Treatment Room 4

So, I'm going for acupuncture twice a week these days. I'm not sure how long that will continue: it's just the teensiest bit tricky getting information out of Dr Hazel. I did manage to elicit the information from her at one point that I would be down to once a week by now were it not for the fact that I had asked her to work on my dodgy right ankle as well as on my back. But more than that she seems unwilling to reveal.

I'm getting a bit confused now about whether I'm having the acupuncture in order to be fit enough to work, or whether I've no option but to work if I'm to be able to afford the acupuncture, but I'm not really complaining. (Oh, ok, I am complaining: it's costing me a bloody fortune. However, as it's also doing me a lot of good, I'm just grumbling about the money rather than voting with my feet.)

Anyhoo. The clinic offers a variety of treatments of various levels of esoteric-ness. (That's my brand new verbal creation for today. Feel free to borrow it, and work it into everyday conversations.) There are four treament rooms, but really quite a few different practitioners using them, none of whom is there five days a week. Until today, I had only ventured as far as treatment rooms 1 and 2. These are nondescript little rooms. Each is dominated by a treatment couch, with a few sticks of MDF office furniture huddling out of the way next to the blue-painted walls. Room 1 has a coat hook. Room 2 doesn't. That's about the extent of the excitement. There isn't a lot to look at while you're waiting to be perforated.

Today, however, Dr Hazel sent me to Room 4. I'd never ventured that far before. Room 4 is up three rather tricky steps, beyond the loo. Room 4, I realised, almost immediately, is where they do the colonic irrigation treatments.

Reclining on the treatment couch waiting for Hazel and one of the osteopaths to finish their argument about the surname of the patient who had just phoned to book an appointment, I had little choice but to look at The Machine directly opposite. It's plumbed into the wall. It has black plastic dials. And chrome levers. And an integral bottle of disinfectant. And lots and lots of rather discoloured tubing. It has maximum and minimum temperatures, and the water pressure can go up to three pounds per square inch. And the only other thing in my direct line of sight was a large, colourful, and very graphic poster depicting Diseases of the Digestive System. Which, to be frank, wasn't a lot less disturbing.

I have No Idea why anyone would pay to have warm water forced up their rear end at three pounds per square inch. It really doesn't strike me as a fun way to pass the time. The fact that a variety of vapid "celebrities" endorse colonic irrigation as a beauty treatment cuts No Ice with me At All.

I found myself wondering how many people, having signed up for it, have taken one look at The Machine and run away as fast as their little legs will carry them.

And who wants a career sticking tubes up people's bottoms?? I mean, those tubes aren't even opaque. What sort of polite chit chat do you engage in with a patient the previously-impacted contents of whose bowels are rushing past both of you in a horribly visible manner?

Is it just me, or is the whole thing grim beyond imagining?


Anyway, you can, I'm sure, imagine Pop's response:

"I didn't quite get to yelldotcom in time to phone up and book you a colonic on my credit card, unfortunately. Which is a shame because you were already lying on your side anyway, so you'd've been in the right position for one. Still, at least that's solved the problem of what to get you for Christmas."

Laugh? I almost started...

The Editor