Whenever I\u2019m in the little waiting room, after first doing time in the big waiting room, I\u2019m told, \u201cJust sit here; the doctor will be right with you.\u201d Well, that never happens. You\u2019re going to wait. I don\u2019t sit there like a dummy, as instructed, I get up and check out the room, wondering if they\u2019d miss a pair or two of those latex gloves or any other useful medical items lying around; gauze, bandages and the like. Not the high-ticket items. But I leave the gloves, not worth the embarrassment of getting caught red handed, though they really should let us take what we need for what they charge for a visit. <\/p>\n
Instead of pilfering, I switch to education, study the charts on the wall or those replicas of body parts: the human heart, the knee, hips, finger joints, eyeball, ear canal, tooth structure, skin layers and the like. You can see from my list; I\u2019ve been in the offices of many different specialists over the years. Most old guys have.<\/p>\n
It never ceases to amaze me, all the stuff going on inside the human body \u2013 hidden by a protective covering of skin. All those complex functions are monitored and controlled by a part of my brain that runs things, while keeping me in the dark. We get a peek inside every once in a while; when the doctor shows us an x-ray, cat scan or MRI image. We\u2019re a gooey collection of tissue, muscles, bones and organs, each with specific duties. Highways of red blood vessels carry food, oxygen, and other substances to where it\u2019s needed, and blue vessels coming back for more.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an interesting exercise to look down at yourself and try to visualize what\u2019s going on under the skin. It looks so calm from the outside. I have a half-size skeleton that\u2019s been with me for decades; I study it whenever my framework gets out of kilter. It helps me understand what might have gone wrong. It came with a red bulging disc between L4 and L5 long before my disc, at that location, put me on the operating table. Irony? Or maybe Voodoo? I also have several anatomy books to help understand issues the doctor explains to me in a foreign language, Latin. I go home, open the book, and figure out what he said. <\/p>\n
If you have friends over 30 and you can\u2019t figure out what to get them for their birthday, give them an anatomy chart that works its way, layer by layer, from the skin to the skeleton. They will love it even more each year as they approach, and then get well into old coot age. <\/p>\n