Last week, I wrote that I am taking naturopathic supplements. I want to update you on the results.
I have grown two large breasts.
Kidding. If that were true, I wouldn’t have any spare time to write this blog.
As part of the treatment, my naturopath told me to take my morning temperature three days in a row. They were 95.5, 95.2, and 94.3. I know that normal is 98.6, give or take. My low temps seemed like a pretty big “take”.
My naturopath put it in a reassuring perspective.
“You have reptile blood.”
He was joking, but concerned. He told me to get my thyroid checked.
I drove to the nearest medical lab for the blood work. The test was not covered by the provincial health plan. The cost was $53 and change, according to the slightly brusque receptionist. She said they take check or cash.
“You don’t take debit or visa?”
“No, we don’t have the machines,,” she said.
“Great,” I thought to myself. “They probably take the blood with leeches.”
“There is an ATM across the street,” she said. Luckily, I had three twenties.
” I’ll just see if we have change. Sometimes we don’t.” She disappeared into a back room, and then returned with six bucks. All in coins.
After a brief wait, she led me to a cubicle for the blood sampling. “So if you didn’t have any change,” I asked. “Does that mean I wouldn’t get any?”
“Oh, no, ” she said, a bit defensively. “I’d just have to go elsewhere in the building to find some.”
At that point, I laughed out loud. I once bought medicine in rural Uganda. The roads were unpaved and the people lived in shacks, but the pharmacist had change.
I rolled up my sleeve and waited for the nurse. That’s when the same woman returned, holding a needle. So, she’s a receptionist-slash-nurse. And I’m the smart-ass who mocked her workplace. And that’s the sharp object she is gong to insert into my arm. I imagined her repeatedly searching for a vein — in vain.
In fact, the blood test went fine. The results are pending, but I learned a lesson. Just as you don’t criticize a waiter until after your food has arrived, you don’t heckle a med-lab worker until after they take the needle away.
Yours truly, The Lizard.