We could all do with a little levity this year, says MUIRIS HOUSTON
I HOPE YOU had a great Christmas with lots of time to relax and that you tried a little hedonism, something we could all do with this year. Maybe you followed the mantra: eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we diet. But don’t worry, I’m not going to write a diet or resolutions column this week. Instead let’s have some fun with the latest in medical jokes.
You know you are getting older when:
The only high you get is when you stand up too quickly;
You harness your restless leg syndrome to power a rocking chair;
The hair in your soup is from your nose;
The only thing that makes time stand still is constipation;
You pull an all-nighter to study for your prostate exam;
You unexpectedly come home and catch your husband in bed with a heat pad;
The way to your heart is through an angioplasty;
You lie awake at night wondering “is my bladder half-full or half-empty?”;
You get a leaflet through the letter box telling you that you can have sex at 75 . . . and you are happy because you live at number 93, so it’s not far to walk home afterwards;
Your screensaver is an optician’s eye chart;
You adopt the sexual philosophy: “Past performance is no guarantee of future results.”
Finally, true acceptance of your age is sunbathing in your Speedos.
Meanwhile, here are actual bloopers from patient’s charts:
She slipped on the ice and apparently her legs went in separate directions in early December.
The patient experienced sudden onset of severe shortness of breath with a picture of acute pulmonary oedema at home while having sex which gradually deteriorated in the emergency department.
He had a left toe amputation one month ago. He also had a left knee amputation last year.
The patient is a 79-year-old widow who no longer lives with her husband.
Doctors in different branches of medicine become stereotyped, as the following story shows:
Four doctors went on holiday together: a GP, a hospital physician, a surgeon and a pathologist. All four went out together to shoot ducks. The GP went first. He raised his gun as the birds passed overhead, but didn’t shoot.
“What’s wrong?” said his friends.
“I wasn’t completely sure whether they were ducks.”
Next was the physician’s turn. He raised his gun as the ducks flew overhead, but like the GP, didn’t fire. The others looked at him quizzically.
“I hadn’t completely excluded the possibility that they were, in fact, parrots.”
Next, it was the surgeon’s turn. He didn’t hesitate but raised his gun and shot 15 ducks out of the sky. He then turned to the pathologist:
“Have a look at those for me, and tell me if one of them is a duck.”
Finally, Viagra jokes are still doing the rounds. Here’s my current favourite:
A man goes to visit his 85-year-old grandad in hospital. “How are you grandpa?” he asks. “Feeling fine,” says the old man.
“What’s the food like?”
“Terrific, wonderful menus.”
“And the nursing?”
“Just couldn’t be better. These young nurses really take care of you.”
“What about sleeping? Do you sleep okay?”
“No problem at all. Nine hours solid every night. At 10 o’clock they bring me a cup of hot chocolate and a Viagra tablet, and that’s it. I go out like a light.”
The grandson is puzzled and a little alarmed by this, so he rushes off to question the nurse in charge.
“What are you doing?” he says. “I’m told you’re giving an 85-year-old Viagra on a daily basis. Surely that can’t be true?”
“Oh, yes,” replies the nurse. “Every night at 10 o’clock we give him a cup of hot chocolate and a Viagra tablet. It works wonderfully well. The chocolate makes him sleep, and the Viagra stops him rolling out of bed.”
Here’s to a happy and healthy New Year.