At the doctor's

Mrs Davey and I both take life-giving herbs that we obtain from our local doctor. He's a fine young man of remarkable efficiency and a head smooth as an ice-rink. Every time I see him he makes some remark about his baldness, and every time I remind him that he still has some hair, around the edges, but that he shaves it off.

I'm off the point.

Anyway, Mrs Davey has been suffering from alarming palpitations, so she is in the middle of examinations and treatment for that.

I, meanwhile, have a painful left foot. I have treated it myself with stretches, massage and sensible shoes, with the entirely predictable result that it's got steadily worse. So I waited till my next order of life-giving herbs was due and went to see the doctor with my foot.

"It's my foot."

"I suspected as much when I saw that you had taken off your pump."

He prodded and probed.

"Ouch!", I said.

"Well", he said, "you have to knead it and wear sensible shoes." 

He admired my sensible shoes and asked where I got them. He's been looking for something similar.

"We'll get an ultrasound examination of your two feet." 

"My two feet?"

"Oh yes, we need to compare! And also we better send you to see a cardiologist again soon and get another set of blood tests."

He spoke of a new cardiologist they've started dealing with, and his eyes lit up. 

"She does ultrasound examinations of your jugular and femoral arteries to see if there's any constriction due to build-up of plaques!"

"Don't you think that there are some things that you are better off not knowing?"

He laughed.