"Did you ever...?" (The Doctor's Office)

By: Melech Mood: don't know Date: 09/06/2008 05:03:21 Music: None

"Did you ever...?"

by Melech





Did you ever have the satisfaction of knowing that all the spring cleaning and
fix-up jobs you wanted to do were finished? Two years ago I made a list of all
the jobs and projects that had to be done. I didn't start any of them right
away because after reading the list, I needed those two years to recuperate. My
sister still doesn't believe that after reading the list of things to do, I
went into a coma.

Last week I finally finished everything. My house looked great inside and out.
At last I could take down the sign I put on my front door that read:
"Disaster Area; Enter at your own risk."



Along with the satisfaction of finishing all the projects on the list, came the
knowledge that I am no longer young enough to do all that work myself. I do not
have a bone or a muscle I know of that isn't hurting and threatening to go on
strike. I decided to make an appointment with the doctor for a physical
examination. I should have just taken a nap instead.



The receptionist at the doctor's office was a very pleasant young woman and
didn't mind filling out the paperwork for me. I was just too tired to hold the
pen. When she asked me why I had come to see the doctor, I told her that I just
felt exhausted and didn't seem to have any energy.



A young medical assistant brought me to an examining room, told me the doctor
would be with me shortly, left and closed the door. It was unbelievably cold in
that room and I don't care what anyone says, I still insist that I could see my
breath and that there were icicles forming on the sides of the metal examining
table. I was looking for a blanket to wrap myself in when the same medical
assistant reentered the room with my chart. I asked her if this was really an
examining room, or if she had mistakenly brought me to the morgue. She looked
around the room and said: "I'm not sure, I'm new here. I'll check with the
nurse."



When the doctor finally came in, my teeth were chattering and my hands looked
blue. I couldn't feel my feet, but they probably had also turned blue just so
they could match my hands. Just as I was wondering if my toes had fallen off
and were lying loose in my socks, the doctor put the stethoscope on my chest.
He had it there for a very long time. Finally I told him that if he couldn't
detect a heartbeat, not to worry about it because I felt sure that my heart had
probably joined in the strike with my bones and muscles. When he couldn't get a
blood pressure reading, I suggested that perhaps my arteries had shut down and
would reopen when the warmer weather came. He looked at me and said: "If I
didn't know better, I would think you were dead." "What gave me
away?" I asked. "Well," he replied, "you're talking."
He tried to draw blood, but my arteries wouldn't cooperate. He asked me if I
had been to a cold climate recently and I said, "Yes. This room."



A half hour later, he was finished with the examination and told me that there
was nothing really wrong with me. He said that maybe I didn't get enough
exercise and he recommended that I get involved with clean-up and fix-up
projects around the house. I wrapped his stethoscope around his neck, tied it
in a knot, and left his office.



As I was walking to my car, I suddenly noticed that the warm spring air was
working it's magic. I felt my heart start up again and I was beginning to get
feeling back in my hands and feet. I hurried home and called my sister on the
phone, and shouted happily: "Guess what? I'm not dead!" She told me
not to call her again unless it was an extreme emergency, and then she hung up
on me.

Several days later I received the doctor's bill in the mail along with a
document from the County Coroner who said that I wasn't dead enough to require
his services. Another half hour in that examining room would have changed that.

”Did
you ever…?” is a weekly newspaper column by Melech

©Copyright 2008 by
Melech. All rights reserved

The
next column will be posted on September 13, 2008

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