This choice: William’s new doctor upsells him on BetterEssence • Go Back...Chapter #6William’s doctor upsells him on BetterEssence by: Jenny Amara   William didn’t know what he was in for when he signed up for the full package of benefits. He started getting contacted within hours of his paperwork being submitted. MTRNTY was really on top of things from an HR perspective. William had selected the private health program option, but he didn’t realize that MTRNTY was also the operator of that plan. William figured that must be how they kept the costs to employees so low. Having been part of so many IT firms before, William had seen how bureaucracy could cause a good idea to become a nightmare of rising bills and delayed results. William assumed that the health legislation across the government must put a lot of similar constraints on healthcare providers, but MTRNTY seemed to have it down to a science. By the end of the day, William had an appointment with a new doctor that was closer to his home than his old doctor, and in a much nicer building too.
Sitting in the waiting room of his new doctor, William was practicing his knitting skills. He had spent the last two nights practicing, watching videos, and, unfortunately, struggling. As he was sitting in the waiting room, a woman sat next to him with a bright smile. “It looks like you’re having some trouble with your loops. Can I offer some advice?”
“Oh! Yes please! I need to learn to knit for my work. I’m having a terrible time getting started though.”
“The first row is always the hardest. I learned this little trick that can help keep things tight and neat. May I?”
William readily handed the needles and yarn to the woman who held her hands in a totally unique fashion. “You see, if you get your needles into this alignment first, that allows you to work with your hands more freely to knit the first row. I always need the extra dexterity for that first stitch and row.”
“That’s amazing. No one has ever suggested that to me, but I can see the loops so much more clearly like this. Thank you so much!”
“You’re very welcome. It’s not too often you see a young man knitting in public, I figured I’d lend a hand where I could.”
“Well, it’s very appreciated. I want to do well at my new job and this was an unexpected requirement for continuing to work there.”
“Oh! Of course, I understand now. I should have remembered where I was. You work for MTRNTY too! Which store are you at?”
“I work at store 427, over at the new outdoor shopping center.”
“Oooh, the new flagship. Very exciting! I work at store 321. Their original launch store. They thought they were clever with the store number, it’s a countdown to launch, get it?” The woman chuckled at the silly pun built into the store number.
“Yeah, that’s pretty clever. I’m guessing from your tone, you like working for MTRNTY?”
“Oh; I love it. This will be my third child since starting with MTRNTY,” the woman said rubbing her belly which didn’t have any curve to it, but the woman was motioning like it did.
“Oh! Congratulations, that’s so great! It sounds like you are pretty excited.”
“Yeah, I never thought I’d have kids. It didn’t seem in the cards for me. I guess being around all those pregnant women changed my mind,” the woman chuckled as though she found her comment funny, but she just continued looking down at her belly like she was almost in disbelief.
“Oh, that’s funny, but surely you were at least somewhat amenable to having kids before you started at MTRNTY? It’s kind of a big life decision.”
“Nope! I was actually vehemently against the idea. I used to joke about women who became breeders and everything. I couldn’t have been more wrong though. It’s been so fulfilling to grow a life. I couldn’t imagine my life without pregnancy.”
“It must be a busy household with two little ones…,” William started to comment but the nurse called out his name for his appointment as he was finishing his sentence. The woman smiled at William as he stood up and excused himself. “Thank you again for your advice, I’m wishing you and your husband happiness as you welcome your newest family member,” he said as he started to walk away. “Oh, there’s no husband, it’s just me, but thank you sweetie!”
William walked back to the room with the nurse and pondered the woman’s words. That’s pretty brave to have three kids on her own. Or was she saying she’s a lesbian? Anyways, it’s especially bold since she didn’t even think she wanted kids in the first place. It even sounded like she was previously hostile towards the idea. Must be a sympathy thing that women experience, maybe pregnancy hormones are contagious, William thought with a little chuckle at his silly assertion.
“Hello William, I’m Dr. Baker. I’ll be helping you out today, what brings you in?”
“Well, as I guess you know already, I work for MTRNTY and I just got signed up for my benefits. I saw that you offer YourEssence at a tremendous discount, so I wanted to get started with that so I can be sure to not get sick and miss any work.”
“You’re absolutely right, we do offer YourEssence. It’s very admirable of you to want to take YourEssence so you don’t miss any work. Are there any other reasons you want to take YourEssence? A history of cancers or disease in your family to combat?”
“Fortunately, no. My recent family history has all been healthy and my great grandparents are still alive along with everyone else too. I’m pretty fortunate on that front.”
“That is fortunate indeed. Let’s get you a quick checkup and take some vitals and then I’ll walk you through your options. Sound good?”
The doctor proceeded to check your blood pressure, heart, lungs, weight and waist measurement after you gave your affirmation to proceed. The doctor typed notes furiously into his laptop, one of the only professions that still used an on-premises computer. Another one of the healthcare governmental policies that they couldn’t use 100% virtual cloud devices as had become the norm in other areas of IT.
“It’s nice to see a real laptop. I haven’t worked with them for so long. Since I was a teenager honestly. I loved taking them apart to see how they work.”
“Ahh an engineering mindset! I love to hear about my patients histories and interests early on. What did you do before you worked at MTRNTY?”
“I was in IT. Pretty different from my new retail position. I’m just glad to be working at all. I was out of work for so long… I guess you can tell I wasn’t exactly taking great care of myself,” William lowered his head in shame as he finished his sentence.
“Well, I actually might be able to help with that. You mentioned you wanted to avoid getting sick, but would you also like to improve yourself at the same time?”
“What do you mean by improve?”
“Drop those extra pounds around the waist, make it easier to build muscle, increase your dexterity, improve cognition, there’s lots of things we can do with BetterEssence.”
“BetterEssence? Is that new?”
“Yes! UniGlobal just got approval for it from the government. We had them down last week to train our staff on its use. If you’re interested I can walk you through the process?”
William looked down at his flabby waist and stomach and decided it wouldn’t hurt to hear about the process. If it could help him lose those extra pounds then why not listen to the doctor.
Dr. Baker proceeded to walk William through a selection of improvements that Essence could offer to patients. There were some smaller improvements like improving facial symmetry, making someone less susceptible to carrying weight around their love handles and waist, and even making cilantro not taste like soap. There were the aforementioned metabolic and cognitive improvements, but there were also a host of more extreme changes. Including one that appeared to be for the gender and sex incongruent to change their physical sexual characteristics. The option was greyed out for this one however. William didn’t bother to ask why, but he took note of its existence even though he didn’t need it.
“Gosh, there are a lot of options, but generally I’m pretty happy with my body. I’d like to take advantage of the improved metabolism one for sure, I mean who wouldn’t want that, right? Otherwise maybe the improved dexterity could be beneficial given my new work responsibilities. I’m a pretty easy going person overall, I’m not looking to shake things up with anything extreme,” William said eyeballing the last page of improvements that Dr. Baker had shown him.
“Easy enough William, we can get this batch of Essence mixed up while you wait. It should only be about twenty minutes. You should take your pill every day at the same time, I recommend right before bed or right after waking up, whichever you find you are more consistent with. Annabeth will be in shortly with your discharge paper work and with your prescription for BetterEssence. Do you have any other questions for me today?”
“No, I think that’s everything Dr. Baker. Thank you”   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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