Forty winks with my doctor

Some people talk in their sleep. Lecturers talk while other people sleep. Albert Camus.

I was at my general physician’s chamber a few days ago for a routine check-up. I had my latest blood reports, ECG, chest and spine X-rays at the ready. He waded through them perfunctorily, as doctors are wont to do, intoning a ‘Hmmm’ and an ‘Aaah’ or a ‘Tsk, tsk’ now and then. He would also squiggle some unintelligible markings on the pages (another fad of doctors), while you watched silently and a tad apprehensively. Then he views the ECG and mutters something that sounds like ‘arrythmia,’ but as he is muttering to himself, I am still unable to get a word in edgeways. A man of few words, my doctor, playing his cards close to his chest.  Finally, he slots the chest and spine X-rays on to a wall-mounted light box and stares at them for what seems an eternity. I too keep him company and gape at the grey images with no idea of what I am looking at, my pulse starting to elevate by now at an alarming rate. If only the man would say something.

At last, he is done and I wait for his pronouncement. Instead, he asks me a question.

‘Are you in the habit of sleepwalking at night?’

I thought that was a silly question, as if anyone sleepwalks during the day. How could I possibly know if I am in the habit of sleepwalking if, by definition, I cannot be aware of such nocturnal perambulations? Then again, he is the doctor so I had better attempt an answer.

‘I could not possibly say, doctor. If I am walking while sleeping, then I am not aware of it. Stands to reason.’ I thought I had made a good point, but doctors are made of sterner stuff. He was not to be deterred.

‘Surely, your wife would have noticed,’ he said.

‘In the dead of night? She herself would be deeply resting in the Land of Nod. Even if she had been awake, they say you should not wake up a sleepwalker as things could turn ugly. She could alert me the following morning, but as I have heard nothing from her, the sleepwalking theory can be put to bed. Unless, of course, she was also sleepwalking. Then we are in big trouble.’

‘You don’t suffer from sleep apnea, then.’

‘Is that a question or a diagnostic statement? I don’t even know what apnea means.’

‘Never mind. What about getting up in the middle of the night to do your small job? All elderly people go through this nuisance.’ The doctor was clearly adamant. He was pursuing a line of questioning leading to an unpleasant destination. Prostate issues, perhaps? I was getting a bit miffed.

‘Doc, if I needed to get up in the small hours to do my “small job” as you so colourfully put it, then I would have been fully conscious of it. On the other hand, if I am sleepwalking, I have no recollection, until the cook complains next morning that the vessel containing the almond soufflé in the fridge is conspicuous by the complete absence of any soufflé. The empty glass bowl stares accusingly in my direction. In my defence, I am allergic to almond soufflé. Somebody wolfed it down and it was not me. The needle of suspicion points to the cook. She should be grilled, speaking metaphorically.’

 My doctor stifled a yawn and continued. ‘Right, so you do not walk while sleeping. Let us turn to other matters. Do you snore at night?’

Another daft question. ‘Doc, which sleeper ever admits to snoring at night? I might as well ask you the same question. I will vehemently deny that I snore, but my wife will hold a diametrically opposite view. The same is true if one reverses the roles. It is an age-old verity. I am one with author Anthony Burgess (A Clockwork Orange), who said, “Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone.”’

‘In other words, you snore. Why don’t you just say so, instead of rambling all over the place? Anthony Burgess, bah!’ I could see he was getting a trifle tetchy.

‘Sorry Doc, but what has all this sleeping and snoring business got to do with the price of fish?’

‘I am coming to that. Price of fish, eh? Nice one. I must use it sometime with one of my other patients, preferably a strict vegetarian. One last question before I can arrive at a definitive diagnosis. Do you generally sleep on the right side, left side, or flat on your back?’

Again, with the sleeping. What is this obsession with my sleeping habits that seems to so fascinate this physician? I was now certain that he was going to start on the subject of dreams. And there, right on cue.

‘Do you have dreams while you sleep or are you blessed with being able to sleep dreamlessly? Dreamless sleep, as you will agree, is a consummation devoutly to be wished.’

Shakespeare creeping into his conversation now. However, that did not reduce my growing sense of unease. I was beginning to feel my doctor needed to consult a different kind of doctor himself. ‘Physician, heal thyself,’ about sums it up. Jesus Christ said that, and he knew a thing or two about healing. While I did, like everyone else, have dreams while I slept, not counting day dreaming, I did not want to encourage this doctor any further. Had I done so, he might have taken off on Calpurnia hearing her husband moan and so on. I had to find a way to put a stop to this nonsense.

‘Doctor, can we please move away from the subject of dreams and fitful slumber and all that kind of Freudian stuff? Just tell me what my blood reports and X-rays reveal and I will be off before you can say ‘now is the winter of our discontent.’

The doctor appeared somewhat mollified by my own contribution from the Bard’s canon and reason returned to its throne. ‘Listen, your blood readings are all within the normal limits, so you don’t have much cause for concern on that count. However, your spine appears to be slightly wonky?’

‘Wonky? Meaning? Scoliosis?’

‘Pardon the slang. And please stop self-diagnosing. You have a cervical issue which is what is leading to your having bad dreams, walking in your sleep and so on. I will send you to an orthopaedist for further investigation.’

‘For the last time Doc, I do not walk in my sleep and when I do have dreams, I have usually scored a double century at Lords or just beaten Djokovic in the final at Wimbledon. And I sleep like a baby. If it’s all the same to you, I do not wish to see a bone doctor. I will bid you good day.’

The doctor had the final say. ‘That will be Rs.1000/-. Cash, card or UPI?’

 As I left his chamber, I could faintly hear him reciting Hamlet to himself, ‘O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space. Were it not that I have bad dreams.’

‘Checkmate,’ I said to myself.