Every two years, everyone who works in the workshops has to be seen by our company doctor. Although my position is in the high manager category and I don’t do the manual work at the workshop, I spend a lot of time there, so this year, I have to see the doctor.

When I enter the examination room, she is looking at her computer and doesn’t look at me.

Me: “Good morning, I’m—”

Doctor: “Name.”

Me: “[My Name]. But I don’t—”

Doctor: “Position?”

Me: “Quality manager. I have—”

Doctor: “Hmpf… height?”

Me: *Sigh* “[Height]. I have—”

Doctor: “Weight.”

Me: “[Weight].”

Doctor: “Gee, lady, you are a quality manager and you can’t even live a quality life? Look at your BMI; you are way overweight. You should do something with it. How can you do quality work if you look like this?”

Me: “First, I don’t know how my BMI is connected with my work or with the quality of my life. Second, according to the BMI, I was overweight even when I was a competitive tap dancer because it doesn’t work with muscles. Third, if you would bother to turn around, you’d see that I’m seven months pregnant, so BMI is even more useless than usual.” 

She turns and stares at me.

Me: “So, I’d appreciated it if you’d be so nice as to take that stamp you have next to your keyboard and press it here on this nice paper, which confirms that I’m not blind or deaf, as you can see, and I’ll be on my way. Otherwise, I may start to question how you do other examinations.”

She tears the paper from my hand, stamps it, and throws it back at me.

Me: “Thank you, and have a nice day. Oh, and by the way, I’ll see you next week at the audit. In case you don’t recognize me, I’ll be the one with ‘Main Auditor’ on her name tag.”

I am working on the switchboard at one of the two large hospitals in the city. One thing we do is page various doctors. I get a call from a medical professional in a different city within the province, looking to speak with a pediatric doctor from [specialty #1]. After answering the phone with my hospital’s name and getting the request, I look up the various pediatric specialties in our system and find that we only have a few different types. I list them out, and this is where the trouble begins.

Me: “We have [specialty #2], [specialty #3], and [specialty #4].”

Caller: “You don’t have [specialty #1]?”

Me: “No.”

I repeat the specialties.

Caller: “Oh, well, I always call here for [specialty #1].”

Me: “I’m not too sure. That sounds more like something [Other Major Hospital] would have. We really just have [specialty #2], [specialty #3], and [specialty #4] here.”

Caller: “I’m looking for [specialty #1].”

Me: “We only have [specialty #2], [specialty #3], and [specialty #4].”

Caller: “Okay, but I’ve always called this number for [specialty #1]!”

Me: “I understand, but…”

I repeat myself.

Caller: “Did this change recently? Can you check with your coworkers?”

I only have two coworkers in the room with me, and both are currently busy. 

We go back and forth a few times more, and I mention [Other Major Hospital] again at some point. 

Caller: “But is this [My Hospital]?” 

Me: “Yes.”

Caller: “Oh, I needed [Other Major Hospital]!”

Me: *Head-desk*

At least the caller had the decency to apologize!

When I was seventeen, my period suddenly completely stopped. I wasn’t sexually active, nor had I ever been, so the most obvious explanation went straight out the window. (I have since figured out that I am a sex-repulsed asexual, but that’s beside the point.)

My father and I called our family general practitioner’s office, and once we had convinced the assistant that no, there really was no way I was pregnant unless I was the second Virgin Mary, I got an appointment with the GP. I admit, I was rather nervous. It’s weird when a semi-regular, semi-reliable (I never had regular periods) bodily process just up and quits without warning.

The family GP was a calm, kind man who’d known my family for years, and he listened to me as I explained things before he started on a massive list of questions that, for some reason, only made me more and more nervous, which tends to make me snarky and flippant.

No, I really, REALLY wasn’t sexually active in any way. No, I had no other symptoms, no pain anywhere, or nausea, or weight gain, or weight loss, or whatever. No, I hadn’t suddenly started lactating. ([GP] was trying to figure out if maybe I was experiencing pseudocyesis, aka a false pregnancy). When he ran out of questions to ask regarding symptoms, he started asking questions about what my baseline used to be — what my periods used to be like when I still had them. Once we’d established that they were irregular, long, and heavy, he asked me the following.

GP: “And when you are having your period, do you have any other symptoms besides bleeding? Like abdominal pain or being more emotional?”

