My last physical exam.
Here in the States many of us have a cheaper form of health insurance known as an HMO, or Health Maintenance Organization. Basically this means that you have to go through a bunch of layers of doctors to get treated, so that a General Practitioner can evaluate your condition and see if in fact you really do need to go bother the specialist.

The Primary Care office I went to was affiliated with one of the medical colleges as a teaching practice, so there were four older guys overseeing a couple dozen med students. As a result you could never really be sure who your doc was going to be, if it was to be an experienced doctor or the latest Doogie Howser.

So for my physical exam I set up the appointment with the doctor or one of his associates, and ended up with a tiny little gorgeous brunette running her hands over me and poking into my anatomy. When it came time for her to put on the gloves and squirt some lube on her finger, I found myself very grateful that it was a woman with tiny hands instead of the older guy with hands like a blacksmith.

Still, though, she could at least have bought me a drink first...
( Wanderer, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 18:29, 3 replies)

The NHS
Despite it's flaws, it's controversies, it's waiting lists, it's mistakes, it's occasionally news-grabbing failings, the NHS is the one thing that we should be unceasingly proud of as a nation.

Sod any one who says otherwise.
( Matoosh would rather like a biscuit, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 18:20, 12 replies)

The CATHETER
After years of abusing my body playing American football and pole vaulting (get your mind out of the gutter) it finally caught up with me. The pathetic part was that it was during a friendly game of touch football (for the un-initiated: you place two hands on the person instead of driving his face into the sod, like tackle football).

All good. No stress. However, I was able to catch the oblong pigskin quite magnificently and there were two people on the other team that did not like this. They had a plan: when I went up for the ball, one would hit me high, one low. Cue mid-air cartwheeling with the resultant crash.

This happened once, and as proof of my manliness (or sheer stupidity), I shook it off and got back at it. Same two people, same crap reaction to their incompetence at being able to guard me.

Well, the next day, I was in a bad way. This persisted and after X-rays and an MRI, they discovered three herniated discs and a – you guessed it, a broken coccyx. Years of pain and therapy followed with assorted nasty pills to try to alleviate the pain.

(are there fast forward wavy lines?)

Some years later, I was feeling better, decided to go biking because the doctors forbade me from running, playing organized sports, having a life, etc. It was a beautiful spring day, and instead of my typical 20-30 minute ride I went for well over an hour. All was fine the next day, but soon, I began to rapidly deteriorate. The pain was incredible! It was as if someone was bathing the area below my belt line with lava. I could get no relief, despite the large amounts of narcotics and muscle relaxants. Plus, its effect on my sciatic caused me to limp like Igor and I would endure all day at work, then in the evenings lie on several frozen gel packs. After some time, I bit the bullet and scheduled back surgery.

It went off without a hitch (I suppose – I was pleasantly unconscious). When I woke up, the sun was shining, I had platefuls of unrecognizable food stuffs that I ate due to sheer hunger, and of course there was Jello. Yay! All was well until the nurse, I shall call her Helga, because although I’m no small man, she outweighed me and looked like she could lift a small car in each arm, with forearms larger than Popeye's. She was extremely kind, however and told me I could leave as soon as I did a wee wee.

So, several times she helped me to the head, and stood there while I tried to make water. Side note: hospital gowns are notoriously immodest, but to have an unfamiliar female watch you struggle with the finer points of urination, can be a bit off-setting.

After a few hours of up and down and no results, she suggested the catheter. I had no experience with this device, but still insisted on doing it the way nature intended. In time, she said we needed to drain the main vein and I was feeling a bit bloated, so I agreed.

Dear reader, this was a gross error in judgment.

She had me lay on my back with my gown around my shoulders while she prepared her equipment. My rooster was clucking about happily, enjoying the fresh air and looking proud and happy to be out of the coop. This joie de vivre was cut short: the clucking went to a panicked squawk as the nurse violently seized him around the head and proceeded to force several yards of tubing down his gullet.

Oh the pain, oh the ignominy, oh my stars, did they buy tubing coated with sandpaper? A woman was grasping my unit and I was in no way enjoying it. The pain, the burning, the bloody thing where nature never intended it to be!!!

