On arriving at the Mayo Clinic I found that, if unaccompanied by
a physician, you are required to register and procure a numbered
registration envelope, which serves as a sort of passport throughout
the whole institution and entitles you to be examined, at their
discretionary rates, for everything they can think of, including your
income and your sanity. This formality disposed of, I was directed
to a certain lettered and numbered desk (there are several floors
of tremendous length and breadth, with a great number of such desks
on each floor). This particular desk was presided over by a young
lady who gave me a numbered slip and automatically directed me to
“take a chair.” After waiting nearly three hours I was ushered
into the presence of a diagnostician in the department of urology,
to whom I briefly stated my case, and said I wanted to find out
what sort of treatment they would recommend. Without appearing to
have heard anything I said he took out a long questionnaire and
began cross-examining me about my habits, my mode of living and
other personal matters. He could think of more prying questions
than a prosecuting attorney. He was particularly curious about my
antecedents--how long they had lived, what they died of, and other
long-forgotten data about the fallen branches of my family tree. Having
no idea that kidney-stones were hereditary I wondered what all this
long catechism had to do with my complaint, in which, by the way, he
didn’t seem the least bit concerned.
Then having me strip to the waist he stretched me on a long table and
thumped me over pretty much as one would test a watermelon to see if it
were ripe. For some reason best known to himself he studiously avoided
the kidney corner of my anatomy; which reminded me of a man I once
played golf with, who when his ball landed in the bushes or tall grass
always looked for it in some adjacent quarter for fear of finding it in
an unplayable lie. Needless to say, we had mutually agreed that there
should be no penalty for lost balls.
When the doctor had completed his record of all I knew, and also
had pommeled me until his solemn visage betokened some momentous
conclusion--which he guarded with profound secrecy--his air of mute
sobriety was in nowise reassuring. He put the stethoscope to my
heart, then shifted it to the left kidney and asked me to breathe
deeply--perhaps to see if the two organs were beating in unison. But
he shook his head negatively, which I took to mean that something was
wrong with one or the other.
“Nothing serious, I hope,” said I, studying his inscrutable face for
some hopeful token. For a few moments he seemed lost in meditation,
which set me to wondering if he had found something he didn’t dare
tell me about. Then without answering, he wrote out and handed me the
following prescription: “Four ounces of castor oil and loganberry
juice, no supper, to bed at seven o’clock, up at seven A. M.,
no breakfast, report at desk XY-4 at 7:30 tomorrow.” I suggested that
four ounces was rather a generous dose, but he said the conditions
warranted it, so I didn’t argue the matter with him. He also gave
me several envelopes of assorted colors, directing me to various
appointment desks, and informed me with great impressiveness that they
contained orders for examinations. Incidentally he told me that when I
had finished with these I might go to breakfast, then report back to
him.
My first appointment next morning was for an X-ray of the offending
kidney, and having finished with this I set out to dispose of the other
four envelopes, curiously anxious to learn what the examinations would
disclose--heart disease, kidney-stones, gall-stones, cancer or what.
It must be something terrible, I thought; otherwise the doctor would
not have shown such deep and mystified concern. It is remarkable how
one’s imagination can run wild when the physical machinery is upset by
some puzzling ailment. One fear begets another and, like bacteria, they
multiply, until it becomes possible to alarm one’s self into almost
any sort of malady. For example, while at the outset I was satisfied
that my only trouble was seated in the left kidney, during the
course of the next few days, owing to the variety and severity of the
examinations, and the utter lack of information concerning the results
of any of them, I fancied myself the victim of no less than half a
dozen diseases, most of them fatal.
At the next desk, there being at least fifty people ahead of me, I told
the young lady I’d call later. At this point I began to feel a little
encouraged, because whatever I had, it seemed to be very prevalent, and
the afflicted ones didn’t appear to be much disturbed, except one poor
old fellow, who was badly doubled up with what I suspected to be a case
of “gravel” pains such as I had often experienced. I asked him if he
had kidney trouble.
“No,” he said; “it’s just a nasty hang-over from a castor oil jag last
night.”
After waiting an hour at the third desk they sent me into a nearby
room to have all my teeth X-rayed. This completed, I plucked up more
courage, and taking my fourth envelope I wandered about among the
crowd, looking for the specified desk, which I finally located two
floors below. The attendant there, like all the others, asked me to
“take a chair”--a phrase that one hears repeated everywhere, until
eventually it gets on your nerves. After a couple of hours or so I got
up and asked the desk girl how much longer she thought I’d have to wait.
“The doctor will see you in your turn. Take a chair, please.”
After a few days you get so that, like a trained monkey, you
instinctively look for a chair the moment you approach a desk. You
sit and sit--anywhere from an hour to all day. Your chief amusement
consists of looking about, wondering what’s the matter with this
or that one. The majority of the patients wore a look of calm but
determined resignation, and naturally I supposed that most of them had
kidney-stones.
Unless someone stumbles over your feet, you are rarely disturbed,
whether awake or asleep, therefore it is necessary to exercise due
caution that you are at the right desk; otherwise you may sit all day
till closing time before discovering your error. When your turn comes,
if you happen to be asleep from exhaustion you automatically revert to
the foot of the line, which is apt to mean the loss of a whole day.
