I had a dermatology checkup today. The short version: I have skin. The slightly longer version: I have skin and it is in good condition and there’s nothing to be alarmed about.
I am alarmed. The guy that called my name in the waiting room and escorted me to an exam room asked me, I am sure, the basic array of triage questions. I was going to give him two more questions before I asked him how old he was and what time his mom was picking up today.
But it is a dermatology office, maybe he just knows how to take care of his skin.
Then the doctor came in with his two PAs in tow. We shook hands. I made the acquaintance of his PA-in-training and was trying, for some reason, to make sure she felt seen. The dermatologist interrupted me with all of the dermatology questions.
We discussed my poison ivy, which has cleared up right on schedule. Apparently they’re seeing a lot of that this year. Makes you wonder about the down years. Are there years when urushiol oil is in short supply? How does this never make the news? What does that mean for issues beyond the local ecological environment? People are going to tell you it is good for animals and insects. People are also going to tell you that climate change promotes more poison ivy and, thus urushiol oil. Don’t believe Big Poison Ivy. This is what you need to remember:
When the oil gets into your skin, your immune system’s sensor cells recognize urushiol as foreign to your body. These sensor cells then call in protector cells to the area, warning them of the invasion. The protector cells defend your body against the intruder by attacking the urushiol in the skin. Unfortunately, some of your body’s normal skin cells are casualties of this war, which is what leads to the itchiness and swelling of a poison ivy rash.
I think that the PA-in-training needs to both know these things (and I’m sure she does) but also how to deal with people who bring this sort of information with them. And what she learned from that experience, from her mentor, was “Keep the patient on task.”
We’ve all got roles to play, and that’s the one I played there today.
Anyway, an exam was taken. I passed for another year.
I was given a shopping list by my lovely bride. I volunteered to take the grocery shopping off her schedule if she gave me a list and some aisle direction, and she did. I don’t mind the store. I dislike aimlessly wandering from aisle to aisle, squinting at signs, dodging people and peering on every shelf for that One Weird Thing that will make my skin as young and as fresh as that 14-year-old I just met. So she give me a list and gave me some directions for some of the slightly more obscure things.
And then — confident that I’d saved her virtually no time while I happily texted away at her, aisle-by-aisle — as I approached the checkout, I got a message for additional things. Oh, these are for dessert. Which is the only reason I went back into the fray — also because checkout was a bit of a mess itself at the moment, but dessert. If it had been, say, brussels sprouts, I would have said, Nope. Not on the list. Not on the contract. Can’t have it.
Instead, I got an additional request for these things … entirely off-setting all of the healthy things I’d picked up. But, I also picked up something else. A mystery. What kind of dessert is this?
I guess we’ll find out in a few days.
Also, hon, they were out of brussels sprouts. So sorry. Couldn’t be helped. They’re selling like … well, whatever undesirable vegetables sell like.
And now the storms are rolling in, anyway. Can’t cook brussels sprouts in bad weather. That’s like a rule, or something. Might effect the flavor. I’m sure that’s one of those old wives tales that’s true.