It did the job, I was drained, but I now keep very fit to keep the core strong to avoid, at any cost, the CATHETER! (and no whining by the female species: you only have mere inches, not feet like us males do.)
( BrokenCoccyx doesn't mind if you grope on, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 18:07, Reply)

Asthma
I've been asthmatic since the age of five, and suffered without incident until the age of 12. I've ended up being carted off to casualty on an annual basis since then.

On each trip I've been treated brilliantly. I get seen within half an hour and am usually off home within 2 hours.

But the best part is that I have an excuse to make an appointment to see my rather yummy GP. Who hasn't yelled at me about not having my smear test yet, unlike scary female doctor.
(ToysForBigBoys would spread her legs for Nick Clegg., Thu 11 Mar 2010, 17:45, 3 replies)

My uncle works in a hospital and he gave us one very good piece of advice
When my sister had to have an operation to fix her deformed big toe (which essentially involved sawing it off and re-attaching it in the right place with titanium screws) he told us to find a big black permanent marker and to draw a big arrow on her foot, pointing to the affected toe. After all, surgeons make mistakes and if you've got two of them it's best not to take any chances.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 17:40, 2 replies)

Chapter 33: In which the Duke is distinctly unwell...
A few years back at the tail end of a long drizzly winter. Spring is blearily opening an eye, wondering whether she should hit the snooze button one more time and the Duke is feeling just a tad under the weather.
So, as one does, I leap manfully onto my trusty* motorcycle and hie myself to the GP and explain that I'm not feeling so good. Coughing rather a lot and getting very little sleep because of it.
Doctor listens intently, makes a note on his pad and informs me quite ernestly that he can't give me anything for it because a simple virus won't respond to antibiotics. My best plan is to rest and come back in two weeks.

Two weeks pass.
I climb wearily onto my two wheeled steed and head back to the docs. Still not at all well I tell him. Coughing pretty much all day every day now. Breathing doesn't feel right.
Doctor listens intently, makes a note on his pad and informs me quite ernestly that he can't give me anything for it because a simple virus won't respond to antibiotics. My best plan is to rest and come back in two weeks.

Another two weeks drag their increasingly snot laden way past the camera.
I catch the bus to the doctors, trying to keep my haggard germ laden breath away from the doddery old dears infesting the wating room like a flock of doom crows. Their gnarled claws just waiting to snatch the last gasp of the living to extend their nightmare existance another few seconds... Things were getting a little surreal by this point.
Tell the doctor that I'm having real. Trouble. Breathing. And I. Really. Really. Don't feel well...
Doctor listens intently, makes a note on his pad and informs me quite ernestly that he can't give me anything for it because a simple virus won't respond to antibiotics. My best plan is to rest and come back in two weeks.

Repeat.

Repeat.

Go home. Fall asleep to dreams of strange and curious landscapes in which the walruses are kings over the honeybees. Wake up with Best Beloved looking at me with her stern face on. Get dragged to her doctor and barely get a chance to explain that I'm not well before she's taking my blood oxygen levels and looking worried. She starts writing down prescriptions and asks me who the other doctor was and what had given me.
So I tell her, and she looks horrified.
"Come back in two weeks ?" she says, scribbling furiously. "You've got bacterial bronchitis and a high fever. Without proper medical attention you wouldn't have two weeks..."

I leave the nearby chemist with two inhalers, a bag full of antibiotics, and some horrible horrible steroids.

Current Doctor writes sharp note to local health care trust.

Previous doctor has since ceased practicing.

I'm Still alive.

Call it a draw.

* Letter T optional
( DukeEuphoria Comes highly reccomended, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 17:35, 1 reply)

Trannys for Cash
As the partner of someone who spent ages in hospital with various wonky-body-syndrome-related health issues, I found myself for the most part getting in the way and generally being no fucking use at all. Though I did have one essential job I threw myself into with gay (in a hetero way) abandon. I became a gofor. Go for this, go for that, pick me up a sandwich from the deli on the corner because I’m not eating the shit they give you in here, go and bring that book from home I’m reading. That sort of thing.

