Diabolical Diabetes

Laughter is the best medicine – unless you’re diabetic, then insulin comes pretty high on the list. British comedian Jasper Carrott.

Diabetics are up in arms. At least, this one is, if this one is at all a diabetic and that is the moot point. Which is the main reason why my arms are up in, pardon the clumsy coinage. Time was when doctors looked at a patient’s blood report, raised their eyebrows and firmly told the patient to knock off sugar, carbs, oil and just about anything else that made life barely supportable. Nowadays things are a bit different. You visit a mammoth hospital with your blood report, having taken prior appointment. Your friendly, neighbourhood GP is a rapidly vanishing breed, if not altogether extinct. After waiting for close to an hour and a half, you are ushered in to consult with the diabetologist.

An assistant trainee medical student, usually a girl barely past her teens, shoves a thermometer into your mouth, takes your blood pressure and pulse readings, checks you out for height and weight and places the duly notated paper on top of a stack of other folders at the senior doctor’s table. Incidentally, what has height got to do with anything? You stop growing once you’ve got your driving license. As for the thermometer, it is my considered view that the fever-measurer being pushed into your mouth is to prevent you from engaging in any form of small talk, a nervous habit most patients are prone to. Placing it under your armpit is now old hat unless you are a newborn baby. You feel like asking her why she can’t just feel your forehead, absorb the resultant coolth and scribble 98.2 or simply ‘normal’ on her A4 sheet.

Anyhow, you thank her while resisting the temptation to tell her that a smile won’t go unappreciated. While these procedures are being completed, the senior doctor is finishing up with another patient who went in before you. You are the 12^th patient that morning which does nothing to improve the doctor’s mood. As patient no.11, an elderly lady of uncertain age shuffles out of the room, you take your seat in front of the man who has all but written the book on ‘Sugar. Do We Really Need It?’

While you are debating whether to wish the doctor good morning, he is still busy writing up his brief report on the earlier patient. Finally, he looks up at you while the young trainee girl points to the paper on top of the pile. He then rapid-reads your report and says, ‘Hmmm.’ Which can mean anything but not anything positive.

I decide to be civil. ‘Good morning, Doctor, so what is the verdict?’

He was not amused. ‘Look, this is not a court and I am not a judge.’

‘Sorry Doc, I was just trying to keep matters on an even keel. Do carry on.’

He appeared somewhat mollified. ‘I do not like your blood report readings.’

‘Quite so, I am not a great fan of it myself. A bit grim, are they, those numbers?’

‘That is an understatement. Very grim. There are a whole bunch of things you need to do if you are not to become a basket case very soon.’ Don’t they teach doctors how to talk to patients?

‘First of all, you need to completely cut out sugar from your diet.’

Of course, I knew that was coming. A body blow. ‘You don’t hold back, do you, Doc? Not a votary of leading into a subject gently. A right upper cut to start with. Were you a boxer in school?’ I considered addressing him, light-heartedly, as Dr. Killjoy, but thought better of it.

He did not see the funny side of it. Just my luck to run into an irascible doctor utterly devoid of humour. ‘Look, diabetes is not a joke. So please keep your wisecracks to yourself and listen carefully. If you know what’s good for you.’

‘Clearly Doc, you do not subscribe to Mary Poppins’ view on the sweetening agent. Remember? Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. In a most delightful way.’ I didn’t actually sing it but it was a near thing.

I don’t think the doctor was born when Mary Poppins, via the dulcet tones of Julie Andrews, hit our screens. He was not impressed. ‘If you’ve quite finished your pantomime, can we get back to your diet?’

‘But Doctor, those numbers only indicate that I could be pre-diabetic. I freely admit I can’t tell my pancreas from my liver but I checked it out on Google. HbA1c 5.7. That’s just on the borderline, wouldn’t you say? And you have to factor my age in.’ No sooner had I blurted out those fateful words than I immediately wanted to take them back. The medicine man was livid. It was like taking a red rag to a bull.

‘Google! Ha!’ he barked. ‘Why didn’t you just stay at home and consult Dr. Google instead of wasting my time and your time driving all the way to this hospital? You are the seventh patient quoting Google at me. Honestly. I intend getting the administration to put up a giant poster at the entrance. Google is a four-letter word and banned from usage in this hospital.’ I resisted the temptation to tell him that literal-minded visitors will point out that Google is a six-letter word, but I let it go seeing as he was already frothing at the mouth.

‘My fervent apologies Doc, but surely you know that every single person nowadays is trawling through Google for anything from the latest cricket scores, Donald Trump’s shenanigans, the Sensex, deworming your pet and to various ways of treating throat allergies. Not to mention every other disease known and unknown to humankind. Ayurvedic, Homeopathic and Allopathic brands are swamping us online the moment we look up anything medicinal. It’s all very well for you to get hot under the collar about it, but Googling has become second nature to us. Like breathing in and breathing out. I bet you do a bit of Googling yourself when in doubt. Here, get a load of this. Diabetes was not discovered by a single person. Ancient Egyptian, Indian, and Greek physicians first documented the disease and its symptoms thousands of years ago. However, the modern medical breakthrough defining its treatment viz., insulin, was discovered in 1921 by Frederick Banting and Charles Best, along with John Macleod and James Collip. I wouldn’t have known all that but for Dr. Google.’ I was really pushing the envelope. I quickly apologised for showboating and being needlessly verbose. I could sense the trainee girl getting itchy fingers with her thermometer.

This time, to my pleasant surprise, the Doctor kept his cool but only just. I thought I detected a patronising smile. ‘Look, I understand what you are saying and the mobile phone is both a blessing and a curse. Let’s just call it quits on that score. Now getting back to your case, I think it is best if we ran a battery of tests before I start prescribing medication.’ Then he added casually, ‘You have insurance, I take it.’

Aha, now he was talking turkey but I was getting restive. ‘But Doc, surely you are the expert on diabetes. You have already condemned me to a spartan diet that will kill my taste buds forever. Just write out a prescription and I will be on my way. What more tests do you want me to undertake?’

He was not having any. ‘My friend, I have to make sure you have no other complication that your diabetes or if you insist, pre-diabetes, won’t aggravate even further. Diabetes is a very sly and insidious disease. People tend to be careless about it. One gulab jamun here, another chocolate pastry there and before you know it, they will be wheeling you here on a stretcher.’ An alarmist, if ever I came across one. He needed counselling.

‘So, what are these tests you are so keen on subjecting me to before I embark on a course of Metformin? Better still Doc, just ask young Florence Nightingale here to email them to me and I will fix an appointment and come again for the MRI, endoscopy, colonoscopy or whatever form of torture you wish to put me through. As for the Scrooges in the insurance companies coughing up, that’s a laugh. I have guests coming home, so I have to make tracks. Have a good day Doc, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’

On that jaunty note, I traipsed out of the room and ran as fast as my legs would carry me. If that diabetologist thinks I am coming back to him, he’s got another think coming.