Open Writing

Girls should think twice before marrying a doctor says a leading psychiatrist.

Marriage to doctors is a risky business, the stresses they undergo in their job often leads to marital problems. Another of my illusions severely ruptured.

I fondly believed that a doctor in the house must be the salubrious answer to every girl’s dream, a chance really to let your symptoms down, a marriage glowing with efficacious prescriptions.

I imagined him sitting across the table at breakfast, his strong hand resting nonchalantly on my pulse, listening eagerly as I give him an exact account of how I slept. How often have I envied the lot of a doctor’s lady?

At home my symptoms bring everyone out in newspapers, books, or some just turn up the television volume. Of course they all make suitable tutting noises from behind their national fronts, but they ignore my complaints. That is probably why one winter evening found me discussing my torturous boil with a neighbour’s husband over the garden wall. After listening obediently to the riveting description of his frost-bitten gladioli I treated him to a blood-curdling episode of my festering condition. This is one area where, given the right audience, I really excel. When it comes to describing ailments I have this exceptional talent. Of course it takes a lot of practice and not a little suffering.

Once when I was speaking to our doctor over a neighbour’s telephone, closely watched by her small son, I described my baby’s feverish chill so vividly that both the lad and I finished up sobbing and the voice on the other end sounded a bit hoarse. My revelation on the birth of our twins would probably have a greater effect on the birth rate than the pill. But that’s another story that should only be swallowed on an empty stomach.

Later that night following my neighbourly conversation, there was a knock on our door. ‘It’s probably the chap across the road come to poultice my boil,’ I joked hoping to extract a little pity from the man behind the newspaper. When I opened the door and saw him standing on the doorstep with a tin of Kaolin in his hand I nearly fainted! And I had not even mentioned the embarrassing location of my pain.

But having a doctor husband must surely make the children’s illnesses less disconcerting. No rehearsing their symptoms over and over again until he arrives. ‘She awakened this morning doctor with pains in her chest er . . . no she has this violent pain in her chest doctor that kept her awake all night.’ Like the game of ‘whispers’ the end product sounds nothing like the original. Then all the tidying up and rushing to the door every time a car stops, until even the dog looks confused. When his car does eventually arrive, the patient has disappeared! It has been said that as medical techniques improve the relationship between doctor and patient sadly deteriorate. But is this just a nasty rumour spread about by people who expect too much from their GP?

I have a deep respect for mine, in fact one day I would love to have a healthy conversation, perhaps discuss his harmful habits instead of mine. The only time he lost his bedside manner was when I invaded his surgery after hours. My son had walked into a concrete post and looked as if someone had stuck a boiled egg on his forehead. Expecting it to explode any minute, I ushered him into the doctor’s privacy. He told me in clipped ‘How dare you burst in here’ tones, his diagnosis on uninvited gormless little boys and their neurotic mothers.

‘But look at his head,’ I pointed to the outsize lump where his head had just been. This unleashed some querulous sarcasm. ‘How long was he unconscious? Can he speak?’ But fears dissolved and humour restored I apologised for allowing this catastrophe to occur at such an inconvenient hour and left, deciding a new fire engine for egg-head was not necessary after all.

Perhaps having a correct diagnosis always to hand does not lead to content-ment. What if this ingrowing toenail is actually the first stages of the treacherous Bengal Rot? Would I feel better knowing the truth? There is no doubt about it, I definitely married the right man!

*

HAVE you noticed the radiant healthy look on most parents’ faces this week? They have all been transformed by those three magic words ‘Back to school!’ Yes, it feels great to be alive again.

As our dynamic duo don their uniforms one missing item is causing much dissension. What has happened to the school satchel? Our children are developing into a nation of shopping bag carriers. The durable leather holdall we used to wear strapped to our backs, leaving hands generously free for other schoolgirl pursuits is being replaced by ephemeral ‘shoppers’ - canvas and plastic hold nothings euphemistically called schoolbags. When I refuse to
invest in any more, until at least the satchels have been given another airing, I receive the ‘stock’ answer. All sensible apparel transforms wearers into the ‘laughing stock,’ we are up against the pervasive ‘they’ again.

This dissenting group has become somewhat enlarged over the holidays and now includes ‘the whole class.’ They are provoked to hysterics by comfortable shoes, ordinary white blouses, medium length grey skirts, and hair which stops short at the nose- end.

‘They’ wear make-up, stay out indefinitely and are the ultimate envy of all children with old-fashioned mothers. On parent evenings ‘they’ are all mysteriously replaced by replicas of my long-faced anarchists! I still don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I see my two scholars stagger down the path in their thick soles with a violin or guitar and several bulky shopping bags dangling from each arm. Surely a satchel on the back is worth two bags in the hand?