Then I got asked to go down to the hospital pharmacy and pick up some medication (even though my Mrs. was an inpatient for some unknown reason someone had to go down thirteen stories and buy the prescription. I’ll say that again: You had to PURCHASE medication when you’re an inpatient after a major op).

Things didn’t go too well at the pharmacy. Maybe it’s because I was tired, stressed, just generally annoyed with the entire NHS… Maybe its because I was tired of being refered to by the nursing staff as 'the gofor'.

All I can say is when the pharmacist looks at the little slip of paper and says: “This isn’t you. You’re name’s not Elizabeth? Why do you want these drugs?”

What you should answer with is: “Because she’s laid up in bed on the thirteenth floor with staples holding her abdomen together and she can’t quite make it down here just at the minute.”

And what you shouldn’t answer with is: “I’m going to sell them on a street corner in Camden. You can get a quid a tablet* for them up there.”

I learned a valuable lesson that day: Pharmacists don’t understand sarcasm.

And neither do hospital security guards.

And when I eventually sneaked back in via the backdoor, the Mrs. wasn’t too pleased either.

*Tramadol. Known as Trannys in the seedier pubs. A painkiller well known to get one absolutely off one’s tits, if you’re into that sort of thing.
( SpankyHanky, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 17:31, 5 replies)

I had external haemorrhoids.
They're like the normal kind but kind of half-in, half-out, bigger than you'd think possible, and extremely painful. I could barely walk, sit or cough. I saw my doctor, who referred me to the hospital to have them lanced.

It was a fairly quick (but humiliating) procedure done under local anaesthetic, with students observing. There was no pain, but I could feel everything. My lasting memory was the surgeon saying, 'Right... now I'm going to put my finger right inside your bottom...' and 'This scalpel's the wrong size - pass me one of the brown ones.'

When he'd finished he said, 'Well, I must say you're a braver man than me.'

'What do you mean?' I asked.

'Well, when I had these I just sat them out. Waited for them to go away by themselves.'

No one had ever told me that was an option.
( teedyay, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 17:30, Reply)

I love the smell of sebum in the morning
About 10 years ago I had a really sore spot on my back, just on my belt line. It got to be a red angry lump, as if I had a golf ball implanted under the muscle. It was just in the part of my back where I couldn't get a good look at it/reach it to have a squeeze, so I went to the docs.

He took a look and said it was an infected sebaceous cyst - a fucking bit zit - and he'd have to lance it.

Now, we all like to squeeze zits when we're on our own, don't we? He got a small scalpel to open a hole and then spend a good 15 minutes squeezing evil-smelling nameless blood-smeared yellowish goo out of it. In between my yelps of pain, I could almost hear him grinning. I looked round and yes, he was grinning like a kid who'd got both a blonde, a brunette and a bearded Action Man from different indulgent relatives all at the same birthday.

After my back had coughed out the last lumps of matter, he taped me back up and actually shook me hand and thanked me and said "That was fun - I needed that after the day I've had".

I should have been weirded out but somehow it felt like I'd done him a good turn.
( shinyshinyscalp less a man, more a way of life, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 17:28, 3 replies)

I normally have a computer game sound bite as the SMS-received sound on my phone,
so two seconds after the midwife said, "I can feel the baby's head!", a Portal sentry gun said, "There you are!"
( teedyay, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 17:27, 3 replies)

Unnecessary Dental work by a Bunny Boiler.
My dentist was a little bit flirty, which was not a good sign. Coupled with my crippling fear of the dentist I can only assume she took a dislike to me because of my rather dour demeanour during visits. I was very nervous though.

I saw her several times and was generally pretty unimpressed as she used to chat to the nurse about all kinds during treatment as if I wasn't there.

One time I went complaining of an ache in my UPPER RIGHT molar. No worries says she, we'll just x-ray those and see what's what. Ok that looks fine - book yourself in for next week and we'll sort it out.

Next week I arrive and she informs me that I need treatment in my LOWER LEFT molar. Alarm bells started ringing but I assume she's the professional she must have spotted something.

In goes the novacaine. 20 minutes later and i'm comfortably numb.

