Why is everybody so f*cking stooopid?! Oh. And also Screen on the Green!!!

I think I have officially lost - utterly lost - all faith in the medical establishment. My experiences with doctors the last two days put the final nail in the coffin. I swear, my endocrinologist is the only one who seems to know anything, and even he sometimes I suspect of being merely the least retarded of the lot.

I went to the ob/gyn yesterday to find out why I've only had my period twice in the last year. After making me wait FORTY FIVE minutes past my scheduled appointment time (oh. my. gawd.) she has to email my endocrinologist to ask HIM what he thinks about the problem. I should have just gone to him in the first place! Oh, and apparently I have a "prolactin gland." In my brain.

Why is it that I know more with my google education than someone with a medical degree? Forget google, I remember from fifth grade health that she's actually talking about the pituitary gland, which is not exactly IN your brain so much as right below it.

Down in the lab, I'm told it's too late in the day to get the blood work done. I need to come back first thing in the morning, fasted, no sex and UNSHOWERED.

??

I can't find on google anywhere that says I need to be hungry or stinky to have my prolactin tested... but I do it anyway because so help me god if I get there in the morning after eating breakfast and they tell me I have to come back another time without food in my system, I will take someone's face off.

So after being out till past midnight last night at the Screen on the Green, I roll out of bed this morning and take my funky, hungry self over to the clinic. Where I'm told, no you didn't need to fast for this. Fine.

Luckily I didn't have to wait, but the experience was doomed anyway. I've had blood drawn so many times in the last couple of years that I can tell with a glance if the person is going to be good at it or if they're like freaking Hannibal Lecter. So when I saw this woman I instantly knew - no good can come of this.

I bared my arm and she jabbed me - ouch! The good ones barely hurt at all. But it wasn't over with that! Oh no. Next thing I know, she's DIGGING AROUND IN MY ARM with the needle - what the.... ? I'm like, ow, bitch, the fuck are you doing?! (Well, you know, in so many words.) She lost the vein. Does that really happen? And if it does, doesn't it say something about your skills? Like possibly that you're INEPT? If there is a phlebotomist out there who wants to defend this woman, please stand up and enlighten me, it would really make me feel better. Because I was, like, really upset! Not even because it hurt so much as because I just felt so VIOLATED. Apparently my "vein is scarred"... despite the huge number of times I have had blood drawn from that site in recent memory, somehow I still doubt the veracity of that justification. I'm calling bullshit!

Shit.

Anyway, you all didn't want to hear about all that melodrama! You wanted to hear about Screen on the Green! It was awesome. So totally cool I couldn't stand it. There were a TON of people there, the mall was packed! The movie screen was set up in front of the Capitol building, and watching Dr. No with the Capitol all lit up in the background was just like, wow. I was geeking out over the patriotic coolness of it all. And what a great movie. There were some great lines in there that had the whole crowd chuckling over the quaintness. Totally, totally fun. Of course I forgot my camera, but I had someone take a pic of us so once she emails it to me I'll post it. This one I ripped off of flickr.Today we are driving out to Berkeley Springs to sit in the mineral baths and get massages! I will most definitely bring my camera today - I'm getting up right now to put it in the Camelbak. See you guys on the flipside.