Since my GP for all the time I’ve lived here, also my friend and my second ever English student Agustín, retired a couple of years ago, I have had a new GP assigned to me. A woman. And she seems nice enough, albeit a bit, um, terse? So I never feel like I can actually talk to her, other than to ask her to get things done (blood tests, this and that). Mostly because her response to most of the “complaints” I’ve had over the past couple of years has been YOU NEED TO LOSE WEIGHT. Uh, thanks? I mean, of course I know I need to lose weight, for so many reasons. But this has always just felt like a brush off and not helpful.

Anyhow, went back after latest blood test and also after THE KNEE INCIDENT. I really thought she was just going to remind me once again that I am fat and tell me to take Ibuprofen, but she surprised me. I mean, she did tell me (once again) that I have to lose weight. But this time she looked me in the eye and said, “Shawn you have four things going on here, your age, your weight, your blood pressure and now high cholesterol. You need to start taking this seriously.” Gulp.

She then booked an x-ray for my knee for Monday morning, started me on cholesterol meds (to go with my blood pressure ones), arranged for more blood tests in three months, said she would call me next week with the x-ray results (she thinks it’s artrosis) and is sending me to a nutritionist. So that was all a bit more than I’d bargained for but at least she’s not just brushing me off this time.

Thing is, I DO know all of this and I’ve known it for some time. But nobody has called me on it until now. And I don’t know what I think I was trying to “get away” with because that doesn’t make any sense. It wasn’t even that… it’s something I can’t describe. Anyhow, got a bit of stuff to “unpack” here, as they say.