Badger is better

I got one of those buggy things and put off doing anything about it until I collapsed almost lifeless into bed and felt almost too ill to move. There was no point going to doctor Mordor about this because in three years he has never examined me apart from taking my blood pressure and wishing me well ‘despite my problems’.

This is the same doctor who once prescribed medicine for a lump in the centre of my chest which turned out to be part of my rib cage.

Well I felt it one night and thought ‘has that always been there?’ which of course it has but you have these thoughts in the middle of sleepless nights when you think that death might suddenly sneak up on you unawares. So I was in doctor Mordor’s surgery a week or so later to get a script and I said I have this lump here and I am probably supposed to have it  - can you feel it for me - and he said I will give you a prescription for it - and I said no no I am sure it is a piece of bone - but there was no stopping him and there was nothing I could do to get him to touch it. He wears a white coat though.  

Perhaps he never examines anyone. I seem to be his youngest patient. Perhaps he works on the basis that all his patients are going to be dead within a week anyway so why bother examining them. To him I am a curiosity that I have survived so long even with a lump in the middle of my chest for which he prescribed who knows what. I actually had the script filled – it looked and tasted like chalk so I threw it away. I am taking a poll on which of us is more stupid.

You think I made that story up but it is a true story and it is how I know that there is no point in going to doctor Mordor for anything at all other than prescriptions for things I know I really do need and have needed since before I left Australia.  

I did confirm later with my niece doctor Lani that the lump is in fact part of my chest so was much more relaxed after that but when I can’t sleep I still play with it and wonder about death.

In any case I was too ill to get out of bed and I took my blood pressure which was 74/47 and I thought that did not look good because I think when they get to be the same you start flat-lining so Cate rang Doc Around the Clock who arrived within an hour and said I had a bug – relieved me of €230 - and gave me some scripts for some stuff to stop me from feeling quite so bad.

It was by now Saturday afternoon and there is a penalty for people who are ill after hours in Vienna. The penalty is actually for those who minister to them.

To celebrate the misfortune of these people - almost all the Apothekes in Vienna close. The few that do remain open shut their doors, turn off their lights and the one staff member on duty hides behind the counter.

Should you have the utter bad luck to need a script for urgent medicine to stave off death you will need to determine the one that is ‘open’ - and it is bloody hard to tell by looking at it – press the doorbell and wait – perhaps for a long time.

Someone may appear and open a tiny glass window in the door or in side panel in the window and you will hand over your script. They may reappear every now and again to shout at you.

They will then give you some medicine, take your money, turn the lights out and disappear.

This is how the Apothekes work after lunch time on Saturdays in Austria. My advice to you is do not get sick or go to another more civilised country where being sick outside business hours is not a crime.

I am much better now.

I have been cooking sensational meals for Liz and Darryl who have returned from Wales.