If there is one place where a middle aged guy may have an advantage it may just be an emergency room. Let me preface this by saying, how do I put this, I'm not exactly petite. Not ready for the Big & Tall Department, but still a big guy. One evening a few years back when I was the tender age of 47, I felt a little pain in my chest. Now don't anyone panic, the ticker is good, turned out to be a bad gallbladder, yanked it out and life is good again, but that's not relevant to the story. Anywho, I told my wife that we may want to go get the chest pain checked out to be safe. We arrived at Overland Park Regional Medical Center to a fairly packed waiting room. That's where the advantage kicks in, see all you have to do is show up as a non-petite middle age man and say those two magic words "chest pain" and you go directly to the head of the line, no registration or anything, just wham bam and into a room with more medical professionals than you'll know what to do with. I have never felt more welcome anywhere.
That's where the downside is and reality kicks you between the eyes... doctors. These ER doctors don't have much patience (a little pun there) with overweight middle aged guys having chest pain once they've ruled out heart trouble. After about an hour of being treated like a king with dignity and respect, the doctor came in to tell me my heart was fine, he could have stopped right there but it was time to put the fear of God in me. He asked a few questions; "do you know what your cholesterol is?" I said no, he asked do you know what your blood pressure is?" I said no. His next question was a little less compassionate when he asked "are you stupid", I didn't answer but my ever supporting wife was quick to fill the silence and answered for me saying "why yes he is". Well long story short, those two no's cost me a night in the hospital so they could run every test known to mankind to let me know my heart was fine. I was poked, prodded, drained, filled, put to sleep and woken back up. If I ever was sick I think the hospital would be the last place I would go for comfort. It was the ER doc's way of punishing me for being stupid, had it coming I suppose. Anyways it worked, lost a bunch of weight, still a ways to go but getting there and got my numbers under control.
Next time I'll just tell them my knee hurts and then work into the chest pain slowly.........
No comments:
Post a Comment