Blogger’s Note: I know that many of you will be opening this post eager for geo-political analysis of the latest mid-East complications. My analysis and advice are pithy: Don’t waste your time reading or listening to anything any of the leaders involved writes or says. You will be no less well-informed, and you will have saved precious moments of your valuable time.

Today’s admittedly obscure title references an excellent joke that I won’t tell you, because it doesn’t work in writing. However, I’ll pause for a moment, to give your lateral-thinking braincells a chance to work out in what way blood tests could possibly be like comedy.

I suspect that most long-running marriages gradually settle into a rough division of responsibilities between the parties. Among those that our specific marriage has settled into is that Bernice ‘does’ health. In practical terms, this means that she, who enjoys fly-on-the-wall video documentaries of medical procedures and case-studies, and who keeps up to date with medical breakthroughs, is our family’s expert on good, and ill, health. I tend to focus more on the ill than the good, and also to focus on the practical, rather than the theoretical side. Basically, I develop the conditions, and she tells me all about them.

Bernice has a mantra that she has drummed into me over the years, which is: ‘Do not take a blood test within two months of an impending trip to Portugal’. This is very sound advice, as I will explain at length in this post. However, it is very much theoretical advice, and not always practical.

So, when I developed a couple of symptoms three weeks ago (four weeks before we were due to fly to Portugal for a month), we both knew that it made no sense to ignore them, and I paid a visit to our family doctor. He sent me for blood tests, and, when the results gave a little cause for concern, repeat blood tests. I made sure to revise more thoroughly before the resits, and, sure enough, I improved my marks sufficiently to ease those concerns.

Unfortunately, I was then afflicted with another ailment, and was sent for a third set of blood tests last week. My doctor cunningly slipped in another test this time, without telling me. So, of course, I had been unable to revise for it, and I failed even more spectacularly than last time I failed this particular test 15 months ago. My doctor was immediately on the phone to me, instructing me to make appointments with two specialists. I pointed out that I had routine appointments with both of them in the next couple of months, but my doctor was not impressed. I then explained that we were flying in 10 days’ time, at which point he informed me that this needed to be resolved before we flew.

I was fairly confident that I knew what would happen: a repeat of what happened 15 months ago. The first specialist will send me for a couple of tests, that will take six weeks to line up, undergo, and receive results from. He will then look at the results and inform me that all is OK, I should cancel the appointment with the other specialist, and make a repeat appointment in a year’s time to monitor progress.

I was, as I say, fairly confident…but then, I’m not the one who ‘does’ health in this marriage, so it was reassuring when Bernice more or less shared my cautious optimism.

However, despite our optimism, it was perfectly clear to us that, even in Israel, I would not be able to complete this process in ten days. We would need something more like four weeks at the very least. The earliest specialist appointment I could get was for the day after we were due to fly. The last time this happened, the negative results of the second test the specialist sent me for came back just in time for the specialist to phone me after Bernice and I had checked in for our flight to Portugal, and for me to report this result to the senior executive in the travel insurance company we use, so that he could approve our travel insurance and issue the policy while we were queuing for the security check before proceeding to the departure gate. That is not an experience either of us particularly wants to relive. At the same time, without those results, I would not be able to get medical travel insurance while there is a question mark, however small, over my blood test results,, and it would take somebody much younger, fitter and more foolhardy than me to travel without insurance.

The bottom line is that we have reluctantly cancelled our trip to Portugal, thus proving that blood tests are, as Bernice contends, indeed like comedy: the secret is in the timing. What would have been a minor inconvenience, and a way of getting out and meeting people (even if only fellow patients, medical specialists and technicians) has instead become a major disruption.

However (and what a huge and delightful however this is), like all clouds, this one has a silver lining. In this case, that takes the shape of Tslil, Micha’el, Tao and Ollie coming over to Israel instead – probably for the last week or so of July and the first three weeks of August. This is twice as long as their planned trip in March, which the last war but one (or is it two?) shot to pieces. It is even rumoured that my nephew and his family may be visiting Israel from England at the same time, and all four cousins and their families may be able to be together for the first time since I can’t remember when.

This arrangement has the added bonus that I will be able to laugh at Micha’el and Tslil packing to go back with all their luggage, including the one or two or forty things Bernice bought for us to take out, and knowing that I won’t have to lift any of it into or out of car boots or airport carousels. At this point, I am more than happy to take enjoyment wherever I can find it.

Housekeeping: I am still resolving the issue of subscribers receiving the weekly email automatically. I hope to complete it this week., You can help me (if you want to continue receiving the email) by clicking the Follow us button below, filling in your email, and clicking Follow. (Despite what is written there, you will only receive one email once a week, when I publish a new post.) You will then receive a Confirmation email, asking you to confirm your email address. Thanks in advance.

Share on Facebook

Tweet

Follow us