The Check Up

Everyone has to make visits to medical professionals that they do not look forward to, in fact it can be said that some of these appointments fill us with dread. This is no reflection on the doctors who hopefully never realize just how little we anticipate our monthly/yearly/weekly visits.Whenever possible it is perhaps a wise move to plan these appointments with a friend because there is after all so much truth in "misery loves company". If we're afraid, what could be better than having a friend be afraid too? It's not that we wish our friends ill, it's that we like to share. Bringing a friend works on many other levels as well. You have someone to fret with while en route to the appointment, and you have someone to chat with during the long waiting room layovers between tests. A friend will never laugh more at how ridiculous you look in a hospital gown than they will at how equally enchanting they look. A friend will commiserate when the only television in the room is tuned to some totally inane and undistracting program and a true friend will confess to not being able to hear his/her name being called due to a partial hearing loss thus opening the door for you to confess your own partial hearing loss. In short a real friend allows you to make it safely through what without him/her would have been a totally harrowing ordeal. If you are smart, the next time you go for a check up you'll bring a real friend with you and to get the full benefit, make sure they have booked a check up too.