “healthy” daughter needed? What if I had refused to let God intervene in my healing? Maybe I never would have needed the 30-year-old check-up with a strange doctor accompanied by marauding thoughts about the past and the unfair passage of time.
As the doctor proceeded to prep me for a Tetanus shot — somehow I had gotten behind on receiving those — because, well, it can be easier than most might presume to tell your busy doctor Dad that you’d rather not be a compliant patient. Unless it was life-threatening, Dad rarely forced anyone in his family into excessive treatments or medications for anything. I never really understood that as a child, but it made more sense as I got older and realized the nature of medicine and what it was Dad actually did for a living. As the shot was administered, I thought about the primary nurse Dad worked with when I was younger and how she used to bring Dad chocolate and coffee to get him through the day. Or that if I got dropped off at his office after school, she would assist me in stealing a warm cup of hot cocoa from the basement kitchen. I loved the mini marshmallows she would bring me from her home. She was the kindest woman I believed I would ever know as a child.
The shot hurt as the doctor pressed it firmly into my skin on my left arm. If Nurse Darlene had been the one administering it, I don’t think I would have noticed the pain. And again, it hit me. In Dad’s office, I was no longer immune. I desired a neon pink Band-Aid to cover the cotton ball absorbing the blood on my arm. I wanted a sticker from the front desk and a small cup of hot chocolate for making it through the appointment. As expected, I did not get any of those things, nor did I get to see Dad afterwards. He was busy with other patients and Nurse Darlene had entered retirement many years prior. I felt like I had been violated by a doctor I did not respect and my heart was swollen with an aching sadness I kept trying to unpack.
As I paid for the visit — another thing I had the luxury of never having to do — and walked out of Dad’s office, I recalled that the first dog and pet my family ever owned is interned on the property there and that the best memories with my father are still those late night trips to the office to pick up a medical chart or make a copy, or standing in the middle of a baseball field where as my coach Dad would tell me to hustle, quietly praying those off-season suicide sprints down the long hallways of his office paid off. After the flesh-colored Band-Aid was adhered to my arm, and the doctor asked me to schedule a mammogram as my family has a strong history of breast cancer, I felt dizzy, ignorant, and immature. I realized that I did not want to be the adult kid growing up in dad’s office anymore. I wanted to be the little girl who wondered why mom’s boobs were getting smashed and then made jokes about it with my brother at the dinner table not knowing she was first diagnosed with cancer when I was only seven-years-old. My mom is a survivor, but she fought a long battle. Dad was by her side the entire time. The doctor nudged me again to schedule my mammogram and all I could tell her was that my greatest fear was losing my parents She had anticipated I would say something about early detection or cancer. . I know in this grand cycle of life God designed, kids are supposed to outlive them, but I have never wanted to.
Dad’s office is merely a place. But it and my father have a home in my heart. There are few people in my life I admire as much as I do my parents and even though their standards of excellence have been hard to live up to, they gave me an incredible life. Because I always wanted to honor them, I made morally sound decisions that I didn’t understand at the time, but I do now and those guided decisions also gifted me with the ability to see and serve with compassion and empathy. A couple days following my “big kid” appointment, Dad shared with me the results of my visit. My blood test numbers were better than they ever have been and I did not have any infections or cancers. I am healthy and able to have these memories to reflect on and share. And that is a blessing. Even if I do not want to accept the passage of time, I know in the midst of my fondest memories, I was happy, healthy, and Dad was there for me. Sure, I have seldom visited the doctor formally and maybe I don’t ever want to visit a different doctor again, but the informal visits with Dad are preferable anyway. Regardless, I never worried because Dad always took care of me and I have been fortunate enough to be a witness to his life-giving sacrifices to help improve the well-being of countless others every day.
Yes, being a doctor’s daughter is a lot like being a shoe-maker’s kid. You might not get the best shoe or the very best medicine, and there might not even be Advil in the medicine cabinet at home. But you grow stronger and tougher through receiving the deepest love and most tender care that goes far beyond an office building or the nobility of a profession. I have received the heart of a healthcare provider and the faith and care of selfless father. Shots, surgeries, prescriptions, and procedures all have their place and my first formal exam taught me what matters most in healthcare was not what I originally thought. For I have been a daily recipient of that rare love which truly heals, and I would not exchange it for anything in this world.