The drilling starts and I can only describe it as agony, she's drilling away and clearly hasn't numbed my tooth properly. Then after demolishing my tooth she informs me I need a root canal procedure and that she can't do it this visit. Not only that, but before it can be done she needs to spray some stuff in the cavity to kill the nerve and cover it with dentists putty. Then she prescribes me with anaerobic antibiotics (the kind you definitely cannot drink with) and sends me down to reception with a half numb mouth full of dentists putty (it was only later I realised I couldn't actully make a bite as she had put too much tempoarary filing in so couldn't eat either).

I get to reception and find out it's her last week and I can't get another appointment with someone else for two weeks! this must have all been part of her evil plan.

When I eventually came back I had the practice owner treating me. Injection, done. Filling, no pain whatsoever. 'More antibiotics?' asks the nurse. 'Absolutely not that was completely inappropriate' says the dentist. So it seems I was put through 10 minutes of unneccessary agony and two weeks of pain and discomfort by a spiteful dentist who knew it was her last week and had an axe to grind (thankfully not literally).

I saw the culprit in sainsbury's six months later - felt like punching her in the throat.
( TheFinch is getting to grips with the complex plane on, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 17:20, 4 replies)

Oysters, oysters, oysters galore
2 days later lying on a doctor's examination table, the sickest I have ever felt in my life.
Dizzy, nauseous, sweating, chills, burning up, the lot.

"So, please pull down your trousers and turn over on your side..."
More doctor talk... murmuring behind me... doctor talking to an assistant...

Then

What's that?
Am I shitting?
Aow.
Am I passing a stool?
...nn..nnn...nnnnnnope.

He's got his fucking finger up my arse.
And he's having a good rummage. Jesus.
...
...
... aaaaaaannnndddd...

Jesus.

I think he's out.

"Okay! For the next few days eat a lot of blue cheese and yoghurt, that will help kill the blah blah blah..."

Now I understood the look in the eyes of the cows on the end of Christopher Timothy's arm.
(roysin, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 17:19, Reply)

bye bye belly button
last year, i had a suspected attack of IBS. now, as i've suffered from this bowel-clenching illness for the last few years, i pretty much knew what to expect. the pain was the same, in the same place as it always was, just a bit worse. then a lot worse. then so much worse that i phoned an ambulance.
it took me ten minutes to walk from my front door to the ambulance(about 20 yards away), but i couldn't sit without pain. also, it gave me time for a quick smoke.
i was given morphine as soon as i got in the ambulance. i told the medic that it was an IBS attack, nothing to worry about.
we got to the hospital, where i was wheeled immediately into a cubicle. the doctor saw me within 5 minutes. i told him it was just my IBS, no need to panic. "let's just see," says he, sending me off for an x-ray.
what seemed like 5 minutes later(but was actually half an hour), the doctor ran in, with a nurse at his side. she slapped those stupid wristbands on me, whilst he thrust a piece of paper at me.
"sign this," he says. "but this is a consent form for surgery," says i. turns out i was wrong. it wasn't IBS. it was a strangulated hernia, which was about to rupture and kill me.
24 hours and 34 staples later, i have no pain, no hernia and no belly button. yes, the NHS may suck sometimes, but if they'd taken my word for it and not bothered to make sure, i'd be dead now.

length? the scar is about 10 inches long
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 17:17, 2 replies)

Great observation there doc....
Me and the missus went to hospital a few years back, as me missus has spinal discomfort due to being in a car crash (women in cars, lol, whatever next).

She had an x-ray performed on her, and we were to call in to speak to the consultant with them.

Now I'm not pulling the racial card here, but it was an asian doc who proceeded to be the twat of the story. He places the x-ray on the white-screen and points out some staples on top of Mrs Jeccy's spine.
"I see you have had some previous treatment here, plus some strange scarring across your back."

I look at the x-ray too, and very slowly respond with "That's her bra mate."

NHS, fucking A1 :D
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 17:12, 1 reply)

True story
A couple of years ago I had a cyst right on the end of my nose and went to the surgery to have it removed.
When I walked it, the Doctor exclaimed "its a little fatty lump!", so I said "you're hardly one to talk".
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 17:11, Reply)

RP: this was me 8 months back; now back in work with a healthy bumhole a thank yaw....
I was in work one day and discovered bleeding from me bum, so I went to the docs. After a quick examination (which did include the line "At least buy me a meal first doc...) I was to discover I was infected.

