MY View

BY JOHN McLOONE

What a pain

The older you get, the less fun it is to go to the doctor.

I’m not expecting to get a sucker or a balloon or anything like that, but the subjects seem to getting a lot heavier.

And apparently, so am I.

I have a considerable amount of nerve pain in my left leg as an offshoot of a knee injury from a few years back. When my wife is chauffeuring me to and fro, my leg just so happens to be positioned in a way that whenever she shifts the car into gear, she knocks my leg. It’s not intentional, and don’t event bring that up to her that you think it could be. Between you and me, it makes her unhappy to hear such an accusation.

Each and every time she would knock – unintentionally – my leg, it would feel like a knife being jabbed in there. That brought me unhappiness that manifested itself from time to time in the use of bad words. You get the picture.

After a couple weeks this summer of this playing out repeatedly – you know, my wife unintentionally slamming into my injury and me expressing displeasure, she “suggested” that I go to the doctor.

I took her sage advice. It took about a month to get an appointment, so I started riding in the back seat.

Last Wednesday, I dusted off my trusty mask and headed to see a new doctor, as my last one or two or so have retired. That should have been my first clue that age and related medical situations are creeping up on me. They weren’t much older than I am, and they retired, so they obviously aren’t having as much fun at work as I am.

They always start appointments off on a bad note. “Hop on the scale,” she said. I didn’t have the nerve to look at the digital readout, but I asked for a recount. “Can I take off my sweatshirt and shoes?” I asked. “That’s got to account for about 10 pounds.”

For some reason, she thought I was joking, and she ushered me into the examination room. After round after round of questions, she brought out the blood pressure cuff. “Oooh,” she said, “That’s high.”

That alone was enough to give me high blood pressure, which I’ve never had before. “You have hyper-tension,” she said, checking it again. “It’s worse this time.”

My first 10 minutes of my doctor visit were spent going over a pamphlet on high blood pressure and the better life choices I need to make and medicine she was considering putting me on.

She decided to check my blood pressure one more time with a machine. It was actually fine, maybe on the high side of fine, but fine nonetheless. “Operator error,” she said. “Maybe she screwed up taking my weight too,” I suggested.

She ignored that and scheduled me for a blood test. I also have to have my every-other-year colonoscopy. I hope that doesn’t get screwed up, because I don’t want that twice.

We eventually got to the leg pain, and she tapped a prescription into the computer that’s supposed to save the day. It’s taking some getting used to, though, so if I nod off when you’re talking to me, don’t take it personally. My wife didn’t over the weekend.

It’s kind of even starting to work. We made a couple road trips over the weekend, and every time she intentionally whacked away at my injury, it seemed to hurt less.