Medical stuff is serious business. If the doctor screws up, patients could end up in a coma, disfigured, dead, or lips the size of a bicycle inter tube. I’ve seen it where some people go to a doctor and come out with duck bills instead of lips. I guess beauty at any cost.
Some of you might think I’m out of my depth commenting on medical issues, but I say au contraire (that’s French for na ha). When I served in the Army, I was a medic/dental assistant. I first became a medic, and because I could spell my name correctly, those in power decided I was smart enough to be a dental assistant. As long as I was posted anywhere in the world besides Vietnam, I was a dental assistant. If I ended up in a war zone (aka South Vietnam), I would have reverted back to medic. I guess a bunch of soldiers with big, pearly white smiles wasn’t a good idea. It would make them easy targets. The only time I would have been looking at teeth while there was to identify bodies. It is gruesome, but that is one of the duties for which I was trained. Sorry for the nightmares. Thank God, I never had to do it, and it did give me nightmares.
Now that I have my qualifications out of the way, I can pontificate on all things medical. This means I can self-diagnose anytime I’m under the weather. This will free up my doctor to treat patients who are not nearly as smart as I am. If I discover that I’m really sick, I will call my doctor for a consultation to confirm my diagnosis, but I will be correct, and my doctor will be amazed…or not.
I once had a little bicycle accident in which the doctor had to put a garden hose in my chest to reinflate my lung. (Just a slight exaggeration. I’m pretty sure there was a brass fitting on one end.) I told the doctor that when he was done fixing me, he could address my bike’s front tire, which was also deflated in the accident.
While lying in my hospital bed, I was ready and willing to offer the doctors and nurses working on me advice on how to doctor (yes, I used it as a verb). Why not? I had all that training from the Army that I had never been able to use. While I was a medic, I learned how to treat a gaping chest wound, traumatic amputation, trench foot, how to make a tourniquet, and the use of sulfa. We sat in class all day watching grainy films of actual war injuries. Not all of the old war footage made it to History Channel documentaries. For those of us who didn’t dash out of the room looking for the nearest place to upchuck, we were given a lecture on how to address such gruesome injuries. Have you ever seen one of those doctor shows where the star has to treat an accident victim and doesn’t have any medical tools? When the victim can’t breathe, the doctor looks around and asks if anyone has a ballpoint pen. The purpose is to perform a tracheotomy on the dying patient. This means there is a blockage in the person’s windpipe, and the doctor puts a small slit in the victim’s throat, then slides the body of a Bic pen into the slit, allowing breathing and saving a life. I was taught how to do this in the Army. We were told to look for a tube-like object, similar to a straw, make the cut, and how to insert the life-saving device carefully. Could I do it today? Not without crippling or killing the poor patient. It’s been 50 years, people.
I feel sorry for our doctors today. There are so many patients diagnosing their own physical condition. So many of us (notice, I said, “us”) head to the INTERNET whenever we get an ache or pain and go to places like WebMD to figure out what is wrong with us. For some, it is a way to avoid facing the fact there is something seriously wrong with them and present the doctor with a less horrible option. Then there are those hypochondriacs who are convinced that they have a case of some very rare, life-threatening condition. We must be right because we have years of experience looking up things online, and we all know that the INTERNET doesn’t lie.
I know for a fact that doctors really don’t like patients telling them what they have. I guess spending years in medical school and all the time working crazy hours and not getting any sleep while honing their skills as interns might make them a bit touchy. I trust my doctors, even though they can be a little bossy. After a blood test, they told me I needed to cut down on all kinds of stuff. You know what, it’s all the stuff I like. Going to the doctor can be a buzz kill.
When I do go to a doctor to address pain, I ask them what is causing the pain and if it will kill me. I figure I can deal with a little pain if it is not fatal. I have been walking around in pain (like most guys my age) for years and dealing with it. Remember, not that long ago, the life expectancy of a human was something like 35 to 55 years old. This means our body was not designed to last as long as they do today. Compared to someone from the 1700s, a guy my age is a miracle. If I were alive at that time, I would be getting free meals at the local Denny’s because I am as old as I am. Did they have Denny’s back then?
I’m a former smoker, and so far, I have not had any issues as a result of that terrible addiction. It was an addiction. When someone lights up a cigarette, I’ll start following them like a bloodhound tracking an escaped convict from a chain gang. I haven’t smoked in decades, but the addiction is still there. I have decided that if I ever have that fateful meeting with my doctor, where he informs me that my condition is terminal and there is nothing they can do to save me, I’m heading to the nearest convenience store and buying me a pack of smokes. Why not. Die with a wheeze and a smile on my face. One problem, though, is that the price of cigarettes has skyrocketed since the last time I lit up a heater. The sticker shock might kill me.
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