Doctor Doctor Give the News

I finally went to the doctor a few weeks ago to discuss my overwhelming, sometimes bone crushing, fatigue. The internist I see is also my husband's primary doctor. As usual, my husband is much beloved by this doctor, notwithstanding the plethora of health problems my husband has not historically addressed. My son and I have had the experience of going to this doctor and feeling like we are not viewed as individual patients but extensions of my husband. That has lead to the joke of predicting that the doctor will say "Hello Paul's Wife [Son]. How is Paul doing" whenever my son or I go to see him.

I also have the experience of this doctor attributing all my ailments to "stress" (the kind word) aka "you are crazy". So I fully expected that I would get both statements in my recent visit. Sure enough, within a few questions to me about why I was there, I got the "how is Paul doing?" question. Then moments later I got the "Have you seen a psychiatrist" question. "This is most likely caused by stress". My response this time was that I had not seen a psychiatrist because what else would a psychiatrist tell me other than my physical problems are really psychological. You can see why this doctor may like Paul better than me.

Last night I got my blood work results. Everything is normal--sugar, thyroid, electrolytes. My cholesterol level is 155-- HDL 55, LDL 84 (for which I got a "very good") and triglycerides 77. These are basically the same numbers as last time I had blood work done 2 years ago even though I have gained weight. I would love to get my HDL above 60 so I read an article about how to raise HDL. Aerobic exercise (bah, I already do some), lose weight (bah, can't seem to anymore) and, what's this -- WINE? I do not really drink very much but this article assured me I would be healthier with a glass of wine a day. Hmmm. For the calories, I would rather have a cookie. Why can't cookies raise HDL?

I could hear it in my doctor's voice when he gave me the results. "Nothing physically wrong. It's all in your mind, you crazy person. How is Paul, by the way?"