A rchive Date
[ 16-06-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Mass Media ]
|
[Naked truth revealed
Doc left the room for 10 seconds so I could take off tighty whities
By STEPHEN LAUTENS
Calgary Sun
June 16, 2000
I made a promise that I would start looking after myself when I turned 40.
Well, 40 has come and almost gone and I'm still living the same high red meat, low vegetable, even lower exercise, kind of lifestyle I always have.
Even so, I'm a fairly low consumer of medical services.
My mother credits my good health to no sleep and a diet of sour worms, candy rockets and gummi bears.
My real problem is I have so many friends who are doctors that it's hard to have a lot of faith in the medical profession.
Especially when you see a surgeon at a party drop their fork for the third time.
Also, the older you get, the more you realize doctors don't know as much as you'd like to believe. I remember showing one doctor a fairly impressive rash. His reaction? "Yikes! What is that?" He must have missed the afternoon lecture on loathsome skin diseases.
Some people mistake my wariness of doctors for fear or squeamishness. Not true. I will happily watch the Operation Channel on TV through the goriest surgery.
I can watch them saw open someone's head and rewire the noggin. It doesn't bother me in the slightest.
I watched a hip replacement operation where they used what looked like power tools from a hardware store.
And if you pay cash for the operation, you get 10% back in Canadian Tire money.
But I've often said that if other people's pain bothered me, I wouldn't have spent 10 years as a divorce lawyer.
My only sticking point - if you'll pardon the expression - is needles. I can watch a triple bypass on TV during dinner without flinching, but give that same guy a needle and I get all squirmy.
On those rare occasions when I go for a checkup, I always tell nurses the same thing when they are going to draw blood. I look them very seriously in the eye and say: "If the needle hurts, I'm going to scream like a teenaged girl at an 'N Synch concert."
If I can keep a straight face, the result is kid-glove treatment. Rather than the standard 'jabbing the orange' type of injection, they take an extra second to make sure my yelling doesn't clear out the waiting room.
With most of my blood in glass tubes on the counter, my doctor - a very nice woman - asked me to strip down for a quick examination.
To cover myself I was given a piece of wax paper too small for a lemon square.
I left my underwear on to see how serious she was about stripping down. Waiting for the doctor to return can sometimes feel like hours, especially when your clothes are in a pile by the door.
She came in to begin the examination, but saw me still sitting in my underwear. That's when she did something odd.
She left the room for 10 seconds just so I could take off my tighty whities.
Now here's a doctor about to subject me to a rather extensive and personal examination in the nude (me, not the doctor) but she feels she can't watch me take off my underwear. Seeing me fully clothed or absolutely naked is no problem, just nothing in between.
I guess the medical profession has to have a few mysteries left.
Stephen Lautens can be reached via e-mail at stephen@lautens.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]]
Cross-Indexed:
|
|