Carry on, doctor, if you must

Not to be outdone, I also pick up the popular virus doing the rounds; the one attacking the bronchial mechanism.

It probably lodged in my sinuses in the jam-packed mall when a beehive purple rinse lady squeezes up against my back, sneezes, spreading a mixture smelling of ripe blue cheese immersed in stale papsak wine. The virus enjoys the surfing. That same night come the hoesing and proesing, driving my Heidi up the wall.

“To the spare room with you.”

Next day sees no improvement, so I’m given the choice: either Doc Evert or hospital. I’m bundled into the car, still in my tatty gown and holey slippers – and that on the town’s coldest, windiest and rainiest morning; expecting a speeding fine flying down the main drag through the red.

The doctor and his nurses are awaiting my arrival like vultures to a kill. About this surgery, it’s different – more like live theatre with a one-man stage play. Before getting on with prognosticating, doctor jocularly tells about patients he had just manhandled (sic).

In my delirium I just make out Zuma and Ace behind bars. Our doctor, also a qualified shrink, figures a few funny stories takes the strain off the patient for a magic moment. It works. I’m now ready to receive the full treatment with in-depth inspections up the nose, down the throat and into the ears.

Then the freezing stethoscope against fevered body with the instruction to breathe in and out. It results in a paroxysm of coughing that has poor doc frantically groping for a nose guard. Too late. The virus is back in the surf. But the show goes on. Act Two.

“Now for a double jab of muti to kill the germ dead. Bend over. We’ll practice on your right cheek and if that doesn’t work we’ll tackle the left one.”

The practice shot hits an artery, with some of my precious O being absorbed in the assistant’s swabs.

“Not to worry, old cock, the second one always gets home.”

And it does, as I feel a prick – and then each painful drop of serum flowing into a tiny vein unused to a flood of foreign fuels. But I’m still alive and well on the mend. A satisfactory ending to a great act. Doc enjoys the curtain call from a grateful patient.

Cliff Buchler.

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