Crack a smile

If you have a funny bone, keep it inactive while visiting a practitioner of modern medicine. Once I made a visit to the cardiologist. After preliminaries, the doctor gave me a long list of diagnostic tests to be done.

During my second visit, the doctor concentrated on my chest X-ray and ECG in despair. Then he spoke to me in a seriously: “Well, you have an enlarged heart, which is quite serious.” This phrase tickled my funny bone, and I said, “Doctor, my grandmother always prayed that I be large-hearted. My condition may be due to this.” The doctor was visibly enraged. He moved his palm from my neck all the way down and said, “All this is your heart.” My funny bone was tickled yet again and I asked him, “Doctor, don’t you think I would have made medical history by living without my lungs, stomach, and liver?” He was red-faced with rage. However, my wife intervened and he gave a lengthy prescription. But I had already decided not to continue with him.

Another cardiologist added one more pill to the prescription. His advice was to keep it in my pocket when I went out. I was also not to bolt the toilet door from inside, and was to place the pill below my tongue whenever I sweated or felt my heart sinking, a condition I had never experienced. This list struck me as funny, and I asked, “Doctor, don’t you think that it will be more convenient for me to die than to live this wretched life?” The doctor’s reaction could be well imagined.

Exasperated, my family members left the choice of doctor to me, and I found one who always gave me a smile whenever I said something mischievous. Once I asked him, “Doctor, I am told that miserly people are small-hearted. Will this help me?” He replied “Perhaps, but try it after paying my consultation fee.” I was pleased to finally find a doctor with a funny bone.