A foray into the medical world

I was at the doctor today. Nothing wrong with me, I just had to register, as did CStM, with a nearby doctor. The one I rarely met before is now too far away and the nearest is only two towns away, so it was necessary to re-register.

Anyway, today was The Day of Assessment. They don’t have my medical records, such as they are, as yet. So they weren’t forewarned.

The assessing nurse, predictably, began by speaking as if I was senile. Then told me I shouldn’t be smoking. I did say I had some Electrofags and was still trying new ones. That is a good thing in the UK medical mind. Seems we did send most of the loonies to Australia after all.

Then she asked how much I drank a week.

When she got her breath back, she told me I was way over the recommended 14 units a week. I told her that they reduced the made-up number faster than I could reduce my drinking (it has reduced from its peak, which exceeded the old weekly limits most days and would probably have made her pass out entirely). The subject changed abruptly.

I was weighed and measured and a urine sample tested. They now have dipsticks that test multiple things in under a minute. I hadn’t seen that before. There have been some advances in medicine since I last visited, it seems.

To the quite evident disappointment of the nurse, there was absolutely nothing wrong with me. I am still free of any kind of medication.

The only thing, towards the end, was that my blood pressure was a little high. A nagging session where I am treated as if I have late stage Alzheimer’s is enough to explain that, I think, so I’m not going to worry about it.

I wasn’t invited back.

I wonder if, when my slim volume of medical notes arrives, they will be in a red folder with ‘beware – awkward bastard’ written on the front?

I bet they’ll wish they’d seen those first.