World Health Day 2023 | Who's afraid of the annual medical check-up?

If the idea of routine check-ups stresses you out, try going as a group with friends. (Photo: Mart Production via Pexels)

An annual medical check-up is the un-sexiest thing to plan. Someone we know has to die for us to shrug fatalistically, and think, oh, okay, might as well know how I am going to go.

The first thing we do is put it off and put it off, believing not in our immortality as much as in amnesia. While we respond to most conversations with ‘That reminds me…’ nothing jogs our memory about hospitals.

Then a close relative falls sick. We realise our DNA is doomed, our genes are sh*t! Now we start talking to ourselves in the third person. It is best, we tell ourselves pompously, to get it over with. We start a group chat on WhatsApp, texting grim stats, till at least three contacts are ready to make a ‘fun’ trip to the clinic. That’s that, we are now committed.

By now our mind has thrown every health scare at us. We sweat too much, we pant too fast, and when we hold out our hand it shakes, see. Every symptom described by others, we have it. So most reluctantly we dial that number, book that appointment, select that wellness package. We are determined to make it to the hospital if we are still alive tomorrow.

At the hospital we act like Alice in Wonderland, albeit an Alice who is being dragged into the rabbit hole against her will. Incorporating Michael Jackson’s moonwalk, we plod in reverse, but still reach the reception by and by. We mumble but they hear us; we pay and we are ushered in for blood tests on an empty stomach. As the needle pierces us to monitor fasting blood sugar levels, we remember in great detail every dessert we ate the previous day.

The blood pressure thingie messes with our BP. The nurse laughs kindly and says this happens – heart rates goes up when they Velcro that band around a bicep. The ECG test lulls us into believing we were overreacting. But the mammogram brings us awake. Here, one is a PoW, facing the most sadistic torture instruments. The uterus scan almost never happens, as they want you to drink up a whole village well for it. Nope, they will shake their head when you lie down, sending you right out to glug, glug and glug. They are partially responsible for global warming, drying out the planet slyly thus.

Pap smear is another jolly event – in the doctor’s life. They will conclude a hilarious phone call, pull on gloves you are not sure are new, and tell you to relax. Like that’s all a pelvis needs to hear to turn to jelly. ‘Please relax’ is the scariest sentence, with or without eye contact. What follows is an undignified tug of war, with metal instruments clanging to the floor, lending the room a kitchen vibe.

We go back home battle-scarred and fingers crossed, chanting aloud that there are 364 days before the next medico visit. Meanwhile, did that mole on the elbow just grow larger?