16

Ageing Beautifully

We have an ageing population, and Herald readers who are getting on a bit are happy to tell us about the dafter things that happen when you have had more birthdays than you care to remember.

 

A FIFE nurse swears to us that a patient recovering after an operation had to be told that he was going back into surgery as staff believed a swab had been left inside him and it had to be taken out. “Here’s 10p,” said the patient. “It cannae be worth more than that.”

 

GROWING old, a thought. A reader in Edinburgh phones to tell us: “I’m at that stage in life where my bladder is at its weakest and my phobia of public toilets is at its strongest.”

 

TALKING about ageing, a Pollokshields reader tells us: “The computer constantly tells me to protect my password. I find at my age all my passwords are protected by amnesia.”

 

 

A GLASGOW reader was in his local pub where a fellow customer was telling his pals that he had gone for a check-up with a new doctor that he had registered with after moving.

The chap told his mates: “The doc said I should cut back on sugar in my diet, drink less alcohol and coffee, and reduce the stress in my life.

“So I said to him, ‘Fair enough. But realistically what should I do?’”

 

GROWING old, continued. A Milngavie reader tells us: “My doctor was worried about me becoming a bit infirm and suggested I get a bar fitted in my shower cubicle. If he thinks a glass of wine will help, I’m all for it.”

 

CONGRATULATIONS on Paisley Museum securing a £5 million lottery grant to help turn it into a world-class dest-ination. Somehow the award provoked a Greenock reader to phone and tell us that Paisley folk are in fact known for their parsimony.

He said: “There was the story of the chap who was knocked down at Paisley Cross and a passer-by going over to see if he was all right. When the chap still lying on the road said he was only winded, the passer-by asked if he would like a fag. When he said he would, the chap asked, ‘What pocket are they in?’”

 

GROWING old, continued. “When you realise the barber has cut more hair from your eyebrows that your head,” says Jim Inglis.

 

WE asked for your GP stories, and Russell Smith in Kilbirnie recalls: “Many years ago as a young GP in Paisley I received a late call to an ailing old lady, three flights up in a tenement. After establishing that she felt ‘chesty’ and negotiating numerous layers of clothing I gave her a prescription to be told, ‘That’s no’ me – she’s across the landing.’”

And John Sim in Dumbarton says: “My old doctor in the Gorbals was from the Middle East and was just getting to know some of his patients and their local phrases. He told of a phone call from a woman whose child was unwell, and when he asked what the symptoms were she said her son was ‘spewing rings’.

“The puzzled doctor asked how many rings there were and could she bring some in for him to examine.”

 

GROWING old, continued. A Lenzie reader tells us: “I’m at an age where I had an early night – and realised it was so early that I could still hear a neighbour mowing their lawn.”

 

ONE of the big sellers over Christmas was the book This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay, who describes his life as a junior doctor. He tells of a woman giving birth who had a cord prolapse and she had to rest on all fours while he wore a glove up to his shoulder so that he could insert his hand to keep the cord in place. Writes Adam: “The midwife led into the room the husband. ‘Jesus Christ!’ he says in a heavy Glasgow accent. The midwife remonstrated that she’d warned him I’d be holding the cord out of the way. ‘You did,’ he says, his eyes like dinner plates. ‘You didn’t say he’d be wearing her like Sooty though.’”

 

GROWING old, continued. A Troon reader writes: “Apparently I am now at that age where I ‘look good for my age’.”

 

AN AYRSHIRE reader tells us a chap in his golf club was relating: “Went to the doc’s for my annual check-up. The practice nurse asked me to pop on the scales and, worried that I was going to get a lecture on putting on weight, I took off my boots, and then for good measure took my keys out of my pocket. ‘Do you want me to wait while you shave your eyebrows?’ she asked me.”

 

GROWING old, continued. Says Mark: “When you reach 50, there’s no point starting a film after 8 pm.”

 

A SOUTHSIDE reader who returned from a shopping trip to Silverburn tells us: “I didn’t know who to feel more sorry for – myself for not being able to remember where I parked my car, or the driver slowly following me through the car park hoping to get my space.”

 

GROWING old, continued. Says David Donaldson: “I have discovered that you can recreate the wonder and excitement of childhood simply by ordering a series of small items on the internet. Then, four or five days later, packages arrive at your door and you have not the faintest idea what it can be or who sent them. It’s a bit like Christmas in the fifties.”

 

OUR growing-old stories included a reader who forgot to take his glasses off before going for a shower.

However Brian McAulay comments: “But you can’t see when you take off your glasses. I thought my wife had got that exotic Euthymol toothpaste, only to find out when I got out the shower and got my specs on that I’d brushed my teeth with Germolene.”

 

GROWING old, continued. A Kelvinside reader tells us: “The wife shouted through to ask if I had put some tennis on the telly. It seemed the noise I made bending down to pick up a dropped glasses case was similar to someone serving a tennis ball.”

 

MORE on GPs as Alastair Stewart tells us: “An obituary in The Herald once told of a deceased doctor whose favourite story was when he looked out of his surgery window in the East End of Glasgow and saw one of his patients pushing a car. He decided to help the man, but when he tried to assist he was told, ‘Beat it, doc – we’re trying to steal it.’”

 

A REGULAR reader tells us her friends were discussing the effects of the menopause, with one woman explaining that she had bought special pants that have magnets inside them which somehow reduce your hot flushes. She added that she inadvertently bumped into a bowl of paper clips in her office when she was letting a fellow worker get past her, and the paper clips jumped out the bowl and attached themselves to the front of her skirt, much to everyone’s surprise.

