Toe in the Water

Mortal Musings

Mortal Musings

Another meeting with my pee doctor this morning (I will have to tell him we should stop meeting like this). Not for anything really - just for him to harangue me some more about all the tests he wants to conduct on me. We have an ongoing duel on this score. I keep explaining to him that I can’t afford even one of the tests, and he tries to find ways to make them more palatable to me.

It’s a bit like a Martian trying to work things out with a Venusian. I speak a little Venusian and can understand the pressures on him to cover all possibilities. Not sure that he understands Martian very well, however. This is the guy who made the mistake of telling me that I don’t have to worry about prostate cancer (I wasn’t but he definitely didn’t understand that) because, if I get it now, I’ll be dead of old age long before it kills me. They give up being interested in PSA levels (whatever they are) when you reach the age of 69.

So I don’t see a need to do the tests, even if I wanted them done (I don’t - I’ve had my fill of being prodded and inspected through natural and artificial orifices at every turn). The truth is I’ve exceeded the biblical allowance for age (three score years and ten) by four years now and that’s more than I ever expected to make. Anything further is a bonus (or maybe a curse).

My pee doctor doesn’t believe me on that score, of course. He figures that I’ll get cold feet when the reality of death knocks on the door. I haven’t bothered to tell him that I’ve been there a few times already and yes, to some extent there’s a natural reaction of striving to hang on a bit longer, but one gets more weary as the years roll on. Rest gets more attractive with the passing days, especially when one considers the insane mess the world is becoming of late.

Hopefully, I’ll last long enough to complete an entry to Schnujo’s Whatever Contest "The Whatever Contest -- Closed for Now" , which should cover the matter of what happens to my portfolio in the ultimately inevitable occurrence of my death.

No doubt my pee doctor will continue to arrange for more duels in the future. In fact, that is more or less guaranteed, now that he has established communication with my ordinary doctor (who is from Uzbekistan and possessed of a boundless optimism towards the world - although I’m not sure that one is the result of the other). I can look forward to increasingly complex and cunning arguments as they collaborate on their strategy.

It’s almost a pity that they’re bound to lose in the end.

Or should that be “my end?”


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