Let's Get Physical

I would have much preferred Olivia Newton-John's version. With her. But I digress.

November 9, 2005, 8:45am. Time for that luverly passage of chronology that creeps up sooner or later, and becomes sooner as it gets later: a physical.

Of course, mine was scheduled as a result of my Halloween night experience with things that go bump in the blood pressure. Booga booga.

Of course, what is any good physical without the obligatory 12 hours-prior-starvation?

I won't answer that.

And then there's the arise from what amounts to a nap (got off work at 3am, in bed at 4am, awake at 6am, saying to self "screw it" and getting up at 6:30am), drinking two full glasses of water before arriving for IT...and holding that water until then.

Ewwww. At least I know of one thing that still works, though applying such forces for long suggest what happens to an earthen dam, strained once too often.

I arrive at the office, and therein begins the hurry up and wait, strained earthen dam and all. No, Miss Desk Attendant, I'm not doing this happy dance because I'm happy to see you. May I suggest a life preserver if this preliminary hork carries on much longer?

Finally I am ushered into the back area of the clinic, where I am blood-pressured (138/90), pulsed (60 bpm), temperatured (97.4), and given a 9.9 for my happy dance (with the highest and lowest totals thrown out, Olympics-style). I am then weighed (oh no you don't), measured (6' 1 1/2 inches; I'm shrinking due to g-forces in the sphincter region), eye tested (yes, I have two, and no, I'm not making up what I'm reading, Ma'am), and finally...mercifully sent to "give a sample".

I blew out the bottom of three cups before the pressure let off to allow the fourth to withstand the psi. *Whew*

Then to the 'room', to await His Nibs. Just me, a bunch of stuff to get in trouble with if I was 8, and an old...a very old Reader's Digest (when was Gerald Ford the president?) to entertain me.

Geeawd.

Shortly after I was getting reintroduced to Disco: Fad Or Here To Stay? , His Nibs entered the room.

One minute later, and he would have had not a physical; it would have been an autopsy.

Questions. All sorts of questions. Recheck of the BP (134/85; amazing what pressure release does); recheck of the pulse rate (still 60). Listen. Poke. Prod. Test reflexes. Inquire about family medical history. Ask me if my pet rock is authentic.

His Nibs then asks me if I have any questions, while he snaps on one of those gloves, and picks up a tube of axle grease, in preparation for the H I hoped was forgot in this equation: Ho Sh**.
But it wasn't: the infamous Finger Wave. Also knowd by the male of the species as a brain buster.

That's a not so inside joke.

My mild dismay at this part of the procedure is greeted with the following His Nibs logic: "if you were 50, you'd be getting the proctoscope".

Thank God I'm not 50: I don't want to be responsible for having to pull a US Navy nuclear attack sub off a vital national defense patrol, just so's they can borrow the periscope and jam it up my hooha to tell me what I'm thinking in advance. What I'm thinking should be evident from the look on my face.

Ewwwww.

With a sarcastic (so I assumed) "this won't take but a minute", I assumed the position, and got my eyeballs extended six inches in a hummingbird heartbeat.

Don't worry; they retracted almost as fast.

Told that everything seemed "fine" down there I was dubious, having just been violated with an axle-greased fist. But I didn't bother belaboring the point.

It was over. I'll have the blood work up results in a day or so.

Which is about how long I think it'll take to get rid of the axle grease.

Ewwww.