I had an op last March which was to remove a Pilonial Sinus (I think that's how it's spelled). Not a nice thing and surprisingly common; basically an ingrowing hair forms a sinus which leads to infection within certain areas of the body which tends to be hairy.

In the case of myself, mine was found to be slap-bang in the middle of my arse cleft, just below the Chocolate Mineshaft.

Now there are medications which can be taken to remove the infection, but these do not cure the root cause which is the hair itself, so the main method of resolution is to surgically cut and remove the entire sinus from the body. Meaning that since the op I've got a new wound in my ass, next to my rusty bullet wound. Which randomly hurts like fuck.

I've been on tablets of varying strengths and the wound has been infected roughly 6-7 times (the first of which was pronounced Strep-toe-cockia, I couldn't make it up, typical, I get a new hole up my ass and within a week I had a cock in it). Also as part of the recovery process every single day I have to visit the local doctors and have the wound-packing changed (except for weekends, a nurse calls round to the house to do it). This involves removing the existing outside dressing and some cotton thread which is stuffed into the wound, and replacing with fresh ones.

So every single day for about 4 months my arse has been seen and visited by many a Swansea nurse, so much so that I have suggested I stick it on Google Maps as a popular tourist spot. I have to drop my kegs and get a rear-bikini wax from the removal of such dressing while some nurse uses a cotton bud to ram cotton wool up my 2nd hole, it's a beautiful thing. It does have it's benefits, some of them nurses are quite fit :D

As you can imagine, small-talk during the anal exchange can be a bit weird. I have been known to have said so far;
"Do you come here often?"
"Bet you wish you was a midwife now."
"..and that's why women are shit drivers..." if she happens to hurt me while prodding it in
"Fucking hell, I'm not Sooty!" after a particularly painful adjustment by one.
Another had difficulty placing the wool packing in and said "The problem here is that your arse is too firm" which was met with the reply "Errrrr, thanks?"

Near the end of the treatment I had to visit the hospital for a checkup by one of the operating consultants, who after another partial moony moment informed me that there was hair growing around the wound but falling into it, so he announced he would shave me there and then. A nurse was called in, who had to palm-push my cheeks as far apart as possible while this doctor dangled a razor-blade very closely to my manhole. I made a quick funny as per; "Do I bite the pillow now doc?" to which the nurse started laffing a bit. This unfortunately led to another nurse in the adjoining room leaning her head through a door to see what was happening, to be greeted with me belly-down with my ass sticking up in the air mounted upon nurse-palm-scaffolding while an African doc was ramming a razor up my ass. I tilted my head towards her to make eye-contact and coughed "Excuse me..." before she sniggered "Sorry" and closed the door.

Apols for length of repost, but my ass is now made for tandems.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 17:05, 4 replies)

DIY Orthodontics
I had an utter shyster of an Orthodontist between the ages of 13 and 15. He became infamous in the North West of England for juggling four practices and performing loads of painful, unnecessary treatment, making hundreds of thousands of pounds which he spent of skiing holidays. Some of his receptionists/nurses were a special breed of harridan, seemingly having such a loathing of all children it was all they could do to not hit us just for making their tiny, overheated, claustrophobic waiting room untidy. Every trip to his horrible surgery was a rotten ordeal.

At the age of 15, they fined me five pounds for missing an appointment. I decided I'd had enough and that I would never go back, which was a bit daft given that I still had a fixed lower brace. Having managed to remove the inner-cheek stabbing wires, the brackets stayed on their own for a few months until I started fiddling with the back ones. To skip to the end, a friend helped me rip them out with a bicycle spanner.

17 years later I still have fragments of (thankfully tooth-coloured) cement on my teeth and welts in my mouth from the palate brace ... but I never did pay that child-torturing bastard his five pounds. And he was struck off in 1999, so it came up roses in the end.
( The Vomiting Hitchhiker Mephistopheles is such a mouthful in Manhattan, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 16:54, 3 replies)

I broke my arm on Saturday playing rugby
I had to wait about ten minutes to be seen by the triage nurse, then about five minutes to be X-rayed, then about another ten to be seen by the nurse practitioner who confirmed it was broken.