 

GROWING old, continued. Joyce Avery in Milngavie tells us: “My family were amused when I told them I had had laser treatment on my eyes to sharpen up my vision when reading the subtitles on the TV to help my hearing.”

 

TALKING of singing, a Bothwell reader emails: “I hate it when I’m singing to an old song on the radio and the artist gets the lyrics wrong.”

 

GROWING old, continued. Says Ian Noble: “I have been a keen race-goer for many years, and in the early days I used binoculars to watch the races, but with the introduction of big-screen televisions, I stopped using them. Now I’m back using them again – to see the big screen.”

 

HAPPY birthday to the NHS. As an Edinburgh woman once declared: “I won’t hear a bad word said about the NHS,” adding: “That’s because I have an NHS hearing aid.” We are fortunate in Glasgow to have the state-of-the-art Queen Elizabeth University Hospital. Reader Lesley Wilson was having her appendix removed recently, and when her husband popped down to their local without her, a couple they knew asked him where Lesley was. “She’s in the Queen Elizabeth,” he replied. The wife of the couple said: “Wow! That’s lovely. Where’s she going?”

 

AN AYRSHIRE reader says a member at his golf club declared the other day: “Was at the doc’s for a check-up and he asked me how much exercise I was getting. I asked him if sex counted, and he said yes. So I told him, ‘None at all.’”

 

GROWING old, continued. A Knightswood reader tells us: “If I drop a 10p piece on the ground these days then it stays there. Bending down is a young man’s game.”

 

 

WE did end our false-teeth stories but Tony Martin in Vanuatu reminds us of a classic which deserves a repeat. Says Tony: “When cod angling in the Firth of Clyde was booming, a group of lads went out in a boat on a blustery day. One of the guys wasn’t a particularly good sailor and was soon losing his breakfast, complete with his falsies, over the side. One of his mates had the clever wheeze of taking out his own falsies, hooking them into the mouth of a cod he had just caught and shouting that he had caught the fish that got his mate’s teeth. His pal removes the falsies, and says, ‘No, these are not mine,’ and promptly threw them overboard. Hence two gumsy anglers coming off the boat that day.”

 

TALKING of hospitals, a reader tells us he was recovering after an operation in one such establishment, and when a cheery nurse passed his bed and saw the piece of fruit a visitor had brought him, she chirped: “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” He couldn’t stop himself from replying: “That’s true! It’s been three days since my op and I’ve not seen a doctor since.”

 

GROWING old, continued. A Prestwick reader tells us: “I wear one of these wristbands that records how many steps I take during the day. I now wear it to bed at night as I get up to go to the loo that often that I might as well add it to my total.”

 

A STUDENT doctor in Glasgow swears to us that he asked a patient, when taking his medical history, if there was anything that ran in the family that he should know about, and the auld fella replied: “Disappointment.”

 

ROSEMARY Clark from Kilbarchan was in the accident and emergency department at Paisley’s RAH when she overheard a fellow attendee being asked if he had taken anything for pain relief. “Yes,” he replied. “A few cans of lager.”

 

WE squeeze in a final GP story as Niall MacDonald tells us: “A doctor who practised on Paisley Road West had in his small consulting room a pair of footprints marked on the carpet. It must have confused some patients who thought it had something to do with some esoteric treatment. The truth was simpler – if he placed his feet in the marks he could swing his 5-iron without hitting anything.

“Must have been less pressured times in the NHS.”

 

GROWING old, continued. A reader confesses: “I was telling a story involving a bus conductor. My son asked, ‘What is a bus conductor?’ When I explain, my daughter says she thought I had said ‘a busking doctor’.”

 

WE finished our GP stories, so let’s call this a Millport story. Says reader Margaret McGregor: “My late father was very friendly with the Millport GP, who told him that he was called out to see a young boy who became unwell on coming home from school. Examining the boy, the GP asked if he passed water that day. The boy replied no, he hadn’t, as he had come home by the back road.”

 

GROWING old, continued. Says a Muirend reader: “Not sure if it’s an age thing but I found myself visiting neighbours who had a child gate installed at the bottom of the stairs. I needed to go upstairs to use the loo but couldn’t work out how to open the child gate. Gave up and waited for someone else to go upstairs.”

 

 

MORE on older folk and technology, as Shauna Wright declares: “I’d like to thank whoever told my mum that WTF means ‘wow that’s fantastic’. Her texts are so much more fun now.”

 

WE pass on the observations of Still Game actor Sanjeev Kohli, who muses: “Feel sorry for this generation who have never used a phone box. It’s not the same, urinating into a mobile.”

 

a picture of the warning sign about not putting bags of popcorn below the automatic hand dryer in a cinema toilet reminds Celia Dearing: “I was in the Ladies at the old Dumfries and Galloway Hospital, and as there was no shelf I rested my handbag in a sink. The motion-activated tap came on, pouring water into my bag. Mod cons, huh!”

 

A NEWS story stated that using mobile phones after 10 pm can trigger depression and loneliness, according to research.

A reader tells us: “I used to take my mobile phone to bed but stopped after I dropped it one night and thought it had bounced under the bed.

“I got down on my knees, peered under the bed and couldn’t see it.

“Without thinking, I noticed my phone lying beside my leg so I picked it up and used the light in the phone to look for it under the bed. Then the penny dropped.”

 

TODAY’S piece of daftness comes from an Ayr reader who emails: “I found out I was colour-blind yesterday. To be honest, it came totally out of the green.”