Not to gross everyone out, but I’ve had this nasty thing happening with my feet for over a year. Itchy, scaly, dry skin on both soles. The internet diagnosed me with the strain of athlete’s foot known as “moccasin infection”, and, since I’m at the hospital anyway, I decided to have it checked out.

Now, for the past year I’ve tried everything to get rid of this shit. I’ve tried powders, creams, Eucerin and every OTC fungal cream at the drug store. Last month, I even resorted to soaking my feet in a mixture of vinegar and water, a remedy I found on Wikipedia with the note “needs verification”. Nothing worked. So I was really hoping for some results here.

The doctor walked in, took one look, and was like, “Vaseline.”

“Vaseline?”

“Vaseline. It’s not athlete’s foot. It’s eczema.”

“Yeah, I know, but like, I’ve tried all that stuff. Like, Eucerin? I used that every night for a month and no dice. I really think it’s athlete’s foot.”

“Nope. Eczema. You need Vaseline.”

Vaseline. Right.

Trying to make the most of the situation, I told him that I hadn’t had a physical in like, five years. He sighed, resignedly took some breath sounds, and made a halfhearted attempt at a blood pressure read. “You’re fine,” he said, grimacing.

“OK, well, I’m kind of concerned that I’ve lost some weight while I’ve been here,” I continued, doggedly groping for any reason whatsoever to have walked all the way up to the med clinic. “Can you weigh me?” Truly, I WAS concerned, and not in an eating disordered, ‘too thin isn’t thin enough’ sort of way. Since starting on Celexa, it’s been just really hard for me to eat stuff. Any stuff. Not much appeals to me, and whatever I do manage to choke down just tastes… WRONG somehow. I’ve been living on Ensure meal replacements, bananas, and lowfat yogurt.

Can I tell you that asshat doctor didn’t even so much as BALANCE THE SCALE??? He just slid the weights to 102 and was like, yup, ok, you weigh the same.

The in-house eating disorder counselor, however, was much more helpful. not only did she accurately weigh me (she didn’t actually let me see the numbers, of course), but also ordered blood tests and suggested I try and eat granola with the yogurt. At least SOME people around here are doing their fucking jobs.