Then about another hour and a half for my mate to turn up from the rugby club with my keys, as he'd stayed in the bar to watch the Leicester-London Irish game on Sky.
(Vice Admiral Sir Charles Cockbrush KCB MBE DSO, who is finding it increasingly difficult to log into b3ta.com wants to duck your aunt and kick your puppy, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 16:50, 1 reply)

i have one of those private health care thingies
where you can jump the queue and get things done privately. I only qulified because i lied about my pre-existing injury. Pilpsuk banged his knee on a table - I told everyone it was a Hockey injury until i was asked what position i played and i have never seen a game in my life. i digress.

Jippy LEFT knee. xrays, MRI scan, months of physio - nack all effect. in fact, it got worse.

sent off to the consultant for my pre-op.
DR "There isnt anything wrong with your RIGHT knee, its fine"
pilpsuk "er, i know. Its my LEFT knee"
DR "no, look, thats a right knee" pointing to the scan x-ray
pilpsuk "ill take your word for it"
DR "so, why have your right knee scanned when you didnt need to"
pilpsuk "i would have noticed putting the wrong leg in a fuck-off machine and be blasted with white noise for 30 minutes"
DR "are you sure?"
pilpsuk "its someone elses knee isnt it?"
DR "maybe"

so for the past year i have been having physio for something that is wrong with someone else's knee...and it made my knee worse.

I should have stuck with the NHS
(sarcasminasuit, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 16:40, Reply)

Hand Job
That's got your attention.

Last year I had a bit of grief from a kidney stone, it wasn't a huge problem , I only mention it in passing...... (I'm here all week etc)
One of the tests I had to undergo involved having a camera shoved down my jap's eye, again not too painful but slightly uncomfortable. I've never liked Olympus cameras and now I know why!! What made the situation odd was that the doctor inserting the camera into the too-small orifice was a bright, funny and attractive woman. She was pretty but not in an obvious 'Carry On' style and was probably young enough to be my daughter.

I had to smile as I thought that, although for me there was nothing sexual going on, there must be thousands of blokes that would pay a fortune for a 'service' like this. She was very good at her job and chatted very amiably as though this happened every day which for her it probably does.

After the camera was removed she said "Would you like to have your prostate checked?"
"In for a penny in for a pound" I replied. Then she gave me the thumbs up........... the arse. Many perverts would have been in heaven by now but I was just glad to get the all clear.
(Barnetboy, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 16:18, 1 reply)

Childbirth
As I'm a very healthy guy, I've not been in hospitals much other than to visit people. However, as with many of us here, I spent a bit of time in there while my children were born.

The most memorable one was my middle child. It was a very long labor, and he had mecomium besides. They gave her pitocin to induce a stronger labor after about 18 hours of labor, so instead of the Birthing Center we had planned on originally with its double bed and comfortable space for the father to stay in, she was shuffled off to Labor and Delivery in the main hospital.

I spent about 14 hours sitting in one of those godawful tubular steel hard plastic bucket chairs. I was in my twenties at the time, but even so my back and legs and ass were incredibly sore by the time my son's head was starting to emerge. I was there to watch him come forth, and I cut the umbilical cord, and after all was said and done we got a pizza- and by then it was about 11:00 at night. I had been awake for almost 36 hours at that point, when the nursing staff told me that visiting hours were long over with and I had to leave.

I remember that I stared at her in disbelief. "Are you kidding me? There's a massive snowstorm out there and I've been awake since six o'clock in the morning yesterday! Isn't there a couch I can sleep on for a little bit?"

"No sir, there isn't. You have to leave now."

So I was escorted out of the building a little before midnight during a major snowstorm, sleep-deprived, and had to drive thirty miles to get home. An hour later I stumbled into my house, where my older sister was staying with my first kid. She came downstairs and stared at me. "What the hell are you doing here?"

I wish I had a good answer for her.

