Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
but there didn't seem to be anything physically wrong at all, though we had to go back for
more tests at a later date.
It was just his age it seemed; he had put on weight, he barely exercised, he was tired, he
was drinking too much and he occasionally found it difficult to control his bladder. In fact,
more and more we resembled each other as age was beginning to wither both of us, but from
opposite ends of the spectrum, his from an increasingly sedentary lifestyle while mine from
too much movement; too much travel.
'You look just like John Lennon,' the doctor said with a smile on his face.
I responded with a cold, hard look; not because I was affecting some kind of faux boredom
or that I wasn't actually quite flattered, but that my sinuses had locked my face up to the ex-
tent that I was like an over-botoxed Hollywood starlet and incapable of showing any emotion
whatsoever.
'The Beatles?' he said, taking my lack of response to mean that actually I didn't know who
John Lennon was and pointing to my clothes, the military-style pea coat and Baker Boy hat
in particular giving me a Beatles, circa 1965 Help! film look. 'I know who he is,' I said testily,
'and today I feel like him.' In my defence I normally don't let the flu set me back. By that I
don't mean I'll just suck it up, not mention it and carry on regardless, hell no; I'll moan like an
injured seal, take it out on those around me, cram myself full of Day Nurse and resentfully go
on stage anyway. I certainly never go to the doctor with it - not normally anyway, but after a
week in bed Natalie had had enough of me texting downstairs for 'more Lemsip and a bit of
toast'.
Now the French health system is quite rightly lauded as the best in the world, there is never
any problem with seeing a doctor and I don't mind paying a fee at the surgery to make this
possible. At the moment it's €22 and the fee is reimbursed later anyway, but it means that
people won't turn up to the doctor's just to have a chat. You go because you have a problem
not because you're a bit lonely. The poor, beleaguered NHS in the UK is being crushed under
the weight of expectation that it and every service it provides must be free for an ageing pop-
ulation - it's unsustainable, particularly at the GP level where doctors have become so fearful
of their time being wasted that it is now virtually impossible to see one and if you do you
must run the gauntlet of Rottweiler Receptionist, Nurse and Bouncers.
The doctor examined me, pointlessly I thought as it was perfectly obvious what was wrong
with me.
'I'm not feeling well either,' he said dolefully, obviously needing to unburden himself and
in particular, I felt, looking for sympathy from Natalie who he normally chats to endlessly
about horses. You'll be lucky there, I thought. I love my wife dearly but she has never, in my
experience, exhibited any kind of sympathy to a man with a cold.
'There's a lot of flu around at the moment,' the doctor said airily, and I looked at Natalie
in an I-told-you-so kind of way and held her gaze, not because she had doubted that I was
Search WWH ::




Custom Search