Blow-by-blow accounts of visits to this or that doctor is a lifestyle for Dad and it doesn’t matter how minor or life-threatening each ailment is, you will hear about them in equal measure, like he’s casually launching into a conversation about the weather. Asking him ‘How are you?’ is not a greeting, but an invitation to hear his medical history. At a family get-together, each time a new person enters the living room he’ll begin all over again with the same story about what his foot doctor said.
* * *
The way I see it, the myriad health issues associated with getting older means you can go either of two ways: you see your doctor more than any person on the planet and you regale even passing strangers with stories of your daily medical struggles, or you pretend that everything’s fine and you never set foot in a doctor’s surgery, though your involuntary gasps and grunts accompanying everyday tasks (like standing or sitting, for example) let other people know just how much you should, and have your kids rushing to make the next available appointment for you.
The encyclopaedic coverage of Dad’s health is like an old-fashioned cliff-hanger. Each time you see him, he picks up at the point he left off last time, giving a brief recap of the situation thus far before launching into what the latest specialist has said, or how the newest pill is working for him. His life is a revolving door into medical centres and an ever-increasing rainbow of daily pills to swallow. He’s on a first-name basis with his GP but uses just her initials, like they’re old mates hanging out at a backyard barbecue. In truth I think she spends more time with Dad than I do. His diabetes doctor affectionately refers to him as ‘Fatty’.
Thankfully, Dad remains stoic about his declining health, dealing with each new hurdle pragmatically, without too much drama or over-sensationalism. The thing I can’t really wrap my head around is he seems to genuinely enjoy going to see doctors, as if spending time within the four walls of their surgeries will make him healthier by osmosis.
Sometimes I think I should rouse on Dad for clogging up the healthcare system but then I think about my own recent tests and hospitalisations for heart-attack, diabetes and multiple hand fractures. Sure they all returned negative results, but they might have been genuine emergencies.
Mum is from the other school. It’s rare she informs any of us about a trip to the doctor or what the visit was for. Her dislike of anything medical goes back sixty years and it’s as if not talking about an ailment will just make it disappear. Jude could be walking along the street and her right arm could fall off and she still wouldn’t want to mention it in case you insist she see a doctor. Perhaps she thinks once she starts spending time with doctors and in hospitals she may never get let out again – once that Pandora’s Box has been opened they’ll continue to find things wrong with her and insist on procedures that aren’t necessary. Ignorant bliss is far more preferable for Mum because she fears everything wrong with her is cancer and she’d rather not know about it.
To be honest, she has good reason. It probably began when Mum was in remission from actual cancer, and her doctors asked her in for a random blood test to check if there was any remaining in her body. The receptionist called to say, ‘We need you in to discuss the blood results,’ and then booked Mum in for an appointment five days later. She was beside herself.
If Jude has a cough, it’s throat cancer. If she has a headache, it’s definitely brain cancer. Rash on the face? Cancer. So, to be told that a blood test for cancer needs further discussion is the equivalent of telling her she has three days to live. Mum was so convinced the Big C had come back to claim her, Jeff volunteered to drive the tour bus we owned at the time (something he swore he would never do) to free me up to go to the doctor’s with Mum, which, this time, she allowed me to do.
I sat with Mum in the soulless waiting room, the shopping channel playing on an old plasma TV, psyching myself up to deliver inane pronouncements of positivity in the face of a terminal diagnosis. I took hold of her hand when we sat in the seats facing today’s GP.
‘The test results are fine, I’m very happy with them,’ Mum’s doctor began. ‘I just wanted to let you know that . . .’ It turned out Mum just needed another routine check-up with her oncologist and the GP had asked her in so she could hand Mum the referral and get another eighty bucks for the consult.
Everything else was completely lost on me. I wanted to get up out of my seat, go out into the waiting room and scream at all those poor people to run, run for your lives!
Instead, I took a very deep breath. Two, no three, very deep breaths.
‘Doctor,’ I started. I swallowed audibly. ‘As you know, my mother suffers from a pretty severe case of white coat syndrome. The past five days for her have been absolute torture as she’s been convinced the news is bad. Could I just ask, if it’s at all possible, from now on would you mind reassuring her over the phone that there’s nothing to worry about, if that’s the case?’
The doctor forced a smile vaguely in my direction and agreed, but I knew it was an imposition too great to ask of her. No amount of pleading with my mother will get her to change GPs, but I continue to chip away.
* * *
Mum isn’t the only member of the ‘I refuse to see doctors’ school of thought. Five years ago, when Jeff’s mother, Millie, was here visiting from Birmingham, he dragged her up a very steep mountain to admire a pretty ocean view. The climb pushed her bit far and played havoc with the muscles around her hips. So much so that for the remainder of the trip she was frequently in tears of pain. Jeff tried desperately to convince her that it was just a strained muscle and would get better with rest, a trip to the physio and some light stretching, but obviously Jude’s ‘it must be cancer’ bug was contagious, and so Millie feared the absolute worst. Finally she agreed to see a physio and, not so surprisingly, was told that it was an acute strain of the muscle. They prescribed her painkillers and some exercises to do and asked her to continue these when she went back home the following week.
‘How’s your hip?’ Jeff asked later, when he called to see how the arduous plane trip had been. ‘Are you doing your exercises?’
‘I have been,’ Millie ventured. ‘But then I ran into Mrs Gadd on the street and she said she’s had exactly the same thing as me.’
‘Hmm,’ Jeff said, preparing himself for the worst.
‘For her dislocated hip —’
‘Mum! Your hip wasn’t dislocated!’
‘She was told the best treatment for her hip is rest, not exercise.’
‘It’s not the same as what you have!’ Jeff tried feebly.
It didn’t matter that Jeff, the physio in Australia, and Millie’s own GP in West Bromwich had all identified the same problem – if Mrs Gadd said something different, well then, it must be that.
* * *
After Dad finishes detailing the colour of the muck that came out of his ear, Mum prompts him on another matter.
‘Did you take all your pills this morning, darl?’
‘Pool? Today?’
‘PILLS!’
‘Yeah. Well, I took the green and yellow ones, and two of the white. But I didn’t have the red one because I’m meant to take it on an empty stomach and I forgot before my breakfast.’
‘What about the pink one?’ I joke.
‘No, that’s every second day,’ Dad informs me casually.
‘Jeez, Pete, how many pills a day do you take?’
‘I dunno, mate, I haven’t counted them.’
‘What about you, Jude?’
‘Oh, I only take six a day including my supplements and vitamins. Your father is on about twelve a day, I think.’
I picture one of those large buckets of Skittles and my father painstakingly sorting out the colours and popping them into one of those daily pill organisers. I wonder if there is enough room in each compartment to take twelve whole tablets.
Nothing quite hits home how fragile our aged parents have become as when we see them ill or in need of an operation. This is also when our killer instinct kicks in, our desperate need to take charge, because they’re clearly totally incapable of knowing what’s best for themselves in these situations.
Many elders would probably take their adult children to every medical appointment they could, if only we weren’t all so busy. If we react with compassion and complicity, we’ll be invited back again. If, like me, you tend to ask difficult questions, following up by proposing a holistic response involving diet and exercise as well as medication, then perhaps you might be similarly banished from treatment rooms by your parents.
