The Bad Old Days

Perhaps the most distressing feature of Old West medicine was its inability, outside of surgical anesthesia, to alleviate pain. Even minor afflictions often meant weeks of suffering that a modern society, accustomed to instant relief, would not have the fortitude to endure. I would have been one of those that could not have endured. I need to be anesthetized to get an eye exam. If it were up to me I’d never step into another doctor’s office again – no matter how advanced medicine gets. Some physicians make one feel as though nothing has changed since the Old West. The one I saw this past week falls into that category. She was like a blindfolded auto mechanic poking around under the hood with a giant “We’re number #1” foam finger. I didn’t hate that as much as the list of ridiculous questions I was asked which ranged from “Are you exercising and drinking enough water?” to “Do you eat right and get enough sunlight?” She ended the examination with a phrase I absolutely loathe, “It’s hell getting old, isn’t it?” I should have stayed home and treated whatever was wrong the same way I try to fix my computer when it’s not acting right by banging on the back of the terminal. “Hey, Doc. I’m only 50,” I finally worked up the courage to say before I left the office. “Yes, that’s about the age,” the anorexic, silicone implanted, thirty-something woman replied. On the way back to my office my mind settled on the thousands of pioneers heading West more than one hundred and sixty years ago. They all had the illusion that no matter how tough it turned out, frontier life would at least be healthful and free of the epidemics that plagued the East. However, they also took along the germs to destroy that illusion. Smallpox traveled with them to break out in towns and even on the thinly settled prairies. The trails West were studded with crosses warning of “cholera,” which infested waterholes and salty streams. I found comfort in these facts. Just knowing neither myself or the surgically enhanced doctor would probably never have survived a trip West in 1850 made me feel better. I wouldn’t have made it because of my age and she wouldn’t have made it because…well, let’s just say infested waterholes and leave it at that.