Hit stickers and your health

                 You go to the doctor and you never know WHAT is going to happen. It’s like taking your car in for an oil change and coming out with a re-built engine. You just can’t predict the outcome.

          I attended a meeting with a doctor’s assistant recently. This individual was not a nurse. Nor was she a doctor. But she was very important or I would not have had to see her.

          “We’re going to do an EKG on you,” she told me. She began slapping hit stickers all over my chest and back. If you know football, you know what a hit sticker is. Once I had all of my stickers attached, here came the electrodes. Stick, click. Stick, click. I’d been through this procedure before. That’s how I knew I had a heart. But as I listened to the sticking and clicking, I worried about the electricity flooding backwards and zapping me into Never-Never Land. I mean, they use a million-dollar machine but even a good machine can have a backfire, right?

          After surviving the EKG and learning that I was not dead, I noticed the medical professional grabbing a stethoscope. I asked what she needed that thing for.

          “I’m going to listen to your heart,” she said.

          “Good grief,” I exclaimed. “What can that thing tell you that the million-dollar machine over there can’t tell you? I mean, first the hit stickers have to come off, which took hair with them. Now you’re telling me there was no point to that?”

          “This is the only way I can tell whether you have a heart murmur,” she told me.

          “SOMETHING’S gonna murmur pretty soon, I can tell you that much for sure,” I said. It was a good thing they checked my blood pressure before they started in with the hit stickers. We finally got the heart business under control. Good news: I still had one and it was beating without a single murmur of complaint.

          Then came the questions. At one point she asked, “Do you have any pain?”

          So, I listed my aches and pains. The medical professional was impressed.

          She asked, “How did you break your nose so many times?”

          “Just lucky, I guess,” I said. “I’ve led an active life.”

          “And your leg?”

          “I flew an unlicensed toboggan,” I explained. “The flight was smooth, but the landing sucked.”

          “Oh,” she said. “Do you feel safe at home?”

          “Sure. We don’t have a toboggan. In fact, the only time I worry now is when I see a doctor.”

          Then someone else came in, a nurse this time, and I got some kind of vaccination for something I’ve never had nor heard of.

          “Keep your arm moving today,” the nurse said. “Otherwise, your arm might hurt.”

          Swell. You go in to see the doctor feeling fine. You walk out hairless and your arm hurts.

          I didn’t even get to keep the hit stickers.