As it happened I attended a party almost a year later which included a number of the staff of that particular hospital, and I described with great relish what I had gone through, including the fact that they had put my life (and possibly others) at serious risk because of visiting hours. They stood there looking stunned as I described the lousy chair, the snowstorm, the hour long drive, and I left them very clear about how pissed off I was. My wife tried several times to stop me, but I was on a serious rant at that point. By the time I was done they all agreed that the treatment I had received was appalling and that someone should have applied at least a little common sense to the situation, while my wife stood by fuming at me for airing this publicly.

However, when our third kid was born I noticed that they had a nice padded chair for me to sit in and that they offered me the adjoining bed for a nap before I left...
( Wanderer, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 16:16, 3 replies)

Sad Tale
Apolgies in advance for lack of teh lolz...

As you can guess from my username, I live in China, and am married to a lovely Chinese lady. A few months after our wedding she told me the happy news that she was expecting our first child, and we were both delighted - we were both keen for a child (one being the usual quota). Healthcare in China isn't, inevitably, what you'd get in Britain, no matter what pricks like Dan Hannan say. It's essentially all private, and with the sheer weight numbers (I live in a city of 10 million people) combines the expense of private with the queues of public-sector health like the NHS.

Anyways, we had got to six months in and things were looking rosy. Several scans had shown things to be progressing fine. The kicks were increasingly strong, we were buying all the necessary baby items you need, and like a smug middle-class git I was reading "The Secret Garden" to my child on a nightly basis. Approaching parenthood was almost tangible; the kicks were so strong it was almost like I could shake my child's hand, or tickle his/her foot. We were both feeling ready, with all the nerves and anxiety of any new parents, but in a happy place.

I took my wife to the hospital for a scan and check-up. I sat by the reception waiting. And waiting. And waiting. Phonecalls went unasnwered. A little concerned, I wandered about the area but could see no-one. So I waited some more. Eventually she called me and through tears said "There is a problem, please come".

In the doctors office they told us that the baby (they are not allowed to tell you the gender) had a hole in its stomach, the intestines were outside in the amniotic fluid and consequently advised us to abort. We were numb with shock, didn't know what to do and came home in tears.

We spent the evening reading up about the condition. It's called gastoschisis and affects about 1 in 2000 pregnancies. In Western countries it's not a major procedure to correct, given early diagnosis and correct care being taken. So, with this in mind, and obviously wanting to keep our baby, we decided to tell the doctors we wanted to keep it and ask them about the procedures to do so.

However, in China, with the one-child policy, and the relatively low-quality of healthcare, this was easier said than done. We (eventually) got an appointment with the best maternity doctor in the whole city, who was fairly young, keenly intelligent and had an excellent bedside manner (unlike many of the other doctors and nurses we encountered during this awful time). But even she advised us that an abortion was the only possible course of action - that the risks were too big, that we might end up harming out child or even dragging out our child's death, and other such gruesome possibilties. We enlisted help to find out about the possible healthcare in Beijing or Shanghai, but we told the same thing, every time. Maybe it would have been less difficult if we were in Britain or the States etc, but we weren't. This was obviously a grotesquely difficult decision to make, and one which has induced a lot of guilt and remorse, but it's almost impossible to go against the overwhelming medical advice.

Eventually, we had to go with the medical advice and have a late abortion. The doctors let me come through after delivery and say goodbye to my child. My boy. Our poor boy. Our poor sweet darling boy. I can only hope you can forgive me.
(McChinaman banned, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 16:14, 5 replies)

Fear not, this isn't about my penis reduction surgery!
I went into A&E a few years back with some weird liquid seeping from my naval, after the usual "thumb in the ass" test, at least I hope that's usual, I was taken up to the ward without much dialogue and told they'd do some scans tomorrow. As it happens my condition wasn't deemed serious and every Tom, Dick and Harry who came in after me jumped the queue, I had a CT scan after 2 days, an ultrasound after 2 more, nil by mouth the whole time just on the off chance I might have a scan or operation at some point.

When I finally got told by the consultant I was going under the knife the next day I was relieved. That was until I came round to be told by the nurse that the surgeon had decided it would be best to leave a gaping hole in my stomach so it heals from the inside out. Was a simple matter of packing the open wound twice a day with gauze, yeah, cos that didn't hurt much!

