This was published 4 months ago
Opinion
‘This won’t hurt a bit’: Why adults become kids when doctors are concerned
Jo Stubbings
Writer and reviewerBowel Cancer Awareness Month is upon us. Campaign ads urge those of us of a certain age to keep our government-supplied poo test close to our chest. “Leave it on the floor,” they suggest, “on the toilet seat, on the bench, so you’ll never forget it when you have to go”. I’m reminded of all the wise little indignities to which we humans must submit to keep the body afloat.
When we enter the realm of tests and procedures, I reckon we come closest to the little child within than at any other time in our adult life. And most of us, even big brave assertive types, are curiously compliant, often to strangers, when they ask us to do preposterous things.
We revert to children when we go to the doc or the dentist. Why is that?Credit: The Age
Like my new ophthalmologist the other day. A tall, good-looking man with a love of fresh air and rhythm and blues. “Lie back in this chair”, Dr Handsome said, interrupting Sunnyland Slim. “I’m just going to inject a steroid into your eye. Is that okay? Now don’t blink.”
Then there was the eye surgeon who, having tended to a hole in my macula – how do you even get a hole there? – insisted that I spend the next 10 days lying on my right side so that the gas bubble he’d inserted wouldn’t move about. Gas bubble? Ten days? On my side? Naturally, I obeyed. Doctor knows best.
And it’s because we think that doctor knows best that we’re so submissive. These people have spent six-plus years slogging it out over mucous membranes and fatty intestines. Who are we to question their wisdom? In them we must trust because we don’t know the first thing about holey maculas and dicky knees.
I reckon the female species is far more accustomed to prognostic proddings than blokes. That’s because women usually want to know if something’s wrong with them and men usually don’t. (And there’s the little fact that we do give birth to the human race.)
The dentist explained what he was going to do and then asked if I’d like a blanket. The new panacea.
Women face a heap of medical indignities which, seen in isolation, surely belong to a Franz Kafka play. “Come over to the machine, bend forward, then back, and I’ll just squeeze your left breast into the shape of a pancake.” I’m sure that’s what the BreastScreen ladies mutter under their breath when you front up on the day. And so, you do it.
And you even do regular pap tests because you’re a law-abiding citizen who’s listened to the warnings. You lie on the bed, locking your knees together as firmly as a chastity belt until the doctor tells you to relax. “What are you planning to do for the holidays?” she asks, coming at you with a steel speculum the size of Japanese pumpkin.
Last week I went to the dentist to have my upper left seven – a heavily filled molar – extracted. Dental surgeries are excellent places for feeling vulnerable.
A friend used to go to a dentist who’d lay a white cloth across her chest where he’d then place his instruments. While the nurse was positioning the sucker, Dr Probe would search about for his mirror and pick, and then his incisor luxator and his curved elevator. This was outrageous, but my friend never raised an eyebrow. In them, we trust.
The only time I rebelled like a naughty schoolgirl was at age 30 when I presented at the dentist’s with a mind-blowing abscess. I was seen by the new doc on the block and begged for a numbing injection before she so much as glanced at me.
“When you have an abscess, it means that the nerves have been destroyed, sweetie,” she explained. “So you don’t need an injection because you won’t feel a thing.” She started drilling the offending tooth and I shot up to the ceiling. This was just before I shot out of the chair and down the passage. “Don’t be silly, dear. Come back please and sit down. Come baaack!”
So earlier this week I went to Dr Niceface for an extraction. He explained what he was going to do and then asked if I’d like a blanket – the new panacea. When the nurse tucked the blanky around me forming a blue cocoon, I thought she was going to sing a lullaby and kiss me goodnight.
No matter how far modern science has advanced, there’s nothing more primitive than having your tooth pulled out. The dentist was really fighting to get this bugger moving. I could feel his arms straining and his breath getting shorter. I imagined I was onboard The Jolly Roger 100 years before anaesthetics had been invented. “Put yer foot on ’er head and give the peg a yank, Jack!”
Finally, the tooth plopped out. The top bit was rotten, but the double roots were strong and white. “It’s a perfect sample!” Dr Niceface cried. For the first time in my sad dental history, someone had praised my teeth.
Swaddled in my cocoon, I burst into tears. Just like a baby.
Jo Stubbings is a freelance writer and reviewer.
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