A Humorous Story
In London, the state chases after your health more than your relatives in Albania chase after property.
Here it does not matter if you are well or unwell. If the doctor calls you and you do not go, you become an enemy of the healthcare system.
I, as a hardened Balkan man raised on the philosophy:
“You only go to the doctor when you can’t get out of bed,”
would throw the health centre’s letters in the bin with Olympian calm.
One letter… in the bin.
The second… in the bin again.
The third came in red letters, as if the international police were looking for me.
My son saw it on the table and said,
“Dad, this isn’t a letter… this is a warning!”
“For what?”
“That you’re acting like an illegal immigrant towards your own health.”
I told him,
“Listen, son, in the Balkans they take you to the doctor when it hurts.”
“Not here, Dad… here they call you so it won’t hurt!”
The next day he dragged me out of the house at eight in the morning, without coffee, without breakfast, without mercy.
I walked towards the health centre as if I were being taken to court.
As soon as we entered the corridor, the doctor saw me from afar and shouted,
“Where have you been, Mr Belul?! We’ve been looking for you for weeks!”
I turned around.
Just my son.
“Are you talking to me?”
“Who else?”
“But I haven’t even been here… how have I bothered you?”
“Precisely because you don’t come, you bother us!”
My son lowered his head and laughed.
“Do you understand how England works now, Dad?”
The doctor leaned in and said seriously,
“You don’t come to Doctor Johnson when it hurts. When it hurts… it’s too late for Doctor Johnson, there’s nothing more he can do for you!”
They took me straight in for tests. A nurse searched for my veins as if she were looking for the London Underground tunnels.
“Where are your veins?”
“They’re Albanian,” I told her. “They hide from the state.”
She pricked me four times. In the end, she stuck a patch on my arm, as if I were airport luggage. When we came out, my son looked at me in triumph.
“Now you’re registered as a normal person.”
A few months passed.
One day I was feeling dizzy.
Actually, I liked this, because my grandmother used to say:
“If your head is spinning, it means you have brains.”
I made my way to the health centre. But in my confusion, instead of going in to my doctor, I walked in to the gynaecologist.
She looked up from her computer.
“Sir… this is for women.”
“I know,” I told her, “but I’ve been looking for a woman to my tastes my whole life.”
She laughed.
“Add a little vanilla to that dream, but your doctor is next door.”
As soon as I stepped out into the corridor, the doctor saw me.
“Come on, Belul! You get the prescription from me… then you go to the gynaecologist!”
The nurses laughed.
I went inside. One of them brought me a chair. Another asked,
“Water? Coffee?”
I looked at them suspiciously.
When the English become very polite, they usually intend to take either your blood… or your soul.
The doctor opened my file.
“Right, where is the problem?”
I took a deep breath.
“A serious problem, Doctor…”
He looked at the nurses with authority.
“Don’t worry. Science has advanced today. One Viagra and the ‘boy’ will stand right up.”
The nurses burst out laughing.
I raised my hand.
“No, Doctor… you didn’t understand me.”
“What is it then?”
“The problem is bigger…! It won’t go down!”
Silence fell.
A nurse froze with a glass of water in her hand.
“What do you mean it won’t go down?”
“I’ve spent three days and three nights talking to it like a modern parent. I beg it. I advise it. I tell it, ‘Go down, you’re going to be the death of us!’… but it stands as straight as an English soldier outside the royal palace.”
Nurses and doctors came out of the side doors. The health centre turned into a cinema. The gynaecologist came to the door.
“What happened?”
“A rare case,” the doctor said.
She looked at me seriously.
“And how do you deal with these cases in Albania?”
“We drink mountain tea and wait for it to come down on its own.”
Laughter erupted.
The doctor opened his prescription pad.
“I’m going to give you four Viagras.”
“Keep the Viagra for yourself, Doctor! I’m telling you, it won’t go down, not that it won’t go up. We drank mountain water, not London water!”
The nurses were crying with laughter.
“Then why did you come?” the gynaecologist asked.
“Because I’m in trouble, Doctor… physically, it’s doing better than I am!”
From that moment, they started to leave the office little by little. One nurse went out laughing. Another covered her face with a file.
The doctor took off his glasses.
“Belul…”
“Yes, Doctor?”
“You don’t have a health problem.”
“I don’t?”
“No. You have a diplomatic problem.”
“How is it diplomatic?”
“Because the whole health centre thought you came with the trouble that it won’t go up… whereas you actually came with the trouble that it won’t go down!”
Silence fell.
Then such a huge laugh erupted that the centre’s security guard came out of the corridor.
He looked at me seriously and asked,
“What happened here?”
The doctor wiped his tears of laughter and said,
“Nothing…”
“This gentleman just explained to us the difference between Balkan men and the English healthcare system…”
