My doctors office sent me a birthday letter (nearly a month early) with my "health report card" telling me my BMI. This is what I need for my birthday? (Or, for three weeks before my birthday?)

bonny, holy crap! I'm torn between utter furious horror at the completely irresponsible owners and you having to negotiate with them by text and deal with 360 lbs. of dog in person, and awe at your professionalism in not exploding and sticking with it and working out a resolution to it all. That is so beyond my abilities I just can't even.

{{{askye}}} Dental issues suck, and the lack of communication sucks, and ITA with everyone else that you are not lazy or bad or anything else. You put off dealing with the dental fears when you had too much else to wrestle with and you *couldn't* do everything, and when you had the resources you dealt with it... and then ran into the pain and the lack of communication and the cost, all of which are things beyond your control that happen to everyone regardless of timing.

I've got a co-worker right now who is the Queen of Keeping On Top Of Shit and also the Hygiene Queen, and she's going through *exactly* the same tooth woes right now, except she doesn't have a Will to distract her with thrifting and watch Princess Bride with her.

(That's going to be so lovely -- the only thing better than watching TPB is sharing someone else's first viewing; I have a feeling he's going to keel over the moment wee Fred Savage squints and asks dubiously, "Is this a kissing book?")

eta: Man, Hil. Is your doctor's office staffed exclusively by assweasels?

askye, I had the same kinds of feelings that you did when I had to have teeth pulled. (Hell, the fact that it's plural STILL makes me cringe.) A lot of it is how I was raised: only hillbillies lost their teeth because they were too poor/stupid/lazy to take care of them. And that is just not true.

Like sarameg, I did manage to ignore the dentist for probably a decade, mostly because I consistently forgot all about it, since there was nothing wrong that would make my brain click over and go "OH GOD TIME FOR THE DENTIST." Since nothing was wrong, it was just never in the forefront of my mind -- AND this was even after my job started offering dental insurance. So yeah, when that first tooth cracked and I had to have it pulled, I was so hard on myself, lamenting that if only I had not been so stupid and gone to the dentist, I'd still have the tooth. (The dentist said absolutely not, that tooth was split vertically because the roots grew in a downward V, basically pulling the damn tooth apart. I could have been the most hypervigilant dental patient and I still would have lost the tooth.)

So, again, I totally get it. I hate the pervasiveness of the idea that anything less than perfect Ubermench health is a moral failing on our part, but I know that's where some of my hangups come from. Human bodies are flawed as hell, and teeth are stupid for no good reason.

And, like sarameg said, the dentist has seen far worse than you. They offer general anesthesia for a reason -- some patients need it. If the dentist thinks you're just being difficult, it's because they're an asshole, not because you're being difficult.

I hope it goes well today.

eta: Man, Hil. Is your doctor's office staffed exclusively by assweasels?

I sort of suspect that Hil's doctor might be like so many others, who have become part of medical groups that are constrained by pressures to get as many patients as possible to have measurements/test results that fit in one spot on a graph. While it's true that good test results often indicate good health, the BMI example is the perfect example that that metric is bullshit, since lots of people with a BMI above "normal" are healthy by all other indicators (not to mention actual clinical proof that people with BMIs in the "overweight" range live longer).

But my understanding of corporate medicine is that doctors are incentivized based on patients' test results. That's not good medicine.

It is a medical group, and the letter was clearly automated. But, seriously, "Happy birthday! Here's your BMI!"? (It also let me know that I'm due for a pap smear next year, and that I'll need a TDaP booster in 2022.

Oh, shit, I probably need a booster. I'm reasonably sure I haven't gotten boosters since I started college 25 years (egad!) ago.

askye, I hope all goes well today.

bonny, I'm glad the dogs were removed from that house.

Hil, there are tone deaf people everywhere. Even in fields where there shouldn't be.

I think I'm finally ready to read Rob's autopsy report. I didn't request a copy when it was first available because I just couldn't deal at the time, but I want to know what it says. I have to send a request to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore to get it. There's still a small niggling doubt in the back of my head that I somehow contributed to his death and his parents are right. I need to see with my own two eyes that it was just his heart.

That's very brave, Maria.

Maria, let us know if we can support you in any way.

And also, SERIOUSLY, his parents SAID that? I want to be understanding and say, okay, they lost their son and were grief-stricken, but -- what shitbags.

(I know you have to know this intellectually, but -- you *didn't* contribute. There's no way you could have, short of malicious action, like poison or something. Unless you forgot to tell us you're also pure evil. But I feel confident that that's not the case.)

Jesus, his parents. What the hell.

Eh, Connie. It's taken me 2 years and 8 months to work up the courage.

Steph, yep. And they said it multiple times. The FIRST time was a few months after his death, so no immediate shock and grief-outburst excuse to fall back on. They're mean and cruel people, who demonize anyone who doesn't fall into their carefully constructed box of the proper behaviour and attitude. I saw glimpses of it in how they talked about and treated Rob's paternal grandmother, but to be fair, his grandmother is a Class-A bitch. She abandoned all 5 of her children in an orphanage in Asheville NC to run off to MI and marry an executive with Otis Elevators. Children from a previous marriage were not conducive to catching and keeping a man of a certain standard. It was all very "Flowers in the Attic" without the incest.

I just never thought I'd be the recipient. Thirteen years with Rob, and I thought I had it made in the in-laws category. We got along, they loved my family and we spent holidays together... and BAM. I hope they rot in their own hatred.