Memoirs of a Geezer!
Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth
to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!
This Episode: Disassembly and the Medical Profession!...
"Where are the Simple Joys of Geezerhood..." Remember that great tune from the play,
Camelot (...a bit of poetic license here!)? So? What's become of those simple joys? As we reach a venerable age, you know, like genuine Geezerhood, aren't we supposed to be inundated with "simple joys"? Lots of leisure time... Unremitting respect from the young... Stable health that
would enable us to bask in the warm sunshine of wise maturity, able to enjoy a simpler lifestyle in peace and comfort? Fah!! We're too often treated like swine to the slaughter!
Here's the problem! Modern medicine has apparently conspired to cure our ailments by removal, disassembly! Complain about a source of pain and a doctor might remove your spleen, a lung, a bowel or a pancreas or something... other vital members!! When my father was in his dotage, he started losing his members, meaning toes and other things! I don't wish to make light of our health care industry and the injuries and diseases upon which it must focus, nor to accuse it of disassembling bodily organs for the mere sake of practicing medical disassembly! However, the medical profession, like any other, requires occasional fun-poking!
Sadly, it's not all fun and riotous humor. For example, SweetHeart, my best friend and dearest companion was recently diagnosed with a 5 cm mass of carcinoma in her right kidney. Following a biopsy, a stent placed in the connecting ureter and lots of discomfort, all experienced on a Monday and throughout the following three days, she underwent a "procedure" -- meaning surgery, of course -- to remove the affected kidney the following Friday. (Today's medical professionals love to use euphemisms... e.g. "Some discomfort"... "a small incision is all that's required"... "Laparoscopic surgery, also called minimally invasive surgery (MIS)"... "Bandaid Surgery"(?!)... There was a bladder scan and a dye-injected full-organ CT scan that preceded the biopsy. For poor SweetHeart, it was all like undergoing a one-person battle against a horde of frenzied barbarians wearing fur-rimmed metal hats on stampeding and snorting horses squirting venomous mucus-covered darts with every gallop!!
We can be thankful in the extreme that some cancers are eminently treatable, even curable, in this modern era of medical science in which we are privileged to live! SweetHeart, after seeing her GP to determine that blood in the urine was not caused by a Urinary Tract Infection (UTI), was referred to a urologist, a terrific specialist with an excellent reputation in his field. I should mention that our much loved and outstanding GP has never steered us afoul in the referral department. (I was seen by a heart specialist, for example, who removed nothing from my anatomy! Oh... I did see a gastrointestinal MD who removed my appendix, but only because he was "in there" untwisting a nasty brute of a bowel... a prime example of expedient medical disassembly!)
But, who am I to judge or complain. My closest encounter with medical training was occupying a desk in a biology lecture for a, then, dental student friend of mine who had other important matters to which he wanted to attend. The professor frequently looked at me rather askance! I believe he knew me for the interloper I was! However, to my undying gratitude, I learned a few things about streptococci, knowledge forever stored in my personal medical lexicon!! (Sometimes we're truly blessed and don't realize it until much later in life. Oh, and my friend paid me a dollar!!)
I should also point out that, as a youth, my tonsils were disassembled. I played a good joke on the medical profession on that occasion! My mother was told not to give me anything to eat or drink several hours prior to the "procedure." Unbeknownst to mother, I drank a large glass of milk. Upon having the ether pumped into my small person, I bubbled over, necessitating an emptying and re-application procedure. What a good laugh on the medical guys, eh??!!
Medicine can be a fertile source of amusement for some. My brothers-in-law for example. SweetHeart and I are in California visiting friends. We lose a wedding ring, convinced it fell into a vent filled with an army of dust rodents and other horribly toxic and hairy stuff. Both of us reached in, holding our noses and breath, but to no avail. Returning home, we noticed our entire bodies covered in red pustules!
SCABIES!! Holy human excrement! Scabies!! I went to see a crack dermatologist, Dermis Bumpimple, MD. I hauled out my most private appendage and attempted to hand it over. He eyed me and my appendage with utter disgust and said, "I'm not touchin' that thing!"
"But," I stammered, "what about an examination? Don't you have rubber gloves, maybe a medical appendage tongs?" He offered a prescription and ushered us quickly out the door. The story had my brothers-in-law consumed in mirth for hours. On another occasion, returning from a pre-marital holiday in Colorado, I made an appointment with a GP, Dr. Eustus T. Fyreblanks. I had what I described to him as a broken testicle. I displayed the full majesty of my private region. He asked, "How long you had that rash?"
"I don't know," said I, "I've had a history of fungus in that area, like 'athlete's crotch,' " I quipped, trying to add a note of humor to the uncomfortable proceedings.
"Here," he said, handing me a prescription, "spray this on your feet and your crotch'll clear up." The brothers-in-law were convulsed over that one. I don't recall that we ever actually took care of the broken globule part!! But, I suppose the doctor may have given me a pill or something!
Needless to state, and returning to the more serious nature of this writing, cancer is scary as hell, and we never want any of the people we love having to hear that sort of dire pronouncement from medical doctors. The turn to humor, however, trying to make light of the thing, is a coping mechanism, a device or tool we humans tend to use to some advantage, to remove or at least lessen the fear. To cite an example, I suggested to SweetHeart,
in order to ease the discomfort of having to explain her recent weight loss to a certain party, "Organ removal is not the best means of reducing!" The party of the second part seemed to be put at greater ease, made apparent as she chuckled merrily, if nervously.
