A Real Pain

I had a dermatologist appointment today to check out the dry patches on my hand which had started bothering me lately. I picked a reputable medical office and doctor with good reviews from yelp.com who was in my insurance network. Unfortunately, she is getting ready to go on maternity leave and isn't taking appointments for the rest of the year. But, she's in practice with several other doctors, so I made an appointment with Dr. Soleymani. Other than setting up the appointment, I hadn't given it much thought at all.

I arrived at the office today and filled out all that "new doctor" paperwork. Gotta love the red tape. When I finished, I settled back in for my wait and as soon as I got comfortable, they called my name. I was really startled and looked up to see that they were, indeed, already ready for me! I went to the back and chatted amiably with the nurse. I told her that if they were going to weigh me at the dermatologist, I was leaving. She laughed and assured me that wasn't necessary. She looked at the dry spots and asked me if I had any allergies and whatnot. She made notes and told me the doctor would be in shortly. Five minutes later, there he was. I barely had time to pull out my book! I was like, "What's wrong with you people?"

Not only that, Dr. Soleymani turned out to be young and handsome! I was like, "He-llo!" But before I could determine what fake skin disease I was going to come down with to have an excuse to come back and gawk at him, he told me that the dry spots on my fingers were warts. Excuse me? First of all...gross. I am mortified to have to report that I have warts. Second of all...why is it that I get a cute doctor to treat my warts?! Why can't it be a cute problem that makes me look sexy?

Anyway, I figured that he'd give me some sort of topical cream and maybe some sort of anti-biotic since I think I heard somewhere that warts are caused by a virus. The doctor asked me if I'd like to take care of them. Which, by the way, seems like a silly question...would I be there if I wanted to keep them? Our conversation went something like this,

Dr. S: No problem. We'll do a liquid nitrogen treatment today and have you back in a month to review the results.

Cindi: Liquid nitrogen? Like that Freeze Away stuff on tv.

Dr. S: Yeah, sort of. The difference is that that is about -20 degrees, whereas what I'll be using today is about -200 degrees. Actually, it's quite a difference.

Cindi: (a bit alarmed) Uh...yeah. Ok.

Then he pulled out a silver canister. I'm still not sure where it came from. Although I think that he materialized it from thin air, as I am partially convinced that he is the anti-Christ.

He started to spray the small spot on my left pinkie finger and asked, "How are you doing?"

I said, "Fine."

He smiled at me and said, "Oh, good. You have a high threshold for pain." I beamed as I was absurdly pleased with this and mentally congratulated myself for doing something worth complimenting. Then his words sort of sunk in and I thought, "High threshold for pain? What?" I do not. In fact, nothing at all about me screams, "High threshold for pain." Mike will testify that I'm a big, old cry baby. I started to get the feeling that I was in trouble. I laughed nervously as this went through my brain and out loud said, "Uh...I'm not sure what you're talking about."

He didn't look up from where he was spraying my left ring finger and said, "Oh. Well, unfortunately this can be quite painful." Painful? Painful? I started getting worried, but so far other than a slight stinging, it wasn't bad at all - so I just shut up.

He started to move to my right hand and, as he did so, the left hand started to thaw. And I knew what he'd been talking about. I bit my lip to keep from shrieking as my flesh protested the treatment. The two spots on my right hand are larger and it hurt badly from the get-go on the right side. I shut my eyes and scrunched my face - determined to keep up the machismo and not let on that I felt like screaming like a banshee. At least he was done with the right hand and I took a deep, relieved breath.

He picked up my left hand and examined his "handi-work"...get it? Hee hee. I concentrated on my breathing...I figured if it worked for giving birth, surely it would work for this. Then he said words that chilled me to the bone. "Ok. Looks like we're good for round two."

Inside my head, I thought, "Excuse me?" But on the outside, I said, "EXCUSE ME?!!!!" He looked at me apologetically and explained that in order to make it more effective, he has to do it twice on each spot. I thought I was going to cry. But I sucked it up. I didn't go through all that pain the first time for nothing. By the time the second treatment was finished, all I could concentrate on was the screaming inside my head. I really needed to have Mike there because I could tell that he was speaking to me but I couldn't bring myself to focus on him.

"...soreness...red irritation...blood blister...turn black and fall off..." At that point, I snapped back to attention long enough to insure he was talking about the wart and not my finger. "...disfigured fingernail...will straighten out." I'm still concentrating on my breathing, when he says, "Take ibuprofen if you're feeling pain." If? If I'm feeling pain? Ibuprofen!? How about some oxycontin with a vicodin chaser?!



The worst part? I have to go back in a month so he can see how it's doing and if it's not gone, I'll have to do this all over again. Somebody make the bad man stop!