Medical Tests, Miracle Of Miracles OR Standard Operating Procedure?
Read more articles on Life and Health and Medicine.February 18, 2008
Posted by neillevine
February 18, 2008
Posted by neillevine
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My doctor does not perform miracles. He is not a faith healer. He does not heal the halting or halt healing, if he can. But he does have a lot of medical experience, many connections and a good practice. Still, as for bringing back the dead, no, he cannot do that and I do not think he contemplates that sort of thing much.
Instead he gives a lot of medical tests. Not the tap on your knee until you cough kind of medical exam. That is not his style. He is more into electronic computerized devices that produce different kind of tests, the kind that have to be read by an expert in the art, naturally leaving the patient, me, completely in the dark. I haven’t a clue as to what the tests show. All I know is I do not feel so hot.
My doctor’s tests are more sophisticated, more complex, far beyond the pale of mortal men than the ordinary lay man wants to know. He has his assistants attach wires connected to clips on suction cups held in place with adhesive conducting gel. The clips are pressed on my arms, legs, chest and the machine. While the test may not be painful, it is inconvenient and photos of what is going on would look like an electrocution. Worse, if possible.
The technician throws a switch. The juice flows. A stylus marks jagged lines jerking up and down onto a piece of paper. What it all means is beyond me. Where it will stop I cannot tell. All I know is that instead of those pretty sine waves you see all the time in medical advertisements, I produce jagged, crooked lines, the kind that don’t appear to be soft and reassuring. Instead I find them shocking and nothing anyone says will convince me otherwise.
I try to lay there as calm and peaceful as possible so the test will be over and done with. Still the medical tests never end. If it’s not an EKG, it’s an echo or a Holter or a stress test. They all seem to be the same, yet they’re not. The echo takes place on a crt screen. The Holter is just a tape recorder box with wires. I used to have to walk ten minutes for the stress test. Now I can relax and squeeze rubber balls.
The good folks at the doctor’s office keep telling me I’m fine, though I don’t feel that way. I feel like I fell off a dump truck and haven’t recovered. But what do I know. As I said in the first place my doctor does not perform miracles. He just gives medical tests. Lots of them. Too many as far as I am concerned. As the old riff from that old Broadway musical goes, “Wonder of wonders. Miracle of miracles.”
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