LOW GRADE

Patient: Doctor, it hurts when I do this.
Doctor: (in his best Grouch Marx voice) So, don't do that!

Two hours after phoning my surgeon’s office his nurse called back. She wanted to know why I was taking my temperature. I said because I feel like crap and my wound is red. I tried to go over the four W’s, but she wouldn’t hear of it. “What’s your temperature now, right now,” she commanded. I stuck the thermometer in my mouth, but held the receiver up so she would hear it beep. “You’re taking it orally?” “Mmmhmmph,” I attested. When the beep came, my temp was only 99F. I felt humiliated and alarmist. She asked me how much water I’ve been drinking, and said it seemed sufficient. Then she told me to stop taking my temperature. That it wasn’t so important to monitor it, but to take it only if I felt “feverish.” That with my ovaries out (which I corrected her that they aren’t) that I was going to feel different and that a slight temperature elevation in the morning was normal. She said to keep an eye on the wound and if the redness spreads or my temp goes above 100 again (both sceanarios unlikely, since I can hardly see the incision and she told me not to take my temperature) to call her again tomorrow. I said I would and thanked her for her time, growled for my husband to make me some lunch, ate half of it, drank some water, opened the mail, read a book with my daughter, home with an injury to her foot, took a nap, took a shower and wrote. And no, I didn’t take my temperature.