Me: *With a sarcastic grin* “Got half an hour? The whole shebang! Abdominal pain, back pain, headaches, nausea, sore breasts, ‘being more emotional’ to the point that I’m either crying all the time or really angry, mood swings, zits everywhere, fatigue… You name it, I’ve got it!”

I did say nerves make me snarky.

GP: *With a sympathetic smile* “Are you sure you want it back?”

That actually got a laugh out of me and brought the nervousness down a bit. After a moment, I came up with an answer.

Me: “Well, no, not really, but not having it can’t be good, either, right? So I would like to know what’s going on.”

GP: “That makes two of us. Now, have you been experiencing any of these symptoms lately? As if you’re on your period, but without the blood?”

And so on, and so forth, question after question, most answered with no. But the ice was broken and I was calmer about all of it.

[GP] ended up referring me for a battery of tests, and when none of those turned anything up, to a gynaecologist. After even more tests that made me realise how vulnerable a woman’s fertility really is, we finally landed, mostly through a process of elimination, on PCOS — which is decidedly NOT fun but has been manageable so far. My period returned after about two years, stuck around for a while after that, decided to take another hiatus of three years this time, and has recently decided to show up again — as I said, not fun, but manageable.

I still remember that joke [GP] made, though. It really took the sting out of a scary moment. Reading a lot of horror stories on this site made me realise I was very lucky to have a GP that actually listened to me. I was sorry to switch GPs when I moved to a different city.

I work in IT for a hospital. In the early days of portable video projectors, one of the doctors had checked one out for use in a conference room at a convention center/hotel. We got a furious call when he was setting it up.

Doctor: “There’s something wrong with the projector! Everything is BLUE!”

Me: “That can happen if the VGA cable is loose or damaged. Can you check to make sure both ends have all their pins and that the cable is securely connected?”

Doctor: “I’ve checked the cable! There’s color on the screen, but everything is tinted blue! Even the white areas are blue!”

Me: *With dawning comprehension* “Are you using a screen or a wall?”

Doctor: “A wall! A screen is too much hassle.”

Me: “What color is the wall?”

Doctor: “Blue! Just tell me what I need to change to make things show up the right color!”

Me: “…Physics?”

CONTENT WARNING: Animal Illness, Death

I’m the writer of the story A Streetcar Named Cheshire, about a time when a fellow traveller on a streetcar insisted that my cat was a dog. This is the story of the wonderful vets who helped us through tragedy during the recent health crisis. 

Two moves, a marriage, and a kitten adoption later, my cat is now around sixteen years old. I’ve been seeing the signs that she’s getting old, and she’s on three different medications to keep up her quality of life. I’ve already made up my mind that she’s not going on a fourth, and I can see that the medication she is on isn’t working anymore.

I’m now waiting for the health crisis to pass to take her to the vet for her annual checkup and to book putting her down. Then, I get a phone call at work while my husband is working at home.

Husband: “Something’s wrong with [Cat]. She just started screaming and is panting really hard under the bed! She just pooped herself twice!”

Me: “That’s not normal… Well, she did have a similar event last year.”

Husband: “Yeah, when she was constipated. This is different.”

I’m already getting the nod of approval from my boss.

Me: “I’m on my way home. Let me know if anything changes.”

While on the bus home — my husband has the car today — I get a text from him

Husband: “[Cat]’s back legs aren’t moving. She just dragged herself from under the bed.”

I rush home to find her panting in her litter box. She doesn’t move her legs when I touch the bottom of her paws and doesn’t blink when I touch her eyes. Her normal vet’s office is already closed for the day.

Me: “We’re taking her to the emergency vet. I think she had a seizure or stroke.”

This is where the wonderful vet steps in. When we get there, we’re not allowed in, but they take her to the examination room. After giving her heavy pain medication and oxygen, they confirm that she has a massive blood clot in her heart. No medication could have stopped it or can reverse it, and surgery is out of the question.

Me: “I know I can’t be with [Cat] when she dies, but can I say goodbye?”

Vet: “Of course! You can’t take long, but you can say goodbye.”

They let me have about five minutes with her, more than I thought possible. She wasn’t in pain, and once she had passed, they brought her to the car, wrapped in a blanket and in a cardboard kitty coffin. The health crisis stopped me from giving her the death I wanted, but the vets made sure she was comfortable and gave me the emotional closure I needed. Thank you to them, and goodbye, my sweet queen.