A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones (Proverbs 17:22)

I had my first visit to the hospital today. No worries, it wasn't because of a bus bombing or car accident. At the end of last week, I started breaking out on my face, chest and arm, but I thought it was because of joining a new gym. I got a small rash after joining the Y's in Virginia and Florida; apparently sweat has regional bacterial properties. So yea, I was smearing athlete's foot stuff on my face (I won't even tell the story of my exchange with a pharmicist over such an idea, which was obviously absurd to her; of course, keeping athlete's foot medicine behind the counter is absurd to me, too) over the weekend. The rash wasn't getting better, and by this morning, I woke up with one eye nearly swollen shut. It looked like I had been licked, literally, by Israel.

Of all the shows Israel has imported ("The Biggest Loser" and "Are You Smarter than a Fifth-Grader" in Hebrew!), medical dramas are not among them. This is because doctors here are treated like crap. In the mornings, they work in hospitals, which pay minimum amounts as proscribed by the state, so in the afternoons and evenings, they work in shared offices, trying to making as much buck as possible with drive-by diagnoses. This might sound bad, but it works to the advantage of the consumer, mainly me. I called at 8 in the morning to set up an appointment; the nurse called back at 8:30 to say I had a slot at 3. I left work early, arriving at the office with 20 minutes to spare in case I had to fill out paperwork. After only writing my address on the top of two forms, the doctor had arrived, 15 minutes early. He immediately saw me, and I was out the door with my prescription before the original appointment time.

You must be thinking that this increased effeciency can only mean lessened quality. You would be wrong. We discussed my health history for five minutes, since this was the first time I had met the doctor. But he quickly said that we wouldn't go into details about my possible genetic predisposition to cancers of many kinds, because it wasn't relevant at this moment. I had a rash, not a tumor, after all. He asked me a few Colombo questions and deduced within minutes that I was probably allergic to my pillow. I thought of this myself, but the fact that he didn't feel the need to talk over my head with other -- unlikely -- possibilities was refreshing. And then, this kind soul, officially diagnosed me with a skin rash, not an allergy, to make sure my insurance would pay for it. Socialized medicine works, my friends.

And here's another tip that made me feel good, whether it's true or not. The sun spots on my face, which I always attributed lack of SPF PSA's when I was a kid, are more likely the result of a cortisone build-up. (In fact, he joked that he hoped I wasn't coming in to get rid of them, because man, I was screwed; doctors are funny, too.) Like athlete's foot cream, cortisone can only be prescribed here, because it is a steroid that often causes long-term skin yuckiness not worth the short-term anti-itchiness. So I guess I can't blame my parents for my premature aging after all, considering I'm the one who would slather gobs of the stuff on whenever I got poison ivy or mosquito bites. But skin cancer on the other hand ... Oh wait, I just moved to the desert of my own volition. Rats.