Not exactly the stuff of heroic fantasy…
No character in a fantasy novel ever has to go to the dentist, or have his appendix out, or stand around waiting in line for something. I think that’s why some people love fantasy–and also why some people hate it.
It boils down to how realistic you want to make your fantasy world–always keeping in mind that one of the chief purposes of fantasy is escape. But its other chief purpose is to enable the reader to view reality from a whole new angle. So it’s a juggling act.
I’ve added a physician named Tam to my cast of characters: she learned the healing science from her father. So in my fantasy world you can get sick, or injured in an accident.
But I refuse to write about weight-loss plans and protest marches.
You mention in the earlier post that in the Shire (as in other fantasy worlds) Tolkien “had no hospitals, no dentists, and no taxes.” I’ve often noticed that in most novels, fantasy or otherwise, there seem to be no bathrooms, either, unless a character needs an emergency escape from bad guys, in which case there’s always a convenient rest room with a window available. (Myself, I’ve rarely seen a public restroom with a window — or for that matter, a private bathroom with one, except in older homes.) But then, characters in most of these books don’t seem to have (shall we say?) working bladders or intestines.
We read a mystery novel once featuring a detective who had to pee every couple of pages. It didn’t add much to the story.
I understand writers not wanting to mention bathroom activities (though some of their humor belongs there). When I eat dinner at night to the local news I don’t want to see commercials about diarrhea or constipation.