But time means absolutely nothing here--to anyone but the patients. If
you ask the diagnostician when you’ll be through he answers evasively,
“As soon as we have completed your examinations.” There is something
contagious about clinical examinations: the first one calls for at
least two more, the next two show that you need five or six others, and
so on _ad infinitum_, until you feel like a fellow in the dark,
hunting for the last link in an endless chain.
Another stereotyped phrase that one hears on entering most of the
examination rooms is, “Strip to the waist.” You are sent to a little
_un_dressing booth and furnished with a sort of loose flowing
Chinese robe to take the place of your upper garments. On being
directed to one of these booths, and finding it already occupied, I
sauntered along the hallway and presently found another similar looking
room, with the door slightly ajar. Without observing the “For Women”
sign overhead, I opened the door and switched on the light, supposing
the room to be unoccupied. But a loud shriek from a back corner
disclosed my error; and frightened almost out of my senses, I turned
about to find myself face to face with a squatty, florid-featured
Amazon, whose _dishabille_ indicated that she had rather exceeded
the examiner’s customary directions to strip only to the waist. With an
impromptu word of apology, I was making a hasty exit, when she snarled,
“Can you _beat_ it!”
At the fourth desk I was called at the end of two hours, and they
undertook a thorough examination of my eyes, ears, nose, and possibly
my throat--I don’t remember. I do remember wondering again what all
this wearisome routine had to do with my kidney; also that I was
absolutely empty and exhausted. I recollect, too, that it was 2:30
P. M. and I hadn’t had a bite to eat since the morning before;
so I pocketed the other envelopes till the following day and went to my
hotel next door, where I found the dining room “closed from 2:30 until
six o’clock.”
Next morning when I went to dispose of my two remaining envelopes I
discovered that the first one called for what is known as the blood
urea test--where they jab a needle-pointed syringe into a vein in the
arm and draw off quantities of blood. Then, as if they suspect you
of holding back on them, they send you into another room where they
puncture the lobe of the ear, drain off more blood--if you have any
left--and store it away in glass tubes labeled with your name and
number.
The young lady at the desk gave me a numbered card--number 6, I recall,
for I was early. “Take a chair,” she said as she wrote number 7 on a
slip for the man behind me. I sat there an hour or so, studying the
faces of the crowd and listening to the monotonous “Take a chair,” when
a nurse opened a nearby door and called out numbers one to six. The
first six of us filed into a small anteroom where we were requested to
remove our coats and roll up the left sleeve. Through the door leading
into an adjoining room we could see a number of nurses in uniform, and
on a table near the door were several strange looking instruments,
glass containers, etc. Extending past the left side of the entrance
we could see about eighteen inches of what seemed to be an operating
table, and altogether the interior did not look inviting.
Number one, a tall hardy Scotchman, was soon called and as he stretched
himself on the table we could see his feet projecting over the end
at the doorway. For a moment all eyes and ears were strained, then
suddenly a heavy groan issued from within, accompanied by a violent
swinging and jerking of the patient’s feet. Presently the legs dropped,
and after a few convulsive twitches the feet hung limp over the table
end. From what we could see, it looked as if the nurses had won the
first fall, and had the victim’s shoulders pinned to the mat. Among the
five waiting occupants in the anteroom was a rather pale looking chap
who stood for a moment with wide-staring eyes, then suddenly gathering
up his hat and coat he exclaimed, “Here’s where I quit!” At which he
jerked open the door and disappeared.
At the desk where I had postponed my appointment the day before I spent
two hours waiting and another half hour going through some sort of
heart test; then for a circulation test they kept me another hour with
one foot and leg thrust into a covered vessel of water, which threw
me into a state of nervous apprehension by continually bubbling as if
it were boiling. This operation was supervised by a vivacious little
nurse who kept track of my pulse; and observing my anxiety, she did her
best to engage my attention by relating a tragic chapter of the story
of her life. She timed the story so that it ended coincidentally with
the circulation test; then she lifted the cover, tested the water with
a thermometer, and assured me it was cool; also that the flesh on my
leg was still intact. I thanked her and said it was the most enjoyable
examination I had had.
Following this I hurried through a fifteen minute luncheon, and spent
three hours waiting for my doctor.
“I observe you are no less a humorist than a physician,” I said,
remembering the loss of my breakfast and luncheon the day before.
“You gave me a two days’ job to perform before breakfast.” Aside from
provoking a flicker of a smile this did not change the gravity of his
countenance in the least. He asked me a number of new questions, about
everything except the part that troubled me. Whenever I asked about my
kidney he always answered by asking me about something else--on the
theory, perhaps, that having the kidney safely quarantined, he was
interested solely in exploring for new trouble.
When he inquired about my stomach I was prepared for him, for I had
been forewarned as to the rigors of this examination, which consists of
swallowing the nozzle end of a rubber hose and forcing a quantity of
dry bread crumbs down alongside it, then with the hose dangling from
your mouth you take your place in the line and wait for the food to
digest. By means of a pumping device on the outer end of the hose they
test the contents of your stomach every half hour or so to see how you
are getting along. I emphasized the fact that my digestive organs were
in perfect working order and would rival the gizzard of an ostrich.
Thus after an eloquent protest I escaped the dreadful stomach test.