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Thursday, October 29, 2009
Since time immemorial our kids have always gone to MOTH if they are unwell. The fact that their maternal parent is an RN with double degrees in Intensive Care & Cardio-Thoracic Intensive Care, seems to leave them totally unimpressed, it's Dr. MOTH they want.
And of course, I should just accept that being a Landscape Gardener & Builder (General Contractor) far better equips him than me to be the Family Medical Advisor! But the kids reckon he's Da Bomb, & as he has a strange fascination with all things medical, the arrangement seems to work. Sometimes he oversteps the mark like recently, when he casually asked me to describe the procedure for placing an Internal Cardiac Defibrillator & I was happy to do so until he started taking copious notes & requesting me to go back & repeat certain steps. I had to be very firm with him & tell him this was better left to the Interventional Cardiologists, but I reckon that fell on deaf ears! MOTH's main piece of sophisticated diagnostic equipment is his faithful dog-eared copy of Davidson's Principles & Practice of Medicine. First published in 1957, he up-graded to the 14th edition in 1984 & refuses to even consider moving to a newer, abridged version. At the slightest whiff of trouble with either himself or the kids, out comes the Davidson.
Last night it got a huge work-out. The first phone call came from a son in Melbourne wanting a phone consultation. So Dr. MOTH went into action & was doling out advice in quick time. A few minutes later the phone rang again, it was another Melbourne son, who after having been alerted by his other brother that Dr. MOTH was presently consulting, called looking for medical assistance.
Now I do need to tell you I was eaves-dropping on these consultations from another room & the advice I heard being given seemed OK. And Dr. MOTH was smugly congratulating himself that once again, his superior diagnostic skills had saved the kids a trip to a real Dr. Then I nipped outside to water some new little seedlings in the garden. I heard the phone ring again & as I walked inside, I was truly shocked to hear Dr. MOTH, with Davidson's in hand, advising one of the Adelaide sons on how to perform a wedge resection on a suspected ingrown toe-nail using a pair of scissors & a Stanley knife. 'Oh yeah, make sure you throw some Pine-O-Clean on 'em first' he was telling his patient.
Well that was it, I told Dr. MOTH in no uncertain terms his consulting session was over, grabbed the phone & firmly suggested to his 3rd patient that an appointment with a real Dr. today would be highly advisable & that he should disregard the advice he'd just been given! This morning the good Dr. is still sulking that I'd cut his session short. Oh & if anyone from Medicare just happens to read this post, please disregard any new application for a Providor Number you get from a certain dodgy individual in Stirling, I'm just about to swing his shingle over to the Doctor is... OUT permanently. Hope your weekend is healthy & carefree!!
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