Pray For Him

Tyler is against the medical profession at large. You'd think this would be awkward, considering the fact that both of my brothers are doctors and my brother-in-law is studying to become a doctor. You'd be right.

No, truthfully Tyler trusts my brothers. AND THAT'S IT. He trusts no other medical professional, from the pediatrician who saw him as a child to your neighbor's doula. This has to do with the expense and the HMOs and the fact that you can't compare prices of services and the way they make him feel like an idiot and blah, blah, blah.

I can pinpoint this feeling of his to the doctor's visit he made about a year after we got married. Tyler had a blister on his foot, which he popped. The blister then got infected so he went to the BYU Medical Center, where the doctor told him you shouldn't pop blisters. Tyler pointed out that since it was all red and pussy now, shouldn't he pop it and get the pus out? The doctor thought about it, and said, sure, you might as well. Here, I'll do it for you.

We received a bill for $220 for "incision and drainage."

Tyler took the moral of the story to be "Doctors are evil." I took the moral of the story to be "Tyler and I are idiots for not checking to see whether our new insurance covers the BYU Medical Center."

I can pinpoint my mistrust of Tyler's medical experience to our current doctor who Tyler saw over the summer for a sore throat. Let me preface this story by saying we very carefully selected this doctor based on the fact that he was available at 10:00 that Wednesday. Tyler told him his throat hurt really bad and that his son had just tested positive for strep. The strep test came back negative, but his doctor gave him something for the pain.

Lortab. The doctor prescribed Lortab for a scratchy throat.

This time, because the doctor didn't diagnose a treatable disease, Tyler took the moral of the story to be "Doctors are evil." I took the moral of the story to be "Now we know which doctor to go to when Tyler develops an addiction to prescription painkillers."

Tyler also distrusts medicines in all forms. Because, clearly, "they don't do anything." He reserves two exceptions: Nyquil and ice cream. Somewhere along the line I was trying to get him to stay home from work and told him he needed to rest and let his body heal itself. He still doesn't stay home from work, but the second he gets home he takes Nyquil to induce a coma-like state and sleeps every minute possible. Whatever bronchitis or pneumonia he's got right now he's battled with 12 fluid ounces of the green stuff. He sent me back to the store for another large bottle of cherry. I made sure he realized he couldn't take Nyquil more than four times a day, and he said, "That's only if you want to avoid severe liver damage." SEVERE LIVER DAMAGE. A condition, once he's got it, that will go untreated because he refuses to see a doctor.

The ice cream as a medical necessity has even less logic behind it, but Tyler's convinced it's the only thing in the WORLD that has any chance of soothing his throat/chest congestion/sore wrist/whatever hurts right now. All I know is that he's made his way through a quart of Mint Chocolate Chip and Dreyer's Specialty Egg Nog and is ready for the Cookies n' Cream I bought today.