Shell Shocked: Health crisis
I’ve had a series of appointments with physicians recently and have gotten my usual annual check ups on my many body parts: spark plugs, carburetor, oil level, tire pressure, brake fluid and battery charge.
I had blood work to evaluate all of this and got a hasty note from my primary care physician. He said that my battery charge was low and that I needed to see a battery specialist right away. Always thinking about preventive medicine, I ran to this specialist the moment I could make an appointment.
He looked at my blood work results and noticed something else in them that may have contributed to a low battery charge — rancid oil. He seemed alarmed.
“I must send you to a rancid oil specialist. You must see him right away. This could be signs of chronic procrastination,” he said.
“Oh, no,” I replied. “I had that years ago and ended up being fined for not renewing my driver’s license on time, for missing six flights in a row because I was late arriving to the airport and showing up for a dental appointment on a Sunday. It was very frustrating, and I can’t see myself going through that again.”
Fortunately, the battery specialist was able to get me an appointment with the rancid oil specialist the very same day. Since I wasn’t suffering from chronic procrastination at that moment in time, I arrived at my appointment exactly on time.
The rancid oil specialist studied my blood work and said “Low battery, rancid oil, hmmmmm. I see that you’re also low on Vitamin L. Have you been drinking your beer regularly as your prescriptions require?”
“No,” I said. “I stopped drinking beer when I began to acquire a pot belly. I’ve been drinking water ever since.”
“No, no,” the rancid oil specialist said. “You shouldn’t have stopped drinking beer. That’s what your issue is. Beer ensures that your battery charge is within normal range. And if this happens, then your oil wouldn’t be rancid. I need to give you a beer injection to get your vital signs back to normal.”
He sent me to the radiology lab where I sat for hours in a crowded waiting room. I noted that most of the people who were waiting their turn also required beer injections. One guy turned to me and told me that the lab had run out of beer and had to send technicians to a nearby bar to get some. He had been told by a lab technician that it was an unusually busy day for beer injections. Did that mean that most of the people waiting also had low battery charges and rancid oil? I wondered.
Eventually, my name was called, and I followed a lab technician into a cavernous room that contained an enormous keg of beer with cables and a needle protruding from it. The lab technician said, “It’s your lucky day. We ran out of beer hours ago and no bar we went to had any left. We had to go directly to the distillery.”
He asked me to remove my shirt and smattered alcohol onto the injection site on my arm. He asked me if I wanted lite or regular beer. I asked him if it mattered. He reviewed my work up sheet and said “Sorry, I see that you require lite beer because of your pot belly.”
He then injected me with lite beer which took about a half hour. I could feel the fizzle of the carbonation flowing into my body and began to sing an Irish folk song. When I was all done, the lab technician wished me luck and told me that I would be as good as new in no time.
As it turned out, that wasn’t quite accurate. I had to take six beer injections before I began to feel normal again.
Art Stevens is a long-time columnist for the Sanibel-Captiva Islander. His tongue-in-cheek humor is always offered with a smile.