Thank You Sigmund Freud

Those of you devoted fans that follow both my blog and my facebook account (should also know I am on twitter and might want to start following me on that as well) will have figured out from my recent whiny facebook updates that I am ONCE again battling a cold. Actually, I am battling the mother of all colds; the kind of knock you off your feet, make you ache all over, almost stop breathing in your sleep, look and feel like death warmed over, whine like a man cold. Anyways, because I work in health care with the more elderly members of society when I get ill I venture to a walk in clinic for one of two things either a doctors note to excuse me from work or one to say I am "safe" to return too work (which now thanks to the newer "for profit modeled after our American counterparts health care system" costs me around twenty dollars...just stellar). Conveniently enough there is one such walk in clinic literally within walking distance from where I currently reside (oh the irony). However, since I "invest" in a monthly TTC pass I make that sucker work for me and take the bus...well that and the fact who wants to walk when they feel like crap especially when Canada's winter weather has been so bi-polar lately (or as I often refer to it as God PMSing...actually to be honest that is what I call thunderstorms and terrental downpours).

Anyways, this Friday I went to this walk in clinic and waited huddled up in a corner of the waiitng room with my scarf covering my face as to avoid picking up anyother germs from the abundance of hacking troopers also waiting on the doctor. I was called in quite quickly and therefore cannot complain about the wait as I have been to some walk in clinics where you wait out the duration of your illness on a doctor. The kindly doctor examines me informs me I have an upper respitory infection but since my right gland is swollen and very sensitive to touch she is going to do a swab for strep throat (after a few unsuccesful attempts due to my horrid gag reflexes the swab is obtained). Due to the progresses of modern medicine they can now test for strep throat without sending your swab to a lab; playing mad scientist the doctor went about mixing some illexur up placed in the swab in it and informed we the wait would be about eight to ten minutes. Fine by me; I was just planning on going home and too bed but I can spend an additional eight to ten sitting looking like a zombie in an examining room. So what exactly does one discuss with a doctor as you wait on your test results? as she was giving me my exam we already discussed the basics (weather...). Looking up from a makeshift chart they had for me she asks completely out of the blue..."are you sexually active?"...now I could understand this question if I had come to the clinic with other complaints but since the diagnosis had already been given and antibotics were going to be given this question threw me for a loop. Than I got to thinking the last time I had been a guest at this fine establishment the doctor had also asked me an eerily samiliar question AND after diagnosing me. Although the last doctor had been more commicial in his line of questioning and I highly doubt with the intention of being. The conversation with him had gone something like this: "Is there a possability you could be pregnant?" No "well how do you know?" (seriously; did you sleep in on the day they covered female reproductive health in medicial school?).
I feel as though sex should be discussed in the confines of a doctors examining room after all it is your body and you should feel empowered enough especially in the 21st century to have an open dialogue with your physician regarding sexual health. However, at a walk in clinic post diagnosis with no mediciation to be prescribed bluntly asked questions regarding sexual health to me just are not appropriate.