For the better part of 2023 I’ve been occupied with what has officially been termed Paperwork Hell™. For every slab of paperwork I get approved, I am rewarded with another, proportionally more convoluted, slab of paperwork (which also needs to be approved).

The most recent slab of paperwork required a medical check. No big deal; blood pressure, heart rate, routine vision and hearing, mostly normal things you might expect. Until we get to the classic urinalysis- otherwise known as: “Go piss in a jar.” Not that I’m one to judge or be judged; most of the staff at the clinic have seen my entire ass but never my face what’s modesty in a medical facility am I right lads?!

So I go piss in the jar, knowing full well it’ll flag me for renal failure but not once considering that it would perhaps be appropriate to, you know, mention that in advance or anything.

Long story short: it turns out there are incorrect responses when you get flagged for renal failure and “I’m built different,” is one of them.

_{The GP finds me neither charming nor hilarious.}

In my defense: it was originally flagged in 2010 and I genuinely have no idea why it wasn’t already in my medical records. Also it’s not actually renal failure but a genetic abnormality that gets flagged as renal failure because some of us really are, as the kids* say, “built different.”
The main difference being that my kidneys are bleeding.

In his defense, regardless of whether or not it was already in my records, I still probably should have mentioned it at some point prior to pissing in the jar.

In the past I’d had blood tests and kidney function tests done, but that was over a decade ago and evidently no record of those tests remain.

Naturally the Doctor is hella suss because I’m being way too normal about this, trying to explain that it’s an inherited mutation that happens to be very common along my paternal lineage, but I can’t remember the name for it and definitely just sound insane (not an inaccurate observation, albeit for unrelated reasons).

He politely requests that I call my father for further clarification.

_{He still thinks I should see the urologist but it is no longer a medical emergency.}

“Thin Basement Membrane Nephropathy,” Says Dad, “Don’t tell your doctor, they always get super weird about it.” He continues, not knowing that he’s on speakerphone, or that a visibly annoyed Doctor who has very much already gotten, as you say: “weird about it,” stands over me, maintaining the most aggressively unimpressed eye-contact I’ve ever received in my life.

The important thing is he was willing to fill out the paperwork and ultimately described my health as adequate which is fine, but also highlights how deeply I miss my old GP.
That guy would’ve lied for me.
He would’ve said my health is excellent.

_{*Do the kids still say that? Did they ever?}