Apologies for length but you should know I don't drive, have no license, can't even ride a bike ;)
( JebediahSpringfield, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 16:12, 1 reply)

i went to see my GP earlier in the week
i'd been having trouble with burping - every time i ate something i would be burping for 4 or 5 hours at a time. the doctor said he thinks that depressed people often take in a lot of air and this might be causing it.

i was not impressed.
( evil pixie, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 16:10, 2 replies)

Not me, but...
heard lots of horror stories about people without the right/adequate insurance in the USA. Example. Guys develops appendicitis, has to have op, bill 20k. Ouch. Never be ill in Sepo-land.
( kappynitty doubled your entendre on, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 16:07, 2 replies)

Misdiagnosis
Last year I was snowboarding in Canada with my bro. He buggered up his ankle, was told by locals was just a sprain, so spent 6 days resting up in hotel room in the hope of getting back on the slopes before end of week. He watched a LOT of ice hockey. Last day spent morning hobbling round the piste, could kind of do it but had to go switch and could only turn left, so as to keep weight on good ankle. In the end gave up.

Flew home, went to hospital.

Broken.
( kappynitty doubled your entendre on, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 16:02, Reply)

The Snot Goblin.
This is rather disgusting.

A few years back I had an extended bout of heartburn\sickness and was sent for an endoscopy (luckily it was the day before the camera was scheduled for use in sigmoidoscopies). I climbed on the table and had the horrid tasting stuff squirted down my throat to stop the gag-reflex (unfortunately the stuff isn't available for recreational use) and the camera tube was introduced successfully. All good so far.

The doctor manipulated the camera and was having a good look round my upper alimentary bits when it happened. My nose started to run. Then the snot thickened. At this point I could barely breathe and tried to convey this to the nurse who was holding me still. She thought I was panicking for a different reason and tried to calm me with soothing words and the reassurance all would be over soon. Too fucking right! If I didn’t get a breath soon I would die!.

So I did the obvious thing and forcefully evacuated the contents of my nasal cavity. All over the doctor’s hand. Luckily he’d seen enough by then and the examination was concluded. But it didn’t end there. A few nights later I was in the cricket club and one of the lads came over. “My wife says she’s never seen that much snot come out of one nose in one go.” Thanks Stevie, that’s why I had to live under the name of Snot Goblin for nearly a decade.
(porkylips looks better as the sun goes down., Thu 11 Mar 2010, 15:58, Reply)

NHS#1
I managed to get run over by a double decker bus many years back. The ambulance took me to St Thomas' where they looked at it and sent me on my way, although how they expected me to get anywhere with one shoe and a foot I couldn't put any weight on beats me.

A week or so later it is still a huge problem so I go to my local hospital and they put a plaster cast on it. Trouble is they put it on over an open wound, so when, some weeks later, they remove it there is a huge pus-filled creater in my ankle.

I still have the scar .
(misspiggy In danger of having to get a job, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 15:57, 2 replies)

Hmmm, nice...
I bet this type of answer is going to be prevalent this week, I'll get mine in now.
A slight misunderstanding by a friend while rock climbing, (misunderstanding between the length of a rope and that of a climb), resulted in me taking a rather spectacular fall in France. All things considered, I came off rather lucky. The only real nasty was my open knee. Opened up like a Happy Eater sign, you could watch my entire kneecap if you were so inclined. Being a tough man type, I climbed out of the 1km high gorge we were in, and went to the beer place.
It was generally agreed the next day a doctor would be needed. So my errant friend took me to the nearest doctor in the region.
WOW! All thoughts of pain gone, this vision of beauty slowly and tenderly undressed my knee with its make shift bandages, all the while looking deep into my (agog) eyes. My limited French meant she had to struggle with English, turning an ordinary language into ear porn.
She held my knee open with one hand, and with the other slid a large syringe (sans needle) right into the wound to clean it out.
"Zis will probably hurt" (How do you type a rolling r?) As she sprayed the vile solution into me my friend went green and sat down on the floor. I smiled, and tried to think up a suitable chat up line.

So I'm all for bringing doctors from abroad. As long as she's one of them.

Not funny, but I'd do it all over again just for her.
( Blind Meach Cautiously optimistic, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 15:54, Reply)