Giggling Won't Help You

I ran out of asthma medication a couple of weeks ago, and the wheezing worsened so I had to succumb to the inevitable and go to the doctor’s surgery. It’s a strange twist of my life that although I inherited my Nan’s suspicion of the medical establishment, I’ve spent most of my career working in fields allied to healthcare, and now I’m a student nurse. Last time I rang for a repeat prescription I got into a lot of trouble. I, according to the receptionist, needed to be seen by the specialist asthma nurse at the special asthma clinic. I just wanted a new inhaler to take away on my imminent holiday. Anyway, I made a nuisance of myself, and got the Ventolin, plus a stiff letter telling me there would be no more without an assessment.

Naturally, once again, I ran the medication down until there was no choice than to get a proper doctor’s appointment. It turned out to be with the doctor who years ago treated me for my depression, and who I get on with. She did the assessment that the nurse would have done, and seemed to enjoy the process, taking an interest in the computer’s advice, and bullying me into a flu vaccine in a matter of fact way. She asked me to demonstrate my inhaler technique. This felt strangely like being asked to masturbate in front of her and set me into a fit of smirking and coughs. ‘Giggling won’t help you’ said Dr Val. She’s correct of course; received wisdom has shown that giggling is no help during masturbation or with the proper use of aerosols. I’ve never asked her, but I imagine that Val went to a girls’ school and played a lot of hockey in her teens.

Before I saw the doctor, I met a marvellous stranger in the waiting room. I don’t start up conversations with people I don’t know, I lack the knack. I’ll go along with it, if someone takes the lead. In the five minutes we shared the waiting room, the woman covered the following topics: the loud music being played, the unattractive charisma of Chris De Burgh, government welfare cuts and the need for old people to make the effort to look after themselves, the refusal of one doctor to prescribe sleeping pills and the ease of getting them from another place, her having lost four stone in weight and not having replaced her wardrobe (one stone to go), the long wait at the surgery, and selling her daughter’s clothes on EBay. At one point, the doctor went downstairs and the woman headed directly into the administrators office to be told that the doctor was seeing a patient downstairs.

Phew. It’s good to meet someone and find nothing in common. I came to the realisation that there hadn’t been an anti-democratic conspiracy. At least one person in our fine nation had voted for cuddly Dave Cameron. Even she didn’t own up to it, I note.