Ferocious? Seriously…
So yesterday I was stuck at home with a migraine – you know, the headaches that feel like someone is pounding their DeWalt hand drill in and out of your eyeballs while someone else is hitting you with a 2×4 and singing bad polka music in your ear. Just as fun as ripping your fingernails off and then paying someone to spill hydrochloric acid on your exposed nail beds. It’s a gas!
So while I would have preferred to lay on the floor in the fetal position covering my eyes with a pillow and softly moaning to myself, I had to get up to go to my long-awaited dermatologist appointment. Oh I wish I could have skipped it, but then they probably would have charged me an insane amount of money or something.
Looking back, the $40 missed appointment fee would have been well worth it, because this was the worst dermatologist appointment EVER. I’m kicking myself for making an appointment at a place that has the word “Westlake” in its name… (and you all know how I feel about THAT place). I’m not going to tell you which clinic it is (for fear they would attack me with botox-filled syringes in the middle of the night), but if you look up dermatologists in Westlake, you would probably figure it out.
Ok so first of all, I’m sitting in the waiting area, head pounding and fighting nausea. The bulimic college girls running the front office are listening to Greenday or AFI or something annoyingly poppy like that, mapping out their evening of (and I quote):
“…getting ready at Cynthias house because she has better lighting in her bathroom, having cosmos by the pool before they leave, eating salads at Sabas [because I’m feeling kind of bloated lately], and dancing all night with the rest of the crew…”
It was awful to listen to. I kept having visions of leaping over the counter and choking them with their oversized hoop earrings.
After 20 minutes of holding my head in my hands while rocking back and forth, I finally get taken back to an exam room where I only wait another 15 minutes. The only magazines they have are “You Can Change Your Appearance” and “Beautiful Austin Socialite” (not the real titles, but you get the point), which were making me ill as I flipped through them. Did you know you can finance a new nose?
Just as I was starting to wonder if my chin was too large or small…
…the doctor comes in- a young platinum with collagen lips. Doctor?
We very quickly go over what I came in for (no, it isn’t some weird skin fungus or anything) and she decides to take the liberty to diagnose my ‘acne’. (side note: I wouldn’t say I have acne. I have “combination skin”, due in part to being in my 20’s and due in part to excessive drinking) After she rattles off different prescriptions I should be using, I tell Dr. Barbie that my skin is too sensitive for most topical medicines, and that I only use organic products.
She looks me dead in the eye and says, “Your skin is so bad. I haven’t seen acne this bad in a while here.”
Gulp.
She continues, “You’re too young to have such ferocious acne.” Yes, she used the word ferocious to describe my face. God.
I’m floored, and she continues preaching this gel stuff I should be using. “If it doesn’t work, we need to get you on Accutane as soon as possible before the damage is too far done. I know the media makes all the hype about Accutane and how it causes suicides and birth defects, but its amazing, worth it, and I promise you’ll love it.”
I did some research when I got home and turns out this drug is really serious. Not-recommended-by-the-FDA serious. Look it up.
So anyways. She writes me a book of prescriptions to remedy my ferociousness.
I’m holding a stack of scripts she forced into my hand, wondering how I got here…and how the hell I could get out. I like to think I’m a strong person, but I felt like melting right there on the Saltillo tiles… as if it wasn’t bad enough that I felt like crap, someone with a PhD just told me I look like crap.
Rant: For being a doctor, this woman sure is an idiot, peddling her medicines and gels and creams and lotions. I know my skin isn’t GREAT, but I never would have thought it was FEROCIOUS. I mean, Ive SEEN ferocious…
As I was giving the front-office-girl my co pay (and trying to convince her to eat a cracker or something), I realized that all the other patients in the office were older sun-damaged women with poofy hair, big jewelry and fake body parts. It was then that it hit me – again, I’m a simple girl with simple pimples. Dr. Barbie was probably just used to accommodating women whose world would shatter at the sight of one tiny blemish.
