--------------------------------------------
"HEY, WHERE'S MY SUCKER?"
--------------------------------------------
One night, many years ago, Steve Martin was on Saturday Night Live and doing his usual excellent job of playing Theodoric of York, a medieval physician. He said: "You know, medicine is not an exact science, but we are learning all the time. Why, just fifty years ago, they thought a disease like your daughter's was caused by demonic possession or witchcraft. But nowadays we know that Isabella is suffering from an imbalance of bodily humors, perhaps caused by a toad or small dwarf living in the stomach."
As I watched Steve's clever skit, with him in his medieval costume and his dark, foreboding "office," I was carried back in my memories to my very first doctor visit. Yes, Theodoric's surroundings and decor had reminded me of that fateful day in 1939.....
It all came about like this. Five was my unlucky number that September of 1939, 73 years ago. With special permission from Clovis Supt. of Schools, Mr. Bickley, my mother had arranged for me to start to school early in years---at age five, five days after school had already started, and I had just five days to get a smallpox "in-noc-cu-la-shun," whatever that meant. Well, whatever it meant, I didn't like the sound of it. See what I mean about "five."
Thus, a day or two later, after school, I wound up in that scary doctor's scary office, across from the Clovis post office on W. 4th Street. When I say---first doctor visit, that's the truth! (In fact, I was not even born in a hospital but delivered by a mid-person.) I can still see that office in my mind's eye. Gloomy. We sat in those chairs and waited. Had I have been a little older, I might have had a smoke. It was "nervous city" with me.
But nothing like when the nurse stuck her head out and called my name...and we went through.......THAT DOOR. There we were in that dark wood-paneled torture room with several little square glass cabinets with glass shelves, each filled with clinky, chromey, shiny, vicious, hateful-looking instruments---all probably designed for the sole purpose of hurting little boys! As my blood pressure (almost surely) hit 200/200, I thought I heard the doctor and nurse in the next room, as they pondered my future, rubbing their hands and laughing: "AHH-HA-HA-HA-HA," (like in the movies.)
The nurse must have loved those shiny, clinky, sharp "stick 'em" things, because she came back into the room with a tray with all that kind of stuff on it, plus an EE-VILL VIAL! Now instead of POW, one terrible shot through my little arm, and I got my free sucker, and was gone---NO! She had to torture me. Stick-stick-stick, ouch; scratch, scratch, scratch, ouch; stick-scratch, stick-scratch. Ouch-ouch! Terrible! The doctor was in that other room probably still going "AHH-HA-HA-HA-HA," (like in the movies.)
Finally, it was all over. My blood pressure probably dropped to measurable proportions. She put a big white bandage on my arm, and a big sore came later. (She probably got me infected somehow.) I didn't need that inoculation anyhow---the other kids all already had one, so how could I have caught anything from them?
There was no sucker for me that day. But I guess I had learned a life's lesson, and didn't know it yet: Lots of things are going to happen to you in the next 73 years...and a lot of them you're not going to like.
P.S. I never got to liking doctors any better...but am glad that medicine HAS advanced
since Theodoric of York's day!
---------30--------
BY MIL
6/19/12
Sent from my iPad
"HEY, WHERE'S MY SUCKER?"
--------------------------------------------
One night, many years ago, Steve Martin was on Saturday Night Live and doing his usual excellent job of playing Theodoric of York, a medieval physician. He said: "You know, medicine is not an exact science, but we are learning all the time. Why, just fifty years ago, they thought a disease like your daughter's was caused by demonic possession or witchcraft. But nowadays we know that Isabella is suffering from an imbalance of bodily humors, perhaps caused by a toad or small dwarf living in the stomach."
As I watched Steve's clever skit, with him in his medieval costume and his dark, foreboding "office," I was carried back in my memories to my very first doctor visit. Yes, Theodoric's surroundings and decor had reminded me of that fateful day in 1939.....
It all came about like this. Five was my unlucky number that September of 1939, 73 years ago. With special permission from Clovis Supt. of Schools, Mr. Bickley, my mother had arranged for me to start to school early in years---at age five, five days after school had already started, and I had just five days to get a smallpox "in-noc-cu-la-shun," whatever that meant. Well, whatever it meant, I didn't like the sound of it. See what I mean about "five."
Thus, a day or two later, after school, I wound up in that scary doctor's scary office, across from the Clovis post office on W. 4th Street. When I say---first doctor visit, that's the truth! (In fact, I was not even born in a hospital but delivered by a mid-person.) I can still see that office in my mind's eye. Gloomy. We sat in those chairs and waited. Had I have been a little older, I might have had a smoke. It was "nervous city" with me.
But nothing like when the nurse stuck her head out and called my name...and we went through.......THAT DOOR. There we were in that dark wood-paneled torture room with several little square glass cabinets with glass shelves, each filled with clinky, chromey, shiny, vicious, hateful-looking instruments---all probably designed for the sole purpose of hurting little boys! As my blood pressure (almost surely) hit 200/200, I thought I heard the doctor and nurse in the next room, as they pondered my future, rubbing their hands and laughing: "AHH-HA-HA-HA-HA," (like in the movies.)
The nurse must have loved those shiny, clinky, sharp "stick 'em" things, because she came back into the room with a tray with all that kind of stuff on it, plus an EE-VILL VIAL! Now instead of POW, one terrible shot through my little arm, and I got my free sucker, and was gone---NO! She had to torture me. Stick-stick-stick, ouch; scratch, scratch, scratch, ouch; stick-scratch, stick-scratch. Ouch-ouch! Terrible! The doctor was in that other room probably still going "AHH-HA-HA-HA-HA," (like in the movies.)
Finally, it was all over. My blood pressure probably dropped to measurable proportions. She put a big white bandage on my arm, and a big sore came later. (She probably got me infected somehow.) I didn't need that inoculation anyhow---the other kids all already had one, so how could I have caught anything from them?
There was no sucker for me that day. But I guess I had learned a life's lesson, and didn't know it yet: Lots of things are going to happen to you in the next 73 years...and a lot of them you're not going to like.
P.S. I never got to liking doctors any better...but am glad that medicine HAS advanced
since Theodoric of York's day!
---------30--------
BY MIL
6/19/12
Sent from my iPad
No comments:
Post a Comment