Odds are I spend more time in doctors’ offices and clinics than you do. Not that it’s how I really want to spend my day, but they keep inviting me back. Since I have this vast experience it seems only right that I share some of what I’ve learned about medicine.

The first thing to understand is nobody is paying any attention.

Here’s what happens every time I’m in a doctor’s office.

The receptionist hands me a questionnaire which must have something to do with a research project, since everyone gets the same questionnaire and none of the questions pertain to me or the reason I’m there.

It calls for yes-no answers, but I’ve decided not to let that deter me. The first question is, “do you want a chaperone in the room with you?” I check “no” and write “I’d prefer a doctor.” Does anyone want a chaperone, ever? I haven’t even heard the word chaperone since junior high school dances and we didn’t want them then either.

Next question: do you have trouble standing or walking? “Not if sober, which isn’t often, so that’s a Yes.”

Have you fallen in the last six weeks? “See question two”

Are you often confused? This is the only question I answer by just checking the box, and without fail I always check both yes and no.

I turn in the questionnaire when the nurse calls me to go from the big waiting room to the little waiting room, the one with the paper-covered table.  No one has ever asked anything about my answers, because quite obviously no one has ever looked at them.

The nurse opens the door to the inner sanctum and always smiles and says “hi, how are you?” That would be a logical question for a nurse to ask a patient, except that the nurse doesn’t care what the answer is. You can answer anything you want and she will nod and ask you to step on the scale. “I died out there in the waiting room.” “Mmm-hmm, let’s get your weight.” “I’m fine, why else would I come in for chemotherapy.” “Right you are, step up on the scale please.” I know it’s a throwaway greeting, but if anyone ever asked “how are you” and genuinely wanted to know, you would think it would be in a doctor’s office. If you don’t want an honest answer maybe you should ask about the weather.

So the next step is to get my weight and then ask my height. No one has ever actually measured my height. They just take my word for it. Big mistake. First I ask “how tall do I have to be for that weight?” and while the nurse fumbles for an answer I say I’m six foot two, or six foot three or six three and a half. I never give the same answer twice. They write it down on a scrap of paper but obviously never record it anywhere or someone would have noticed by now. “This is odd; you’ve grown an inch and a half since you were here a month ago.” But no one ever says that.  And isn’t it kind of a dumb question anyway?   Has your height really changed much since back in the days when you had a chaperone?   Mine only changes because I’m lying about it.  So I’m going to start really lying and see if anyone even blinks. “I’m five-four, do you think this shirt makes me look taller?”

An hour or two later the doctor finally walks into the room and does listen, some, now and then.  Most of the time he’s staring at the computer screen.  I think he’s playing Angry Birds.