So, I had my first routine doctor's appointment in France today--ignoring, of course, the dozens of visits I had several years ago for my sprained ankle, my mono, and my wisdom teeth problems. For 25 euros (that's the cost of an office visit with NO INSURANCE here), I learned that my American doctors were total quacks. Many of you know of my battle with Depo Provera, the heinous birth control shot that my doctor put me on a couple of years ago, but today all of my paranoid ponderings were confirmed. When I told my French doctor what I had been on, her jaw-dropped. Apparently, the ONLY reason they prescribe this drug in France, which contains incredibly high doses of female hormones, is to cure psychopathically crazy people and male pedophiles (apparently it kills their sex drive completely.) So, it makes me question both the competence and the ethics of my doctors in New York City, who not only prescribed this to me, but told me to stick with it even when I complained of weight gain, severe anxiety, acne, and high blood pressure. When I went off of it, I thought, maybe it wasn't the drug, that I was just looking for a scapegoat to explain away my sudden turn for the worst. But no, my French doctor pretty much told me that these were all viable and common side effects of this drug. At least I didn't have the urge to molest children, I guess. Anyway, the moral of this story is, ladies, watch out! Don't trust anything they tell you. And for the French, stop bitching about your medical system. You don't know how lucky you are.