Seeking medical advice is an exercise in empathy and trust. First of all, you are expected to accurately convey abstract sensations to an effective stranger, which I find hard at the best of times, and it’s literally my job to describe things. Once you’re over this lexical hurdle, you simply have to accept the opinion of an overworked, underpaid individual who may or may not have specialised in your ailment surplus of 20 years ago. The fact that it works most of the time is nothing short of a miracle – not to mention countless hours of study and practice. However, there are the occasional curveballs. This month’s edition is an exposé on unexpected exchanges between patients and healthcare professionals.
The Radiologist’s Approval
Prior to my boob job, I was sent for a mammogram to check everything was in order. ‘Ah oui,’ the doctor said absentmindedly as she surveyed my results. ‘They are mag-nif-ique.’ There was a brief pause. ‘Why, thank you,’ I replied. We had a good giggle. Maybe I didn’t want the surgery after all.
🩻🩻🩻🩻🩻🩻🩻🩻🩻🩻
Rating: 10 scans out of 10
Pleading with an Allergologist
When I was informed that I could no longer drink beer, no one was more surprised than me to hear myself pleading with the allergy specialist that, ‘you don’t understand’ and ‘it’s the Euros’. A decade in France had somehow turned me into a basic British bloke. It was the wake-up call I needed to put down the pints and get back on the pinot. The boys didn’t bring it home, anyway.
🏆🏆🏆
Rating: 3 championship trophies out of 10
The Ophthalmologist’s Discovery
When Sally Rooney shared a deeply earnest personal essay in the New York Times about how she needed an app to remind her to drink water, I laughed and laughed and laughed. I laughed all the laughs Sally Rooney has never laughed in her deeply earnest, dehydrated life.
Knowing when you’re thirsty is an instinct shared by every living thing, from cats to cacti. How can you ignore a dry mouth and headaches for so long that you literally lose consciousness before thinking something might be off? Sure, I am pleased that Rooney finally put paid to her fainting spells, but it did occur to me that, before we had smartphones, in medieval times, she wouldn’t stand a chance. She’d have withered to dust long before anyone ever got the opportunity to queue around the block to buy an Intermezzo tote bag. Honestly, where would the world be without WaterMinder?
Having felt such mirth for Rooney, imagine my surprise when I recently learnt of my own fundamental human failing. I’d been pin-balling between ophthalmologist’s offices about an irritation in my left eye. Each one in turn advised me to use eye drops – which I assumed was the equivalent of a dentist telling patients to floss, thus I duly ignored it. Other than that, they couldn’t see anything wrong. I began to think maybe they were the ones who needed their eyes checked.
I underwent months of investigation, consisting of multiple sight tests where I would have to forewarn the nurses that it’s possible I am just mispronouncing rather than misreading certain French vowels; I was prescribed a super-strength gel that needed to be applied directly to my eyeballs; I was given various viscous liquids to gloop in at precise intervals; and finally, the holy grail, I was sent for an MRI scan. I was certain that we’d get to the bottom of the issue. But one after another, five separate medical professionals came to the same conclusion: my eyes were pure perfection. Stunning, even. At my final appointment, I put my foot down, conscious that fluttering my lashes could be misconstrued in this context. I told the doctor, ‘I’m not leaving here without answers.’
At long last, he took my face in his hands and gazed deeply into my eyes. Then he squirted some drops in. He shone a bright light at them. He flipped my eyelids inside out – a move I’d previously only seen performed on Ed, Edd and Eddy. He prised them open, A Clockwork Orange style, and instructed me to look up, down, left, right, repeat. He asked me which side I sleep on. I told him I was married. He drew back.
‘I’ve found something,’ he declared, triumphant. I looked up at him expectantly, my cheeks melodramatically strewn with tears from all the ocular probing. It was hugely satisfying to know that I wasn’t just being a hypochondriac, that I was right to pursue a prognosis, but it was also disquieting to find out what the cause of the irritation could be. The early stages of some kind of tropical disease coating my cornea? Did my retinas have some kind of… puncture? I dabbed my ducts with a tissue, ‘give it to me straight, doc.’
‘You don’t blink properly.’ I blinked… or at least, I thought I did. He elaborated, ‘Your blinks are incomplete.’
It was bewildering, but I knew instinctively that he was right. Everything fell into place. Well, almost: I had three-quarter length, Capri blinks. I should have seen this coming, the signs had always been there: for one, I never miss a thing. And, come to think of it, I do have quite dry eyes, I’d just assumed it was some kind of perennial hay fever that I’d been manfully putting up with. His conclusion was that my eyes weren’t fully closed when I was sleeping on my left side and I’d somehow done myself a mischief, and it should clear up soon. And to start using eye drops.
He began to usher me out of the room. ‘But hang on,’ I protested. ‘Isn’t there a cure for my condition?’ He stared back into my unblinking eyes while he considered this. ‘Every hour,’ he said eventually, ‘do this’ and then proceeded to cartoonishly scrunch his eyes shut like a toddler counting to ten in a game of hide-and-seek. So now I need hourly reminders to practise a basic biological function. If only there were an app for that.
😖😖😖😖😖😖😖😉
Rating: 7.5 blinks out of 10
Submission from Katie Legg
A Not-Quite Lifelong Affliction
The year was 1997. My mother took 4-year-old me to the GP with the goal of discussing the size of my toenails. Specifically, my little toenails1. She was either deeply concerned or had literally nothing else on that day, as I can’t imagine another reason to schedule that sort of appointment, but off we went.
Although I was there I have no memory of the consultation. What I do know is that we left with a diagnosis: ‘Pathetic Toenail Syndrome’.
This was the ‘90s, before Google, before crowdsourcing opinions on Reddit. Back then, if a doctor tells you your child has Pathetic Toenail Syndrome, you nod, you get on with your life, and your child quietly rules out foot modelling as a career path.
Fast forward to today. For the sake of this review, I decided to finally take my head out of the sand and investigate. Armed with the full force of the internet and two decades of medical progress, I was ready to learn more about my lifelong affliction.
The Google AI Overview was brief, but cutting: ‘Pathetic Toenail Syndrome’ is not a recognised medical term. The second listing was an article titled ‘Unsightly Toenails’, which also stung.
With my self esteem in ribbons, I am left with nothing but questions. What was that doctor’s problem? Was this an isolated incident, or part of a low-stakes conspiracy where minor abnormalities are labelled for sport? I can confirm that this particular GP’s surgery has since closed down. Make of that what you will.
I am now older, but no wiser. While PTS has brought me some amusement over the years, I can’t in good conscience rate being told I have a non-existent condition more than 2.
🦶🦶
Rating: 2 toenails out of 10
Rec Room
I can’t wait to see Charlie Mulliner perform her gut-bustingly-hilarious whirlwind of a one-woman show Love Hunt at the Edinburgh Fringe next week. See you there! 🏹
Words by Alice Brace. Images by Flora Hibberd.
Editor’s note: you’d have thought the clue was in the name.
Wink, wink 😉
I had a good laugh at “three-quarter length, Capri blinks”