It all started innocently enough: I needed a new referral from a GP for my dermatologist who's keeping an eye on my melanomas (I guess that's how they keep each other in business).
The GP, who's from Sri Lanka (we send them development aid; they send us their doctors), asked, "When did you last have a check-up?"
Check-up?", I replied, "I guess they weighed me when I was born." (Germans are not only worldleaders when it comes to building cars and running trains on time but also when it comes to being funny because we take our humour very seriously).
After much thigh-slapping and laughing (I laughed so hard the tears ran down my legs), the GP prescribed a battery of blood tests and, being on a roll (or a commission), added an ECG (or 'electro-cardiogram' to those who suffer from acronyphobia).
I've just come back from a Myocardial Perfusion Study carried out at the Southern Nuclear Imaging Group and I'm still glowing after they injected me with some sort of radioactive substance. Couldn't quite see the label on the vial as the nurse (aka Nuclear Medicine Technol-ogist) was holding it upside down but I think it read: 'lʎqouɹǝɥƆ'.
She assured me that this dose of radiation was the same as the one I would receive during two return flights between Sydney and London. Difficult to compare as the last time I sat in the pointy end of a QF1-flight to London, they plied me with so much free booze I glowed in the dark with or without radiation.
Then she strapped my arms above the head and shoved me into a tunnel for twenty minutes while some sort of camera-stuff whirred and rotated above and around me. And that was just for starters to tell them what my heart looks like at rest!
Pity but my nuclear medicine technologist didn't look that good! ☺
This coming Thursday they'll put me on an exercise bike to simulate the Tour de France and just when I think I've won the yellow jersey, they'll inject me again (I can already feel my trypanophobia kicking in again) and shove me back into the tunnel to find out what my heart looks like under stress (hadn't I told them that I was a married man and already under stress?)
Anyway, my heart should be as good as new because as an accountant I hardly ever used it! ☺
