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Warning, this is a rant. There is nothing good that will come out of this post.

Warning, I’m talking about medical stuff here…you may be disgusted by this post

I consider myself a pretty healthy individual. I exercise regularly, I eat right for the most part, I don’t smoke, and I drink occasionally and I’m only a few pounds over my target perfect health weight. One thing that I also do is get a yearly physical. I know, many of you are asking yourselves, why in the heck do you need to go yearly, sounds like you are in pretty good health. I am, and I feel that keeping up with maintenance on my body is an important thing that I do for myself. Not to mention, the insurance company picks up the tab for 1 full physical a year. So why wouldn’t I do it.

This year didn’t go as well as past years. I won’t go into the details, but i have a few follow ups with some specialists. 1 definitely not as pleasant as the other.

The one referral that I’m talking about today is the least offense of the two and is what I would call, a complete waste of time. As an avid walker (thanks to my pooch Dilly) I tend to get blisters on one of my toes on a pretty consistent basis. Disgusting I know. Its basically a defect of my foot where my toes are simply too close together and rub on each other. This may have been due to breaking them when I was younger playing soccer or simply part of my genetics. I think my Dad gets these same things when he runs.

So my family physician gives me a referral to another doctor. I figured this guy would give me some great insight into how he could laser off the offending skin so it would no longer rub or some eastern medicine technique for spreading your toes and teaching them to be farther apart. Instead, I got what is basically a band-aid that I can slip over the toe and the advice that when I’m 60 or 70 and the issue has gotten worse…that we can look into straightening the toes. First, the band-aid I can do myself (and have!). Second, the “straightening of the toes” sounds like some medieval technique using a hammer and a wrapping it between a few boards as it heals. Obviously choice two is out.

Needless to say, I had to leave work early to go to the appointment, fill out 4 sheets of questions to see the doctor for less than 2 minutes so he could recommend a freaking band-aid. My time is worth more than this. My insurance money is worth more than this. The people that now have to process this visit to the doctor have better things to do.

Today, the medical system failed for me.