To shore up the impression that my life is just a nonstop whirlwind of fun, I would like to share that in a few days I get to have the special experience of hobnobbing with the staff of a medical genetics clinic.
And, although this will be my first encounter with said professionals in a UK hospital setting, the appointment will be predictable in all aspects. They will poke various bits of me as I verbally rattle through the checklist faster than they can remember what to ask.
I will flash a few scars, get photographed, and impress everyone with my astonishing grasp of a disease that I have, after all, lived with for thirty-five years. Whichever doctor is assigned my case will perhaps have met three or four other people with the diagnosis. Though usually, they’ve never seen a live specimen.
Not exactly my favorite adventure, but sometimes necessary in order to secure referrals to the specialist clinics that I have been avoiding for a few years now.
The best part of the process is filling out the family disease tree. This one was particularly hilarious before I even made it too far past the basics like age and address.
If you tick the “yes I have visited Genetics” box, they give you a space about the size of a matchbook to list where you have been seen previously. I conscientiously gave the full names of three major teaching hospitals, a military facility, and the clinical study I sometimes halfway cooperate with.
The space allocated for a list of cancer treatments was even smaller, leaving me no choice but to use the columns reserved for siblings to describe my assortment of maladies. After all, I have no siblings.
Ha! Take that, poorly designed form!