Wednesday 22nd November 2006

The toothache I mentioned I had over the weekend and into Monday, but didn’t seek medical help from, instead relying on aspirin, has now gone and has been absent for a couple of days. This is solid proof, if proof were ever needed, that the traditionally male tactic of ignoring ailments is the correct and sensible thing to do. I think I would have to have a limb hanging by a thread of tissue to go to a doctor, the chances of an arm reattaching itself to my body being too slim to take more than two or three days of sitting in bed wishing for a solution. It’s not really that I’m nervous of doctors or dentists, but there’s something idiotically wimpy about asking for assistance.

Although it’s wrong for people to not bother going to the doctor, indeed there was a thing in the paper about this recently that blamed the British ‘stiff upper lip’ for keeping us away, surgeries are normally very busy as it is and so if our attitudes to doctors and dentists changed the service would be overrun. We are doing our bit by not bothering to go.

I wonder if anyone has literally ever suffered from a stiff upper lip, say there is some sort of spasm in it or something, and not bothered going to the doctor? Even if it was effecting their speech or was very painful? The irony of that would be the most ironic thing to ever have happened in history. Alanis Morrissette could happily write about it in one of her songs and include it as the only ironic thing she lists in her song 'Ironic'.

I worked in a hospital for almost a couple of years as an operating theatre porter. A porter for the operating theatres, not a porter who performed operations on the side. They were interesting times and I enjoyed them – although it seems like a lifetime ago now. Anyway I remember that we used to get patients in that place who were in a dreadful state because they’d refused to do and see a doctor when the problem first presented itself or showed signs of danger. And these patients were pretty much all male. Some old women, they being stubborn, but mainly men. It’s odd why this would be the case, and I don’t know why it is that we’re more reluctant to seek help or advise than women, but it’s certainly a truism.

I think coughing up blood is the medical equivalent of trying to put an Ikea flat-pack coffee table together. The thing will be all over the place but we’ll be damned if we’re going to look at the instructions, let alone ask anyone for help. Unless it’s another bloke – we can ask them for assistance. “Give us a hand with this bloody stupid thing will you – I think this bastard bit goes on the top somewhere�, or “look at the blood in this vomit, what does that say to you, mate?� but never a woman. Never ask for advice from a woman on a coffee table or suspected cancer, that’s our motto.

I’m naturally pleased that the toothache has gone, because continued dental pain is insufferable. What would you rather have for the rest of your life… Toothache, or no arms? It’s no arms. You could get prosthetic ones, and in the future probably cool robotic ones that could give you super strength, but perpetual tooth pain… absolutely no way could you live for more than a month. No arms, you’d get used to that.

My brother’s birthday today and I forgot until I saw the date on my computer screen at about 6pm. No card then. I rang him and he said it was fine but it didn’t make me feel less guilty. He is male and therefore doesn’t care that a fellow man has forgotten his birthday. But if it was a woman that forgot his birthday, he’d go for the guilt vein without a doubt. If only we could be as vigilant when it comes to vomiting blood, perhaps then we’d live as long as our female counterparts.

Thinking about it, the fact that women live longer than men on average… That better be generic because if it’s to do with us not going to the doctor…? No, surely that’s not the case is it? That would be amazing.

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