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On ...
Doctors
Only once have I ever received treatment in a hospital which required a general anesthetic, a quick one hour knock out while an ENT surgeon had a good dig around in one earhole investigating a perforated eardrum.
The end result was that I was wheeled on a trolley semi-concious down miles of LGI public corridors with one of those ridiculous hospital gowns slung casually over my otherwise naked body (why naked for an ear op ?).
In my drugged up, semi-concious state I was quite impressed by the amount of attention I received from every young lady we passed in the corridor, only to realise back in the recovery room that my hairy arse had been exposed to all and sundry for the whole ten minute trip.
The GP
My last trip to my GP was a couple of years ago after a heavy cold had blocked up my permanently perforated eardrum.
As my regular GP had retired I was introduced to a fresh-faced young lad, ten years younger than me, obviously straight out of medical school, and nervous as a kitten - I think I may have been his first customer.
He introduced himself then explained that he had a policy of conducting a "proper examination" of all his new clients "just for the records". Blood was taken, blood pressure measured, ears and tongue examined, then he sat down with a questionaire ;
"How tall are you"
"5ft 11inches"
He looked puzzled "Do you know what that is in metres ?"
"No, sorry"
"Hmmm, how much do you weigh then ?"
"13 stone 6 pounds - ish" (it was a few years ago during my wasting-away period)
"Do you know what that is in kilos ?"
"Errr, no, sorry again"
His computer programme only accepted metric measurements and being as fresh faced as he was, he didn't understand imperial measurements, never having used them at school or university.
"We'll measure and weigh you then"
He looked quite pleased with his solution and in no time at all had measured me against the wall and weighed me on a set of scales, we sat back down,
"You are about 10 kilos above your ideal weight for your size I'm afraid" he said tut-tutting in an unconvincing way - its difficult to take advice from a 15 year old doctor who has the physical attributes of Charles Hawtry.
"Whats that in pounds ?" I asked
"Don't know" he said tapping away at his computer hoping to get a conversion, "Err no, it doesn't do imperial"
"Would it be about a stone ?" trying to be helpfull, "I used to be about 12 stone - would that be any good ?"
"How much is that in kilos?"
"I don't know"
"Well you need to lose ten kilos,"
"Yes but how much is ten kilos?"
"Well its ten kilos, you need to lose ten kilos"
"But I don't know what ten kilos is"
We looked at each other across the impasse of his desk, me thinking "I don't want to look like Charles Hawtry" and he probably thinking, "Fat awkward bastard, clear off will you".
We left it at that, both of us confused by the alien language that the other was speaking, we were only ten years apart but had been taught two completely different systems of measurement at school, somewhere in the middle of us was a group of kids who had gone through the education system learning both imperial and metric systems of weights and measure, we needed one of those kids in the surgery to translate, but god help those kids - they were probably totally baffled and brain dead from the whole experience, in fact since then I have noticed how many homeless down & outs are approximately five years younger than me - the confused generation.
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