In the end, we have to acknowledge that cancer is, for now, an un-arrested thief that steals our parents, much-loved relatives and dear friends, way too many of us, often far too soon, without regard to age or value to those left behind. The big and happy "however" part is the increasing rate at which medical science and we humans generally are able to defeat cancer, at least certain forms of the dreaded thing. For that, we are grateful beyond words!! I've had SweetHeart in my life for more than 50 years; we plan to be together for many, many more to follow, and no snot-nosed slug of a cancer is going to stop us!!! Thank You.
(Special Note of Dedication: The perpetrator dedicates this posting to his Beloved SweetHeart who underwent a major medical procedure with calm acceptance, great dignity and exemplary courage. I hope she'll forgive the tangential digressions, but in the end will know that the essential aim of this writing is to express my growing love and admiration, attempts at humor thrown in just to soften the overall theme. SweetHeart is my ultimate hero!)
"Where are the Simple Joys of Geezerhood..." Remember that great tune from the play,
Here's the problem! Modern medicine has apparently conspired to cure our ailments by removal, disassembly! Complain about a source of pain and a doctor might remove your spleen, a lung, a bowel or a pancreas or something... other vital members!! When my father was in his dotage, he started losing his members, meaning toes and other things! I don't wish to make light of our health care industry and the injuries and diseases upon which it must focus, nor to accuse it of disassembling bodily organs for the mere sake of practicing medical disassembly! However, the medical profession, like any other, requires occasional fun-poking!
 |
| "Whatever it is that's causing you discomfort, it has to come out!!" |
We can be thankful in the extreme that some cancers are eminently treatable, even curable, in this modern era of medical science in which we are privileged to live! SweetHeart, after seeing her GP to determine that blood in the urine was not caused by a Urinary Tract Infection (UTI), was referred to a urologist, a terrific specialist with an excellent reputation in his field. I should mention that our much loved and outstanding GP has never steered us afoul in the referral department. (I was seen by a heart specialist, for example, who removed nothing from my anatomy! Oh... I did see a gastrointestinal MD who removed my appendix, but only because he was "in there" untwisting a nasty brute of a bowel... a prime example of expedient medical disassembly!)
But, who am I to judge or complain. My closest encounter with medical training was occupying a desk in a biology lecture for a, then, dental student friend of mine who had other important matters to which he wanted to attend. The professor frequently looked at me rather askance! I believe he knew me for the interloper I was! However, to my undying gratitude, I learned a few things about streptococci, knowledge forever stored in my personal medical lexicon!! (Sometimes we're truly blessed and don't realize it until much later in life. Oh, and my friend paid me a dollar!!)
I should also point out that, as a youth, my tonsils were disassembled. I played a good joke on the medical profession on that occasion! My mother was told not to give me anything to eat or drink several hours prior to the "procedure." Unbeknownst to mother, I drank a large glass of milk. Upon having the ether pumped into my small person, I bubbled over, necessitating an emptying and re-application procedure. What a good laugh on the medical guys, eh??!!
Medicine can be a fertile source of amusement for some. My brothers-in-law for example. SweetHeart and I are in California visiting friends. We lose a wedding ring, convinced it fell into a vent filled with an army of dust rodents and other horribly toxic and hairy stuff. Both of us reached in, holding our noses and breath, but to no avail. Returning home, we noticed our entire bodies covered in red pustules!
"But," I stammered, "what about an examination? Don't you have rubber gloves, maybe a medical appendage tongs?" He offered a prescription and ushered us quickly out the door. The story had my brothers-in-law consumed in mirth for hours. On another occasion, returning from a pre-marital holiday in Colorado, I made an appointment with a GP, Dr. Eustus T. Fyreblanks. I had what I described to him as a broken testicle. I displayed the full majesty of my private region. He asked, "How long you had that rash?"
"I don't know," said I, "I've had a history of fungus in that area, like 'athlete's crotch,' " I quipped, trying to add a note of humor to the uncomfortable proceedings.
"Here," he said, handing me a prescription, "spray this on your feet and your crotch'll clear up." The brothers-in-law were convulsed over that one. I don't recall that we ever actually took care of the broken globule part!! But, I suppose the doctor may have given me a pill or something!
Needless to state, and returning to the more serious nature of this writing, cancer is scary as hell, and we never want any of the people we love having to hear that sort of dire pronouncement from medical doctors. The turn to humor, however, trying to make light of the thing, is a coping mechanism, a device or tool we humans tend to use to some advantage, to remove or at least lessen the fear. To cite an example, I suggested to SweetHeart,
In the end, we have to acknowledge that cancer is, for now, an un-arrested thief that steals our parents, much-loved relatives and dear friends, way too many of us, often far too soon, without regard to age or value to those left behind. The big and happy "however" part is the increasing rate at which medical science and we humans generally are able to defeat cancer, at least certain forms of the dreaded thing. For that, we are grateful beyond words!! I've had SweetHeart in my life for more than 50 years; we plan to be together for many, many more to follow, and no snot-nosed slug of a cancer is going to stop us!!! Thank You.
(Special Note of Dedication: The perpetrator dedicates this posting to his Beloved SweetHeart who underwent a major medical procedure with calm acceptance, great dignity and exemplary courage. I hope she'll forgive the tangential digressions, but in the end will know that the essential aim of this writing is to express my growing love and admiration, attempts at humor thrown in just to soften the overall theme. SweetHeart is my ultimate hero!)
Humbly Submitted 02-06-17 -- Joel K.
