My doctor won’t prod my liver

She turns round and looks, says, “Yes” — and then carries on talking.

“Can you please move them so I can go upstairs? Did you know that 12,000 Americans die every year falling downstairs?” I say.

“Well you’re OK then. You’re not American, are you?” she says.

She slowly walks over and picks them up. As I go upstairs she says to the receptionist: “I don’t know why he couldn’t just have walked round them.”

I stop half way up. “If I’d have been coming down I’d have fallen over them and broken my neck!” I say.

“Well you weren’t coming down, were you!” she says. “You were going up so you’d have been OK. Anyway, as you’re already at the doctor’s, you wouldn’t have had far to go.“

My doctor is wearing a mask, visor, full-length gown and gloves. I feel undressed. I’m only wearing a mask.

“Sorry I’ve got no visor and no gloves,” I say.

He is sitting at least 12 feet away on the other side of a huge desk and leaning back in his chair — as far away from me as he can possibly get. So far that he is almost horizontal. I think he’s got more chance of breaking his neck falling backwards in his chair than catching Covid from me.

“Can I take my mask off now?” I ask.

“No, certainly not. Keep it on please,” he replies.

He asks me to sit on the examination bed. He wants to take my blood pressure first — but makes no move to get up from his chair.

“Have you invented a blood pressure machine on the end of a 12-feet pole?” I ask.

He finally gets out of his chair and comes over and fits an electronic blood pressure machine on my right arm. He then backs away two metres.

The machine starts beeping crazily. “It says you have a blood pressure of 278 over 190 — which is a tad high. In fact technically you’re dead,” he tells me.

I’ve always had a normal reading of 120 over 80.

When I saw him a year ago he told me: “You’ve got the blood pressure of a 20-year-old Olympic runner”. As the last Rosengard ever to do any exercise at all was my great great great uncle Hymie in Plotsk in 1883 (who, running for a taxi, had a heart attack and died) I didn’t think this was good news.

“I don’t think I’m dead, I say. “Try the other arm.”

He takes it again. “150 over 110,” he says.

“Try it again, doctor,” I say. “Go on, third time lucky.”

It’s 120 over 80.

“You’ve got the blood pressure of a 20-year-old Olympic marathon runner,” he says. “I’m sorry about the other readings. I think I might need to buy a new machine.“

“Wait a minute, doctor. Last year you said I was an Olympic sprinter. Now I’m an Olympic marathon runner? Which one am I?“

“Does it really matter?” he asks.

“I’d just like to know whether I’m a sprinter or a marathon runner so that the next time I’m in Nike I’ll know what trainers to buy.”

Fifteen minutes later, after a few more questions and a surprise blood test — luckily I always carry my blood with me; I keep it inside my body for security reasons — he tells me I can go.

“While I’m here, would you like to feel my liver?” I ask. He’s a private doctor; I like to feel I am getting my money’s worth.

“Sorry but I can’t do any prodding,” he says, “because of Covid.”

“What do you mean you can’t do any prodding? You’re a doctor! Doctors prod. By definition. You are in the prodding profession. You can’t be a doctor unless you prod.”

“Well I can’t prod you today, I’m sorry.”

I go back down the stairs without incident. On the way out, I stop at the receptionist’s desk .

“Do you happen to know anything about cats?” I ask.

“Actually I used to be a veterinary nurse,” she says.

“Great! I’ve got a cat but he’s not eating his wet food. What do I do?”

“Give him dry food.”

“ Brilliant! I never thought of that,” I say. “Let me ask you this: do you think it’s OK to get another cat to keep him company?”

“Yes, as long as it’s a girl,” she says. “And she’s got to be done before.”

“Done?”

“Spayed.”

I have had more advice from the receptionist about my cat than from the doctor about me.

“Before I go,” I ask, “I don’t suppose there’s any chance of you giving my liver a quick prod is there?”