Damien Galeone

I’m walking into my doctor’s office. It’s 7:45 am. I am carrying a vial of my own mountain-sourced, mineral-rich, pristine, untouched urine. The nurse greets me warmly. She eyes up my arm and accepts my warm bottle of urine. She points me to a chair.

My arm is tied off at the bicep and I am told to exercise to work up a vein. In any other time or place this wouldn’t be hard. I learned the trick as a kid: let your arm dangle, squeeze fist rapidly, and suddenly you look like Stallone in Rocky. But in the early morning, my veins seem to have a sixth sense about being tapped and they are shy. They have descended into the sunken place and watch in quiet as the nurse probes. The nurse has none of it. She prods until a little blue earthworm appears. She goes in with her needle and hooks in her venom vials. I become interested in the clock.  

She takes my blood pressure and nods at the numbers.

‘It’s a little high.’

‘Um.’ I am fairly sure that 145 is never a good number unless it’s the score of a basketball team you have bet for.

‘You are nervous, you just gave blood,’ she says. I finished off her list of excuses ‘and I walked here [pause for effect] from IP!’

‘Oh, pbbt,’ she scoffs our concern. ‘The doctor will be here at 8.’

Despite our nerve-quelling dialogue, the hot second my ass hits the chair in the waiting room I consult Dr. Google to find out about blood pressures. According to Dr. Google, 145 is not a number you want anywhere near a blood pressure unless it belongs to your arch-nemesis and he lives next to Dennis the Menace.

This is my first doctor’s appointment since I turned fifty. I am aware, via hundreds of movies and sitcoms, of what is sure to be a sudden change in discourse. I know that our consultation will take on new characteristics and language. Surely there will be some new tests – I am fifty.

The doctor comes. We sit.

‘Hm. So, you are fifty…’

‘Faffing about’ is evidently not a phrase in his lexicon.

He goes on. ‘We work on prevention of prostate cancer, colon cancer, cardiovascular problems. We want to avoid stroke, liver and kidney problems.’

I am planning the evening’s cocktail. Spoiler alert: ‘It’ is ‘they’ and they are not small.

I want to avoid all of those issues too. And since cardiovascular problems are my family’s background dancers, I need to take aim early. I am prepared to exploit medical advancements to carry me on into a ripe old age, when I can sit in a comfy chair, eat tubular meats, and settle more fully into regret and sadness.      

‘I will take your blood pressure again. Relax yourself.’

I make an attempt to relax each of my muscles. I droop my shoulders and close my eyes. I could really do with a Xanax right now, but I’ll have to settle for thinking about a warm, pleasant meadow and a couch in the middle of it pointed at a TV playing Family Ties.  

It has gone down since earlier. The doctor is satisfied and so am I. On the bright side, there’s now a whole lot more terminology and phraseology to look up online. It’ll be great. Those cocktails are growing by the minute.