Monday, June 27, 2016

The Difference Between the Podiatrist and the Neurologist

Somewhere in Beverly Hills, CA


I texted a friend today from the foot doctor's office:

This ocean scene with sounds 
really makes the doc's office 
EXACTLY like being at the beach.

There's nothing wrong with my feet, and since I want to respect their privacy, and they are teenagers, and they are Teenaged Boys, and Teenaged Boys' feet are sort of horrifying (how many of you mothers out there took a look at your sons' feet one day, and they'd all of a sudden become terrifying as opposed to adorable?). The parenthetical happened to me between five and ten years ago, and it's a sad parenting day when you no longer have any desire to kiss that little foot but rather avoid under all circumstances even looking at that wart or those flakes or that ingrown toenail or the ridiculous length of that toenail, much less inquire how it happened. Hence, the foot doctor who does wonderful surgical techniques and cryo-freezing and dispensing of betadine and gauze pads and gives instructions to the person at the end of the hairy leg as opposed to the woman with her head ducked in the chair by the door busily texting. The foot doctor is one of those rare physicians (and men) that I trust implicitly, have literally nothing to say to beyond the usual pleasantries and secretly idolize because, frankly, I have no desire to tend to my teenaged sons' feet.

I did find the ocean scene television hilarious, though, and wondered how it'd go over in the pediatric neurology clinic right before you go in to your quarterly $575 Reflex and Drug Refill Check-up. I, for one, would have appreciated some kind of Matrix-type situation back in the days when I waited in the pediatric neurology clinic and would have gladly drowned myself in the television ocean. Sophie, of course, as a mermaid would have swum off to freedom. At the foot doctor, though, I am content to stare at the screen, the susurration of the lapping waves a perfect accompaniment to my silent hosannas to a doctor that can actually fix my kids.


12 comments:

  1. Foot doctors terrify me. My mother went through 3 of them. All traumatic.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ha :) I will say that apple cider vinegar got rid of my son's veruccas in days. Put it on a bandaid and leave it on as much as possible. I avoided doing it for a while becauseI read it could hurt, but it didn't at all. They just go black and peel off.

    ReplyDelete
  3. "...and would have gladly drowned myself in the television ocean." Fucking brilliant.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I may have a foot fetish..I adore beautiful ones and gag at ugly ones.

    Susurration.
    I must put that in the book of - "Words I Should Have Known".

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hosannas to the podiatrist Elizabeth. I'm dead.

    ReplyDelete
  6. LOL. I had three brothers and never gave a single thought to their feet because I was instead staying away from their bedroom and (yuck), their bathroom. Horrifying. Teenager bathroom and the funk of their beds. Gag worthy. Somehow they became men and presumably no longer smell so suspect or awful.

    ReplyDelete
  7. LOL. I had three brothers and never gave a single thought to their feet because I was instead staying away from their bedroom and (yuck), their bathroom. Horrifying. Teenager bathroom and the funk of their beds. Gag worthy. Somehow they became men and presumably no longer smell so suspect or awful.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Podiatrist is definitely one of several career paths that I would never, under any circumstances, have chosen.

    I do dig the artifical ocean, and the sanitized blandness of the waiting room. That photo is very un-Beverly Hills, at least as the rest of the world conceives of Beverly Hills.

    ReplyDelete
  9. "Gives instructions for the person at the end of the hairy leg ..." Put me over the edge. Very funny witty post. How nice the boys have health that can easily be addressed!

    ReplyDelete
  10. I remember well the night my 12 y o boy said mom can you cut my toenails and his man sized foot landed in my lap with whomp. I looked at it and said son, it's time you cut your own toenails. It happens literally overnight! But never before have I seen it written about so I was highly amused to find the shock of recognition here.

    ReplyDelete

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...