A doctor's plight!

It is a Monday and I am down with a viral sore throat. Nothing can be worse than a viral sore throat for me. It does not show on the outside, and yet, it drains me totally from the inside. And when the viruses decide to hit me, they send the worst of the lot- Mean, and highly virulent. The throat feels like sand-paper and I am hardly able to swallow anything. I feel overly thirsty, as is common with this malady, and the warm water hardly quenches the thirst. Except for my wife who doesn’t tire warming water for my gargles, I find no one else sympathizing with me for my plight. Not in the least, my patients.

Sharp at 8.30 in the morning I got a call from a patient. It is noteworthy that Indian public have absolutely no qualms about calling up their doctors on their cell-phones at any time of the day. They only need to make a second or a third visit in the out-patient and they misunderstand the doctors’ profession-driven friendly demeanor akin to that of their closest pal and ask for the cell number with as much sense of a fundamental right to it as would an eighteen year old have towards voting.

‘Doctor, I’m coming to your hospital for consultation at 10 today. My back still hurts.’

‘Er…, I am taking an off today. Can you come tomorrow?’

‘But I have an appointment for today!’ (How can you even think of taking an off?)

‘I’m not well, so..”

‘Not well? But you’re a doctor!’

‘So?”

‘So? You’re a doctor, doctor! How can you fall ill? If you doctors fall ill, where will we go?”

‘But we are humans too!’ (I begin to feel irritated by now)

‘No, doctor, you doctors are Gods! You cannot fall ill. I am coming at 10 and please see me, my back feels bad.’

 Not in a mood to be intimated. I said, ‘By your logic, an undertaker must never die; a car mechanic must never have a broken car; a dhobi must never be seen in dirty clothes; and a divorce lawyer must never marry!’

I don’t know what effect my outburst had on him but I got a disconnected tone on my phone. Something pinched me and now I am ready with a warm shower, a couple of pills, a breakfast of tasteless cereal, and a plastic smile- ready to enact the role of a doctor- a hale and hearty doctor with godly powers to heal. Heal all and sundry- except myself. God, I need a doctor!