Yesterday, I’d had a pretty AOK day for one of my cranky disposition. I’d played with my PC for a while and leanrt how to handle PDF documents. My only genuine complaint was that I had a headache that had been worsening over the previous couple of weeks.
After a nice meal, I watched the highlights of the ARL on my TV for a bit and then put on a stimulating DVD about the KGB and their atrocities. However, the headache worked itself to fever pitch. I felt like both ends of my head were meeting in the middle. In an attempt to offer sympathy, my wife suggested that it might be PMT.
This morning, I’d had enough. I decided that I would take me off to my GP. That would have been simple enough, but I needed some cash to pay him with. So I limped, with my head between my hands, down to the main street. I needed an ATM, but found myself hardly able to decide between two of them; one with the NAB and the other with the CBA. I painfully chose the CBA in the end, because I used to be a shareholder back in the good old days when it belonged to the commonwealth. An MSS guard standing nearby thought that I was robbing the stupid machine, but did not persist when I explained that I was just banging my head against the screen for relief from my headache.
Eventually, I obtained the wad of notes necessary to pay my GP, who, like so many of them, charges like a wounded bull. As I stuffed the cash into my pocket, A close neighbour saw me and said, “What’s wrong, Crank, you look RS!” I explained about my headache, in between groans, and told him that I was off to see my GP who had only recently given me an ECG and sent me for an MRI when the headache was only a pup of the mongrel that it now was. I excused myself, saying that I was off to catch a SRA train for two stations, if only I could manage it.
“Don’t waste your time going to a GP,” he says, “He’ll only want to put you on an NSAID and see you again in a month.” I thought that there was probably merit in what he was saying, especially since he had a lot to do with doctors as he was a TPI as a result of WWII injuries. “Tell you what,” he continued, “why don’t you do as I do, and go straight to the ED at the local hospital. Come on, I’ll give you a lift.”
So, like some sort of insipid sheep, I hopped into his BMW, and after only a short pit-stop at the BP service station, we lobbed up to the ED at the hospital. I only had to wait four hours to be triaged by an RN, and another seven hours to be seen by a JRMO who took my BP, gave me a PR examination, and sent off some blood for PSA, FBC, ESR, UEC and LFT’s. When the results came back, he deliberated like a learned judge and then declared that he was stumped. So, he asked the RMO to have a gander at me. The RMO promptly ordered an urgent CT scan, and within a few short hours, he, too, went into deliberative mode and then threw up his hands, saying, “I’ll need to get the VMO to see you.”
The VMO was as clever as his title was grandiose. He stepped into the semi-private becurtained cubicle, and within one microsecond, exclaimed, “I know what’s wrong with you! I was just reading about cases like you this AM in the BMJ. You’ve got ANTS.” “Ants,” retorted my good self, “I haven’t been troubled with ants since I bought a four gallon drum of DDT.”
“ANTS,” he repeated with the look of a Nobel Prize winner on his physiognomy. “ANTS, Acronym Neurological Torment Syndrome!”
Simultaneously, I felt an exacerbation of my headache, but also a profound sense of relief. This VMO, this erudite student of the trivial, had been able to put a name to my condition.
“Thank you very much indeed, Doctor,” I gushed, “You’re either a genius or you’ve got fantastic ESP.”
Crankyfella
After a nice meal, I watched the highlights of the ARL on my TV for a bit and then put on a stimulating DVD about the KGB and their atrocities. However, the headache worked itself to fever pitch. I felt like both ends of my head were meeting in the middle. In an attempt to offer sympathy, my wife suggested that it might be PMT.
This morning, I’d had enough. I decided that I would take me off to my GP. That would have been simple enough, but I needed some cash to pay him with. So I limped, with my head between my hands, down to the main street. I needed an ATM, but found myself hardly able to decide between two of them; one with the NAB and the other with the CBA. I painfully chose the CBA in the end, because I used to be a shareholder back in the good old days when it belonged to the commonwealth. An MSS guard standing nearby thought that I was robbing the stupid machine, but did not persist when I explained that I was just banging my head against the screen for relief from my headache.
Eventually, I obtained the wad of notes necessary to pay my GP, who, like so many of them, charges like a wounded bull. As I stuffed the cash into my pocket, A close neighbour saw me and said, “What’s wrong, Crank, you look RS!” I explained about my headache, in between groans, and told him that I was off to see my GP who had only recently given me an ECG and sent me for an MRI when the headache was only a pup of the mongrel that it now was. I excused myself, saying that I was off to catch a SRA train for two stations, if only I could manage it.
“Don’t waste your time going to a GP,” he says, “He’ll only want to put you on an NSAID and see you again in a month.” I thought that there was probably merit in what he was saying, especially since he had a lot to do with doctors as he was a TPI as a result of WWII injuries. “Tell you what,” he continued, “why don’t you do as I do, and go straight to the ED at the local hospital. Come on, I’ll give you a lift.”
So, like some sort of insipid sheep, I hopped into his BMW, and after only a short pit-stop at the BP service station, we lobbed up to the ED at the hospital. I only had to wait four hours to be triaged by an RN, and another seven hours to be seen by a JRMO who took my BP, gave me a PR examination, and sent off some blood for PSA, FBC, ESR, UEC and LFT’s. When the results came back, he deliberated like a learned judge and then declared that he was stumped. So, he asked the RMO to have a gander at me. The RMO promptly ordered an urgent CT scan, and within a few short hours, he, too, went into deliberative mode and then threw up his hands, saying, “I’ll need to get the VMO to see you.”
The VMO was as clever as his title was grandiose. He stepped into the semi-private becurtained cubicle, and within one microsecond, exclaimed, “I know what’s wrong with you! I was just reading about cases like you this AM in the BMJ. You’ve got ANTS.” “Ants,” retorted my good self, “I haven’t been troubled with ants since I bought a four gallon drum of DDT.”
“ANTS,” he repeated with the look of a Nobel Prize winner on his physiognomy. “ANTS, Acronym Neurological Torment Syndrome!”
Simultaneously, I felt an exacerbation of my headache, but also a profound sense of relief. This VMO, this erudite student of the trivial, had been able to put a name to my condition.
“Thank you very much indeed, Doctor,” I gushed, “You’re either a genius or you’ve got fantastic ESP.”
Crankyfella
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