What's Up, Doc?

 

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:        ...What's Up, Doc?  

Is this, the dawning of the Age of a-...  GeezerHood...?    

If I'm honest, "dawning" is a bit inaccurate.  GeezerHood rolled over me some time ago, and on me it lingers, like a threadbare coat of peeling paint!  I guess when I think about labeling the Age realistically, we Geezers find ourselves in the Age of Doctor Visits and Medical Invasions and Interventions.  We have regularly scheduled imperatives, in which we're poked, prodded, pricked with sharp instruments and have latex hands and bratwurst-sized digits crammed into our private and more sensitive orifices!! 

With the readers' kind indulgence, I shall offer some true-life examples and episodes.  Some years ago, I contracted the affliction known as "scabies," or skin lice.  I visited a dermatologist who examined me as if the planet were already in the throes of COVID-19.  

He asked me to uncover various parts of my anatomy to view for himself the damage done.  At one point during the examination, I tried to hand the doctor my afflicted penis.  

"I'm not touching that thing," he said, drawing back from the apparently offending appendage.  

"But," said I, stammering, "aren't you a medical doctor?  Aren't you used to examining all manner of body parts, I mean, in a way that requires handling the part in question?"  He recoiled again.  I

left with several prescriptions.

Then there was Doctor Firefly!  I complained of a broken testicle.  During his investigation of the offending body part, Dr. Firefly asked about a rash present in the neighborhood of the aforementioned broken orb.  "How long you had that," said he to me, referring of course to the rash.  

"I dunno," said I in reply.  "Long time, I guess."  

He left the examination cubicle and returned with a small slice of paper, a prescription as it turned out.  Handing the paper to me he said, "Here, spray this stuff on your feet and your crotch'll clear up."  I related the tale to my three brothers-in-law at a family beer-drinking session in SweetHeart's family's living room.  (None of the three is still with us, sad to report!).  They all laughed merrily, and for a long time!  Dr. Firefly was a partner of the family's primary care doctor.

(One of the brothers told me that their father, the family patriarch, once complained to his doc, Doctor Hairingplug, that every time he, the father, drank manhattans, he's get a giant headache.  The advice came quickly, "Then stop drinking manhattans."  This, medical advice, too, the brothers and

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SweetHeart enjoyed relating when discussing health issues and sound medical advice.)   

More recently, at the advice of an ophthalmologist whom I consulted at the Eye Institute, I was advised to undergo cataract surgery on my cloudy right eye.  I did.  It, the surgery, took place in January of this year.  The projected 15-minute procedure took more than an hour.  Why?  The doctor told me, "The bag broke."  The "bag" is a sort-of "breakwater" barrier or membrane that surrounds the lens, and, I think, holds the lens in place.  Post surgery, I kept seeing the biggest "floater" I had ever witnessed in my field of vision.  It looked like a baboon riding a mule!

I had an appointment with an ophthalmologist our primary care physician recommended.  He told me the surgeon has actually done a fine job, and said that my vision was "nearly 20 / 20."  He added that I needn't have cataract surgery on my left eye for at least a year or two.  I thanked him profusely.  I'll go back in a year or so, a future appointment having been tentatively scheduled. 

Being an avid volleyball player for more than 40 years, during one of our championships matches, the Achilles Tendon in my right leg suffered a complete rupture.  We played in a 6-person league, but our team consisted of just four magnificent volleyballers, two men and two women, SweetHeart,

one of the women players.  Our male partner told me to balance on the court on one leg, lest the referee award the championship to the other team, given we were only four!  She allowed the remaining three to play on.  It was the third of three sets.  We won the championship, one of six or seven during our prime playing years.  

The ortho doctor sewed the two severed parts of the tendon together.  The doctor told SweetHeart he had a heckova time finding the two ends!  I wore a boot for several months, and eventually returned to the court, healed and leaping better and higher than ever!  (At least that's my recollection...  having recovered my one-foot vertical leap!).  Prior to that memorable occasion, I tore the muscle mass in my right calf.  Everything seemed to happen to my right side, and I'm not even that conservative!  

I cracked both of my ankles, each requiring medical or surgical intervention.  The most embarrassing, my right ankle, of course, occurred when I was searching a parking lot for my friend's vehicle.  To do so, I had to stand on a toilet to reach an elevated window, the only viewing vantage point to the parking area.  I slipped and my foot twisted painfully and landed in the toilet bowl.  I not only suffered the pain of a cracked ankle, but the embarrassment of a "soaker" that was all too apparent as I hobbled back into the bar room to await the arrival of my companion.  We were poised to attend a hockey match!!  (I had to hop a lot, and hobble too, needless to add, to reach my seat high up in the arena...  You'd have thought a kindly usher would have seated me on the players' bench, or kinda closer to ice, maybe...!)

There's another strange thing going on!  For an extended period of time, I keep banging my left elbow...  on door jambs, car doors, walls, windows...  I told my doctor about this painful epidemic of elbow-banging, showing her what I believe is a growing lump in that region of my arm joint.  "What

do you think," I asked.  "Should I get an X-ray?  I think there's something wrong with my house!  It may have shifted...  maybe the doorways have contracted!  What should I do?"

"Stop banging your elbow," my doctor advised.  She's a marvel.  A medical expert of the finest ilk.  I've been heeding her advice.  Amazingly effective therapy!!  (But now I'm banging the other elbow!). 

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Please forgive me, but I digress, a bit...   I should mention that today's my birthday, and it's Veterans' Day.  I'm a veteran.  We've had a free lunch, free coffee, a free pound of coffee, discounts at the shoe shop and at one of them big boxy stores too!  What a day.  We're soon heading out for an almost free dinner!  What a day, I say again!!  Thank you and good night to all my dear family members, friends and other devotees.  Happy Veterans' Day to all of our fellow brothers and sisters in military service, and its noble veterans!!  

Humbly Submitted 11-11-2020 -- Joel K.