Being back for only a few weeks, I do have a fair amount of administrative work to take care of as well as doctor's appointments to honor. While I do have a general doctor in Paris, I prefer to visit the much needed dermatologist and the much dreaded gynecologist here in New York. Not that this year has been terribly active, I made my appointment with my gynecologist who probably wishes that I would just find a doctor in Paris. Each visit, I act like she is trying to murder me and the appointment takes twice as long because I won't keep my legs open wide enough. Irony. The day of my appointment, the front desk called to remind me that they had moved offices, offered the new address and to not mind the office appearance as they were still unpacking.
I arrived at the new location ten minutes early, signed in and planted myself in the waiting room with my book. After their move, I guess they hadn't unpacked any of the boxes, so there weren't any magazines or fun pamphlets about STDs. There weren't even the insulting posters on the wall of a happy family holding a new born or the serious poster of the young girl standing with arm stacked wanting you to know the facts about HPV, like the other office. The nurse called me and escorted me into the examination room and told me that the doctor would be right with me. I got into the room and as protocol would have it, began to disrobe. Standing there naked, I didn't see the paper robe and not wanting to put my floral jumpsuit back on which was a pain to take off, I wrapped the paper from the examination table around me and kept my ears peeled for a nurse to walk by, so I could lure her in for a robe. I guess they didn't unpack those boxes either...
I sat in the chair and put my legs up on the pull out shelf below the chair and propped my legs up because I didn't see the stirrups. They were probably tucked in the table somewhere and figured the nurse would help me. Sitting there patiently and feeling the breeze from a nearby open window wafting through, I dazed off thinking of the other things I needed to get done these next few weeks. My thoughts were interrupted by my doctor who had walked in. I had the paper cover over me, propped up on the examining table, spread eagle, I smiled and said hello. He looked at me in confusion. Then horror. Then back to confusion. Then it hit me...one, he is supposed to be a she. And two, I was at the dermatologist.
Today is about remembering the difference between Dr. Horowitz and Dr. Hershkovitz. I am mortified. My dermatologist saw my vagina. So wrong.