Norton - Lopsided

My sister has called me a liar at nearly every meal weve shared since I started talking in 1972. Back then Id pop the bottle out of my mouth, say something unbelievable, and pop the bottle back in. I am not a liar. However, I am a storyteller. (Although, a storyteller with a good lawyer changes names and identifying characteristics and details to protect herself and the privacy of her characters, as I have done.) This book is my attempt to communicate an experience as I perceived it. It is not an affidavit. Try to enjoy it for what it is worth.

B efore I moved to France my medical problems were few, minor, and real. They were things like allergies, conjunctivitis due to sharing eyeliner, and a broken pinkie from slamming the car hood on my hand. Normal problems. But once I landed in Paris and became a professional girlfriend, living in the crappy suburbs, I started developing issues. Thibault, then my boyfriend and now my husband, said it was because I spent too much time on the Internet. Of course my toes were sore; it was not due to a strange new syndrome Id developed, but because Id been clipping and cleaning the nails maniacally since reading that Croatian kids Web site devoted to ingrown toenails. And, he added, stop sending zose macabre pictures of his foongal infections to me at work, please. You know I check my personal e-mails during lunch.

In France, every couple of months I had a new problem that required a doctors office visit. Mostly these were small issues I overreacted to, like when my nose started whistling. But some things were scary, like when in the middle of a sentence I threw a glass of water in my own face and passed out cold. When I finally opened my eyes I couldnt decide who to acknowledge first, Thibaults mother, who sat on the bed looking glamorous in that effortless way only French women can, while she worked socks onto my feet, or the four foxy paramedics staring at me with folded arms. Thibault stood nearby looking terrified until I said, pointing to the hottest medic, Shouldnt one of you be dressing me?

Each trip to the doctors office or hospital involved some insult or embarrassment. The time I got a chest X-ray, the machine was set up opposite a door facing the emergency waiting room. First the tech insisted I take off my shirt and stand topless even though the whole point of an X-ray is that it can see through things. Then he refused to lock the door so all sorts of people kept opening it to look at me standing there half-naked.

Mostly the doctors eyed me suspiciously and found creative ways to discourage future visits, as if Id flown all the way to France simply to exploit their subsidized health care system. Their tactics didnt work; I kept subjecting myself to their cruelty until I finally got married, got a work permit, and found a job. Suddenly, without the empty days to contemplate my health, the peculiar array of psychosomatic symptoms disappeared.

I didnt see another doctor until a prepregnancy consultation for vitamin supplements. True to form, the doctor told me I was absurd, that Americans were obsessed with artificial nutrition, and that folic acid wasnt necessary until the pregnancy had been confirmed. The proclamation of his negative opinion of my fellow countrymen was expected. What I did not expect was his dismissal of the two journal reports I placed before him encouraging extra folic acid intake during the two weeks immediately following conception, namely the two weeks before pregnancy confirmation. Without bothering to pick them up he said, You are free to waste your money on whatever you want.

I hated French doctors. It wasnt just the snotty attitudes and their dingy waiting rooms; I hated their frankness, and their liberal use of Latin. Most of all, I hated that certain way they had of ensuring that potentially pleasant situations would turn out unpleasantly.

A few months later, when I scheduled the appointment to confirm my pregnancy I prepared myself for the worst: No, the baby is dead, see it there, that little spot, but no heartbeat. Tant pis . But I tried to maintain an optimism that this experience would be a positive one. Sitting in the cheap armchair trying not to hear anything the obstetrician said, I took inventory of the room, counting plaques and trying to identify the parts of a dismantled plastic torso model. My eyes stopped on the examining table. Why was it there like that, just sitting in his office? Why wasnt it in an exam room or behind a curtain or something? It was not being stored temporarily; there was a roll of crinkled paper pulled across it, and a waste bin with some inside-out rubber gloves, paper towels, and a used plastic speculum in full view. This looked nothing like an American gynecologists office where everything is discreetly non-graphic and oven mitts protect sensitive soles from cold steel stirrups, as if you might not be there to get a Pap smear, but a steaming hot casserole.

The doctor was clearly repeating his request. Please undress so we can get to the exam.

Huh? My eyes stayed fixed on the jumbo jar of lubricant jelly.

Please undress.

Where? I looked around for a door or closet. Maybe he was going to step out.

Please undress and lie down on the table.

O? I said it very slowly and sounded like a ghost, Ooooooooooooooo.