...
Zaphod: Started with a bang.
Wanda: The vacation?
Zaphod: Did a core duo.
Wanda: New computer?
Zaphod: No, no. Routine tests show some abnormalities, medspeak for looking GP looking serious and sucking his breath, and he recommends colonoscopy and I say I have a pain, topside not bottom, so he says, make that two, a colonoscopy and a gastroscopy to check the duodenum.
Wanda: Ouch. Skewering you top and bottom ?
Zaphod: The night before was more devastating. Drink three liters of PEG lavage, talk about swallowing soap, and take a laxative.
Wanda: Flush everything out?
Zaphod: Ten times all through the night. Check in 6:30 AM.
Wanda: Cruel hour.
Zaphod: Anyway, in the prep room nurse sticks a needle in my front paw, like putting down a cat or a dog. Some hours later I wake up in recovery and nurse comes with a cup of tea and says doc just got a couple things talk you through and I think, ha, three months or six, but he shows me the pix and gives me a DVD of what the camera saw all in subterranean Tuscan orange.
Wanda: Polyps?
Zaphod: Sorry, none. Patch of inflammation best he could find.
Wanda: And the fix?
Zaphod: Meds and no beer two weeks.
Wanda: How are you going to survive?
________
Voiceover
Doctors do it during operations, pilots do it after crises. Joke around.
Making light of medical-related anxieties may be a similar defence mechanism for patients.
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