Last Wednesday I had planned to check out the Batemans Bay Chess Club which meets every Wednesday from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Catalina Country Club. Luckily, I didn't go because, come five o'clock, I had acute stomach pains which stopped me from breathing and gave me black-outs.
I hung on for several more hours but by nine o'clock in the evening things had got so bad that we drove to the EMERGENCY department.
By the time I had gone through all the formalities called "triage", I might already have been gone as indeed most of those terrible stomach pains had, but the doctor - a Doctor Klaus Bauer; just my luck to pick a doctor with a German name! - decided to keep me overnight to take some x-rays in the morning when the radiologic technologist was back on duty.
I spent a most uncomfortable night on a most uncomfortable bed among the usual hullabaloo that goes on in an emergency department during the night, with drunks showing up, and the occasional bad and offensive language aimed at the two very efficient but totally overworked nurses.
By nine o'clock in morning, bleary-eyed and trailing a saline drip, I was led out to the x-ray room. An hour later I was told what Padma had been telling me for the past twenty-odd years, namely, that I was full of shit.
At first they gave me a big cup of some bowel-movement-improving fluid. When that didn't have the desired effect, they brought in the big gun: a device for administering an injection known as an enema. After this nasty experience I won't join a Gay Pride parade any time soon!
As I wrote, I was holding back on this, but I can't any longer ...
