“It is much more important to know what sort of a patient has a disease than what sort of a disease a patient has.” - Sir William Osler






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Conversations With My Trainer

Yes, I have a trainer. Call me effete if you will, but my experience has been that working with a trainer is a great experience if you�re trying to get in shape, even if it�s only for a few sessions (and I say this as somebody who fought the idea for years). I know many mornings I�d never make it to the gym if it weren�t for my appointments, and I have started going to the gym more often � even on days I�m not working with him.

Part of the fun of working out with my trainer � I�ll call him Dan � is the conversations we�ve had. Dan is an affable guy and always has plenty to talk about. He�s had a varied career; he started out in the Marines, worked as a drug rep (yes, a drug rep!) for several years, and then finally decided to get his certification and work as a personal trainer. I have been entertained with several soliloquies about what it�s like to go through basic training in the Marines as I sweat through my weight sets or run up and down the stairs. Makes me feel like a wuss every time I complain how tough my workout is (maybe that�s the idea).

Lately we�ve been talking a lot about pets. Dan is a pet owner, with two cats and a dog (a Rhodesian Ridgeback named Grace). I�m considering getting a pet, although I haven�t done anything about it yet. We started on this topic shortly after St. Patrick�s Day, when I told him a story I�d heard at a St. Pat�s party about a particularly nasty dog. This dog belongs to a couple I�d met at the party and is apparently half schipperke and half Chihuahua. It yips a lot, has the temperament of a buzz saw and has bitten its owners at least twice; still they keep the damn thing.

Dan�s response to this story was: �I don�t know what a schipperke is, but it sounds like some bourgeois piece of shit. And have you seen Chihuahuas? They never sit still! They vibrate!� Did I mention that Dan has strong opinions about dogs? His advice to me on the dog issue illustrates this. �If you�re gonna get a dog, get a real dog. Not some little rat dog.�

�Are dachshunds real dogs?� I asked pleadingly. I love dachshunds.

�NO!�

We're still negotiating that one. He's also told me some facts I didn't know about English bulldogs: to wit, that one reason bulldogs are so expensive is that they have been bred to have such large heads that the mothers have to be birthed by Cesarean section, and that because the pups have trouble breathing the breeder has to keep them for three months instead of the more usual six weeks. It's not unusual, apparently, for the pups to die of respiratory failure.

"When you breed a dog to the point that it can't breathe," I replied to this, "something is seriously wrong with that system." Dan agreed. During that same session I said, "If I were to get a 'real dog,' I think it'd be a golden Lab. They're very sweet dogs and I could probably handle having one of those."

Dan shook his head resignedly. "I knew it."

"What?" Good grief, what do I have to get, a pit bull or something?

Dan launched into his philosophical mode (which I thoroughly enjoy). "When you see a man walking a Lab, you imediately know something about him. He's married."

"He probably has kids too," I contribute.

"Yeah. Wife and kids. See, Labs are the only dog a lot of women will put up with, especially if they have kids, 'cause it's the only breed they feel safe with. Yep, when I see a man walking a Lab, I know that man's wife is wearing the pants in that family."

I laughed so hard I almost dropped my weights.

posted by Dr. Alice at #