A few weeks ago, my wife reminds me that it’s time for my Medicare physical – an annual visit to my family physician so he can tell me what I already know: If I don’t eat right and exercise regularly, I might or might not be around for next year’s checkup.
My one and only also gives me a heads up that the doctor or his assistant will be taking a serious look at something other than medical issues. For reasons unknown to everyone in the world except the people who make the rules at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, my doctor, his assistant or maybe someone else who works at that medical facility on Elm Street is required to take a shot at testing my mental acuity.
It’s not like they will be X-raying my skull to determine if the bulk of my brain matter has been gradually destroyed by caffeine over the past six decades or so. Nope – by wife warns me that sometime after I arrive in Doctorville, someone will impart three words to me. Maybe an hour later – 15 minutes in the waiting area; another 15 minutes in a small room where I’ll have the opportunity to read a poster about how big my prostate gland should be; a quarter of an hour describing all my ailments and afflictions to the physician’s assistant; and another quarter of an hour repeating the same soliloquy to my actual family doctor – I’ll be required to rattle off those secret words.
I’m forced to make a major decision. My wife and I have the same family physician, and her words were apple, chair and triangle. Does that mean my words will be the same? Should I simply ingrain apple, chair and triangle into my memory? And what’s the punishment for not spewing out the right words at the proper time? Does that go on your permanent record? Do they banish you to spend the rest of your life walking in circles, like that guy in the movie “Midnight Express”? I’m talking about before he was released from the Turkish prison, of course.
The Medicare Memory Test
Anyway, the day arrives for my checkup, and I dutifully drive myself to my doctor’s office on Elm Street, trying desperately to remember my wife’s three words while singing along with Bruce Springsteen.
“May I help you,” the nice receptionist asks.
“Apple,” I respond.
She glares at me with something similar to confusion but also bordering on disdain, so I simply blurt out “never mind,” recite my first, middle and last name; date of birth; home address; cellphone number; mother’s maiden name; and Social Security number and move on to a seat in the waiting area.
When the physician assistant’s assistant emerges to fetch me, I greeted her with a hearty “chair.” Her response is strangely similar to that of the receptionist. I answer with another muted “never mind.”
Fifteen minutes later, after telling the PA everything that might be possibly be physically wrong with me, she hits me with my own personal three words. To my horror, they are tangerine, table and circle – I think. Actually, they might have been peach, couch and dodecagram – I really don’t remember. My mind spins in never-ending circles as I try desperately to remember my three words. Finally, my actual family physician enters the little room. He’s obviously doing his best to explain to me how I can maintain my health and independence for as long as possible – but, all the while, I’m thinking that he’s just trying to fill my mind with so much information that I’ll be unable to remember the words. He’s going to nail me; he knows it, I know it and there’s just about nothing I can do about it. Just as my brain reaches the brink of exploding, he asks me to repeat the words – and my mind goes blank.
“Never mind,” he says. “I can’t remember them either.”
By Brian Sherman
