Humor: Christmas fare that's not fair

Christmas fare that's not fair

Do you think cholesterol tests are seasonally adjusted? I can only hope not.

With Christmas coming up, I just know I am going to eat a LOT of things that I shouldn't - and this might put my levels up a notch or two or, cough, three.

I had a blood test last week, see, and the results probably won't hit my doctor's desk until the new year. So I'll be OK, won't I? Er, won't I?

Christmas time is a cruel time for heart patients like myself. So what that I have three metal stents in my heart, my father died of heart disease and so did his father?
There is just soooooooooo much tempting food on offer at Christmas. Sweet stuff, fatty stuff, yummy stuff - and lots of it. Hey, nobody bats an eyelid if you take an extra basked potato at Christmas dinner. It would be unChristmassy not to do it, right?

I took my eight-year-old son Jack to see Christmas with the Kranks at the movies the other day. They tried to skip Christmas and things did not go very well for them for a while. I am sure there's a message in that.

I suspect my GP would have a very different message though.

He told me 18 months ago that provided I stayed on "the straight and narrow" I probably would not have any more heart problems for 10 years.

What am I expected to make of this? That the extra potatoes I snare at Christmas dinner have to be not crooked and not very wide?
See, that's what I mean. It's cruel. What if every potato on the serving plate is fat and has a dog leg?

Am I supposed to forgo Christmas pudding and trifle and rum butter (which I made myself and is laced with brown sugar and 250 grams of full-cream butter)?

And what about Jack's stocking? What if he gets a bar of chocolate or two? My wife Katherine and I have invested a lot of time and energy into teaching him to share - um, especially with chocolate.

Despite these feelings, I guess I will still feel guilty when I go back to my doctor in the new year.

"Hmmmm," he might say after examining the report and peering up over the top of his glasses. "It says here, John, that you had this test done just before Christmas."

"Well, yes, doc, just like you asked me," I'll say, all the time trying to suck in my jolly Christmas belly.

"No, I referred you for this test a good six months ago."

"Um, well, I've been busy," I'd lie.

"Busy! It looks like you have been in a good paddock to me. "What made you busy? Non-stop eating?"

"That's not fair," I'd say indignantly. "How are my cholesterol levels anyway?"

"Hmmm, let's see," the doctor would say, returning to the fine print. "It's good ... yes, very good."

"Well that's great then," I'd say, wiping the sweat from my brow and letting my tummy out again with a big sigh of relief.

"But ...," the doctor would say, punching some keys on a calculator on his desk.

"But what?" I'd echo, sweating and sucking in again in antipication that something bad was about to happen.

"But .... have you heard of the Bah Humbug seasonally-adjusted cholesterol test rule?"

NB: I called this site Dunno because I kept drawing a blank when I had to put a name to it