So I can’t really blame her. But I will never go back to , because, after all…its in Westlake. And Westlakers don’t play well with ferocious face people.
I suffer from migraines as well.. I would suggest taking over the counter Excedrin Migraine it really works for me. You have to catch it when you get your first warning of it though.
I applaud the doctor for telling you to go on Accutane before it’s too late. I have scars on my face that will never go away, thanks to wasting time with antibiotics and creams that didn’t work, prior to switching derms and getting Accutane. For people with serious acne, Accutane is a lifesaver.
It’s a shame the doctor didn’t have a gentler bedside manner, but why the thin skin and massive chip on your shoulder? Is it that you are too insecure to hold your own in Westlake, so you make snap judgements about other people’s lives to make yourself feel better?
The ‘chip on my shoulder’ is due to the fact that I DONT have bad acne. Not even close. Sure, Accutane works wonders (I’ve known plenty of people who got past the side effects and praise the drug), but Im not into medicating a problem that doesnt exist.
And Im certainly not into a superficial doctor trying to prescribe medicines for a problem that I dont have. It’s like giving someone prozac because they had a bad day.
Furthermore (and forgive me if I sound catty), ‘holding your own’ in Westlake has nothing to do with securites or lack of. One should hold thier own no matter where they are- and to me, that means calling bullshit when I see it.
Why were you at the doctor then?
Anyway, “bulimic college girls” certainly sounds like a snap judgment to me, unless you were the one there holding their hair back.
I’m sure you wouldn’t want to be reduced to a bunch of stereotypes, yet that’s what you do–big hair, big jewelery, tan skin–somehow these people are also accomplices to your supposedly “bullshit” experience?
…you obviously live in Westlake.
Please please please people! Have some fun! This is journalism (not even- this is blogging!), not a Presidential speech.
These aren’t stereotypes, these are humorous descriptors.
That was a great blog Amy! I usually only get to read petty little stories. People having a bad day cause someone messaged them something mean on myspace. Your friend Herri sounds personally insulted and possibly envolved in your story.
Ehh, like you said, it’s in westlake where the rich peeps are, and ontop of that, the main clintel consist of people with fake body parts who really would think it’s the end of the world if they saw one pimple on their face.
So uh, if one pimple equals the end of the world, then I guess two or more is just ferocious?
This all sounds familiar. In a post two months ago you railed against the people of Westlake. But you continue to subject yourself to them. If you despise the people in Westlake so much, why do you live there? And knowing what you know and how you feel about Westlake, why would you go to a dermatology clinic there?
Seriously, what did you expect to find at a Westlake dermotology clinic? Day laborers with psoriasis?
I like how you effectively cast the staff and the patients in the doctor’s office as a microcosm of Westlake. You’re like Margaret Mead with emotional baggage. And you’re too young to have such ferocious insecurity.
*Sigh*
1.) Technically, I live in Oak Hill. But Westlake is a stones throw from me. And I’m stuck in my lease. Bah.
2.)This has nothing to do with insecurites. If you knew me personally, you’d know thats a non-issue.
3.) Cant you take a joke? DO you honestly think I have some personal THING against Westlake and its residents? Because I dont. Peace, man…peace. It’s just a fun target.
4.) I sincerely apologize if I offended any body- in or out of Westlake. My experiences are, yes, created by my choices. Nothing is forced on me…and with that comes my freedom to write whatever I want about them.
5.) You all (Y’all) are funny. Lighten up…since when did exaggeration, insane adjectives and fictual-fact (think Hunter S Thompson…)become such an issue?
Westlake or not, that doctor sounds medically irresponsible and product-pushing. If you don’t want to use Accutane because of the side effects, she should respect that. It’s your decision. I know it’s far away, but we see Dr. Jeng at Spicewood Dermatology for our skin stuff (my son has “ferocious” eczema) and she respects that I draw the line at treatments with an elevated risk of lymphoma. Some dermatologists have a strictly cosmetic orientation instead of a proper medical concern with the health of the skin, your body’s largest organ.