Oh dear - Tuesday starts off well with an early morning visit to my physio, Daniel, who says he thinks I'm doing "surprisingly well" with my recovery, only 3 weeks after my hip replacement, which, as Daniel reassuringly stresses during my visit, "is a major operation and patients can't expect to bounce back from it in 5 minutes just like that, especially if it involves an extra bone-graft malarkey, like yours did", which is nice to hear, to put it mildly.
Daniel always watches how his patients are walking as they stroll over to his little therapy room, and he tells me that I'm "walking surprisingly well" after only 3 weeks with my new hip, which is nice to hear.
So that was all good.
But just a few hours later, I am starting to feel yucky. The reason is those medications of mine that mysteriously went missing - you know, the ones that I was discharged with 3 weeks ago by the hospital. Those medications had equally mysteriously turned up again this week, and I had decided to try them for 24 hours, as an experiment. Bad call! After the 24 hours were up, I now just want to go to bed and I can't face eating for the rest of Tuesday, and I stay on plain food for the day following. So I won't be trying those medications again in a hurry, that's for sure.
Isn't it nice when medication gives you a clear "red flag" like that, and doesn't pussyfoot about.
Do you remember that awful time, back in the 1960's, when comedian Dudley Moore had to visit his psychiatrist, Peter Cook? Dudley had found that, after 4 years of carrying on an affair with his secretary Jane, he was breaking out into screams every time he saw Mary, his wife of 7 years, whom he was equally head-over-heels in love with?
The two women were equally attractive as far as Dudley was concerned, and Cook took an especial liking to the picture of Dudley's secretary Jane, calling her "a delicious piece of crumpet, superbly well-proportioned", which Lois and I felt was unprofessional of Cook, but I'm going to let that one slide for now.
During the session with Cook, Dudley explained how the screaming, whenever he saw his wife, was "to a large extent" undermining their marital relationship. Indeed he was only able to speak to his wife from another room.
Cook readily took up the challenge of curing Dudley of his affliction, explaining that he had had great success with treating Hollywood Western film-star Roy Mix, who had developed an infatuation on set with his horse Trigger, and was living in the stables with the animal.
And Cook recalled how he had cured Mix with his own patented procedure of "aversion therapy", showing Mix a picture of his horse Trigger and simultaneously hitting him about the head with a cricket bat; and then following that by showing Mix a picture of his wife, while simultaneously feeding him some strawberry yoghurt, a delicacy "to which many of the Hollywood Greats of the time were addicted", as Cook explained.
After 6 weeks of this treatment, Cook recalled how "Mix went right off his horse and back onto his wife", a good result in general, although not from the viewpoint of Mix's career, as the movie-going public turned out to be not yet ready for the sight of Mix careering round the western plains on his wife's shoulders.
Cook decided to repeat his "aversion therapy" approach with Dudley, showing him pictures of his secretary Jane while giving him a mild electric shock, and then showing him pictures of his wife while feeding him boxes of Turkish Delight, which Dudley had revealed as his "secret vice".
Preliminary results from this initial course of treatment looked promising, but just before the end of his appointment with Cook, Dudley started screaming again, this time with renewed vigour, when he realised what Cook's bill was for the first of his 6 weekly appointments - 175 guineas - about £184 back in the 1960's, or about £5,500 in today's money.
Oh dear !!!!!
I must say that if I ever had to undergo a course of aversion therapy, I too would choose Turkish Delight as my "reward" - it's always been my secret vice too. Do you remember when I had some for my 75th birthday back in 2021? [Who's going to remember that, now, Colin! - Ed]
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