My knees ache. Why is that? Some would see it as a sign of getting old(er) but isn’t it a bit odd for that to kick in spontaneously (“here, you’re 37 years and one month old, time for your first Non Specified Ache!”). Some people claim that their joints ache when it’s going to rain, but for goodness sake, it rains a lot here. I mean full on torrential build-an-ark kind of monsoon downpours. If my knees are aching in response to impending rain then I may as well go and by my first Zimmer frame now.
No doubt my lovely doctor, the ever-cheerful Dr Tan, would have a rational explanation. One of the truly wonderful things about living in Singapore is the exceptional health service. Since I’ve moved here I’ve had my long term gastric problem resolved (with the aid of copious amounts of tests, x-rays and pills), my eyesight corrected (with the help of two types of lasers), and been brought back to health in record time from a variety of maladies (with the assistance of mountains of drugs).
No doubt there are less drug-fuelled cures available to those with the patience and mental fortitude to wait around long enough, but when it comes to illness I’ll take the drugs thanks. You may consider this shocking but you have to understand that I have lived for ten years in Holland, a country when pain relief is denied to women in child birth, it’s considered weak to go to your GP if you haven’t been sick for at least three days, and even if you do go the doctor he/she is most likely to treat almost any illness with the advice to “rest and take an Asprin”. I’m not kidding, I had zero pain relief for the births of my two boys, EVEN FOR THE STITCHES! For those men out there who may think that pain during childbirth is a natural part of the reproductive purpose, I only have this to say: try shitting out a pumpkin, being stitched up with a ten inch needle and piano wire then being offered an ice cube to sit on as your only pain relief, and you’ll have some idea of what I think of that attitude.
At one stage I did worry that I seemed to be visiting Dr Tan every week. For some reason my immune system got a bit run down after three months here and I kept picking up painful laryngitis infections. I was worried that Dr Tan might think me a bit of a hypochondriac, and had visions of him saying “To lose your voice once may be seen as unfortunate Mrs Holger, but to lose it twice is just downright careless”.
However I’m now back in the pink of health as they say, immune system fully charged, eyesight sharp and voice box well oiled. Now if only I could sort out my aching knees…
No doubt my lovely doctor, the ever-cheerful Dr Tan, would have a rational explanation. One of the truly wonderful things about living in Singapore is the exceptional health service. Since I’ve moved here I’ve had my long term gastric problem resolved (with the aid of copious amounts of tests, x-rays and pills), my eyesight corrected (with the help of two types of lasers), and been brought back to health in record time from a variety of maladies (with the assistance of mountains of drugs).
No doubt there are less drug-fuelled cures available to those with the patience and mental fortitude to wait around long enough, but when it comes to illness I’ll take the drugs thanks. You may consider this shocking but you have to understand that I have lived for ten years in Holland, a country when pain relief is denied to women in child birth, it’s considered weak to go to your GP if you haven’t been sick for at least three days, and even if you do go the doctor he/she is most likely to treat almost any illness with the advice to “rest and take an Asprin”. I’m not kidding, I had zero pain relief for the births of my two boys, EVEN FOR THE STITCHES! For those men out there who may think that pain during childbirth is a natural part of the reproductive purpose, I only have this to say: try shitting out a pumpkin, being stitched up with a ten inch needle and piano wire then being offered an ice cube to sit on as your only pain relief, and you’ll have some idea of what I think of that attitude.
At one stage I did worry that I seemed to be visiting Dr Tan every week. For some reason my immune system got a bit run down after three months here and I kept picking up painful laryngitis infections. I was worried that Dr Tan might think me a bit of a hypochondriac, and had visions of him saying “To lose your voice once may be seen as unfortunate Mrs Holger, but to lose it twice is just downright careless”.
However I’m now back in the pink of health as they say, immune system fully charged, eyesight sharp and voice box well oiled. Now if only I could sort out my aching knees…
1 comment:
Try less *running* on stairs.
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