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Pop
"Just pop your trousers off would you?"
What is it about doctors' training that they have to say "pop" your trousers off, rather than "take" them off? How do I "pop" my trousers off? If it were a skintight pair of Mexican nightclub crooner's trousers with snappy elastic I might be able to satisfy her, but my Geography Lecturer in Minor Welsh University cord trousers allow of no plosive bottom slapping.
I lay on the examination bed, aware of my navy blue pants and the outline of my penis. She bent my leg with its swollen knee this way and that.
I got dressed and she started asking me about my drinking. Last month, doctors in the UK were issued with a directive to ask "lifestyle questions". Not about the kind of music we like or what sort of interior décor we favour, but things like how much we drink. "Well, a bit. I'm fully aware it exceeds the recommended levels." Yes but what about my knee?
She said "I'm going to do a blood test, and a liver test too." She printed off five pages of notes about Drinking Myths and Facts. But also a prescription for some codeine, so it was worth being hectored. I took my myths and facts to read in the pub. Neil and his lover were there. "My doctor thinks I drink too much, for some reason." We got pissed and I accidentally, not deliberately, left the notes in the pub.
There's a saying "You're only an alcoholic if you can't afford it." I gave up drink for Lent a few years ago and the only advantage I felt was in my pocket.
12 comments
“Pop” so that you don’t confuse it with foreplay.
The world is populated with functional alcoholics. Let’s leave us be, yes?
Fix your open tag, please. It’s like a shirt that’s not buttoned properly.
Oops - tags hanging out. Not a good look. With trousers on or off.
I like the admonition to “Make yours a shandy”
That’s a euphemism for hand job isn’t it?
It is indeed Nursey, as the similarities in the efflorescence of the spume in both instances have long been noted. I can’t speak for the taste.
I remember the “… only if you can’t afford it” one. Unfortunately fate had degreed that through utter luck I was in a job that paid insane amounts of money to me. When I gave up and spent a few weeks in rehab my Mrs took over the financial reigns for the first time ever… “What do you do with the £900 that is left over every month"… er… drink it…
Someone told me (I have no corroboration of the facts of this btw)that the “afford it” statement isn’t about money. I prefer the AA one - “Is it costing you more than money?”
I have to laugh at the “don’t drink for 2 days a week” nonsense from the minister. I can see 100s if not 1000s desperate alcoholics now completely rearranging their complicated drinking lives to not drink on Monday and Thursday or whatever just so they can slur every other day that they do what the govt told them. I used to for years give up for lent to show everyone… but I knew come Easter I’d be back where I wanted to be.
Next time a doctor asks me about how many ‘units’ I drink, I’m going to ask THEM about how many visits to the Controlled Drugs cupboard they’ve made this week.
And did she also ask you to ‘hop’ onto the bed too? Still …..you have the codeine………lucky chap!!
F: A much missed blogger once said “Alcohol is kept in a separate account in my mind.” It’s like that with me too.
I made my knee a lot worse by dancing for many long hours over the w/e but Matron is going to take me in hand next week. I might trying say it’s really painful, because this codeine is brilliant.
ISBW: Do that. And get us a copy of the key if you can.
YAH: Yes - “hop” that’s another one. Going to a doctor nowadays is like going to a low-key medically-themed rap performance.
Yo Mr Laine you say you’re pain
Is it your knee well show it to me
Pop off your pants and hop on the table
I’m the doctor and I’ll do what I’m able
But you got to think about the drink
and pour it down the sink
etc., etc., I make you better, and stop the nauseum (That’s enough - Ed.)
i have worried that i’ve stepped on the path to alcoholism, but realized i’m just a drunk. can go a week or more without a drop, and not really miss it.
summed up nicely by the phrase: “i’m not an alcoholic, they go to meetings. I’m a drunk. We go to parties.”
I think they get some sort of bonus for the proportion of their patients they can claim are living healthily. Last time I went I saw the nurse drop my weekly units from my reported 16 (well, everyone halves it, don’t they?) to the Holy Grail of 14; then she ticked a box saying I regularly examined my breasts even though I had clearly said I didn’t, ever.
At least neither of us are fat, or smoke.
DF: That’s a cracker of a quote. Going to remember that one! Thanks :)
H: That makes sense. The English box-ticking obssession.
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