...there aren't many, but one is that you can start telling everybody about your evermore increasing ailments and illnesses and they can't object (unless you are male because then you wailed to mothers, girlfriends and wifes all your life anyway). Well, so here is mine:
... nice little bump, ey? Well, I thought so... and it is there for over 2 months by now... hence I wanted to see a GP.
But this being Britain, you don't walk into a medical centre anymore, oh no. Because if you do, a mild mannered receptionist will calmly inform you that you should have phoned first, to describe the symtoms to the receptionist or a nurse, who will then relay them to the GP, who in turm will then phone you to let you know if you need an appointment. Which is al allright if you are a pensioner and have all the time in the world (another one of the positive things when you are older) - unless you so old that you could pop off any moment, or on holiday.
But me, being a member of the oppressed poor, I can not just go home to wait at the side of the phone for the doctor to call me in for an appointment. So that meant any possible appointment would be days away.
So off I went to work ("The GP will phone you just after 9:00" had the receptionist informed me with a rather maternal tone), and low and behold, just after 11:30 I got the call from the doctor (good thing I wasn't in pain then, innit?).
After describing the bump to him ("well, it's a sort of bump on my wrist.... is it on the top or on the back of the wrist, well depends on how I twist my arm?" "Doh!" - well I didn't say that, of course, always be nice to taxidrivers (unless you lived too long in New York and then you give them hell and they drop you in the middle of nowhere), cooks and waiters (unless you lived too long in New York and then you demand all possible alterations to the dish and can never be sure what "additions" are on the plate when it arrives) or GPs (unless you lived too long in New York... and couldn't possibly afford a good one so you never meet a GP anyway).
After that very scientific description from me, the GP said that it sounded like I had a ganglion ("A what? Arrrgh, what is it, is it like a little alien under my skin?") and I would need to come in and see him.
"Ah, really, funny thing that, coincidentially I just happened to drop in earlier this morning, would have been a such a good opprtunity stop wasting taxpayers money phoning me and using the time for the phone call to actually look at the ganglion yourself there and then..." was another thing I didn't say.
So now I going to see a nurse who undoubtedly will tell him all about the ganglion on Monday and quite possibly one of the outcomes might even be that he needs to see for himself (why is it that terms like "efficiency" never pop up in you mind when you think of England, I wonder).
So, of course, always keen to expand my knowlegde about ganglions, I googled it. "A ganglion cyst (also known as a bible bump) is a swelling that often appears on or around joints and tendons in the hand or foot. The size of the cyst can vary over time. It is most frequently located around the wrist and on the fingers. The term "Bible Bump" comes from a common (but discouraged) treatment of pounding on the cyst with a Bible." ...riiight, pound it with a Bible....
ewwwwww....
Well, not much of a Bible person myself, that presents a little problem, and I wonder, would it also work if I used a Star Trek DVD instead?
Well, perhaps I just wait until Monday and see what the nurse recommends, because one of the things that doesn't get better with age is the tolerance to pain (unless you are male and then chances are you always have been a bloody whimp when it came to pain threshhold in connection with diseases such as the common cold)
