The doctor looked serious.
Doctors often do. It comes with the job. A baker does not gaze anxiously at a currant bun either, but you do expect a certain gravity from a doctor once your trousers are around your ankles.
“Hmm,” he said.
That was not a good sign.
I lay on my side with my knees somewhere around chin level and tried to project dignity. It did not entirely work.
“Does it hurt?”
“Not really. It aches. And I keep feeling as though I need to go.”
“Hmm.”
That hmm again.
He turned around and opened a cupboard.
“I’ll just get the proctoweather, to be on the safe side.”
I looked up.
“The what?”
“Proctoweather.”
He said it the way a bicycle mechanic says tyre-pressure gauge. As though everyone had one lying in the kitchen drawer at home.
Out of the cupboard came a grey device. It looked like a cross between a blood-pressure monitor, an old-fashioned multimeter and something the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority uses to check the temperature of meatballs.
It had a dial.
From zero to eleven.
Beneath the six was the word NORMAL.
At eight, an orange area began.
From ten onwards, it was red.
On the far right, it said:
DO NOT PANIC
“Why does it go to eleven?” I asked.
The doctor looked at the device.
“No one really knows.”
He set it on the table and pressed a button. It beeped.
Then again.
Then three short beeps.
“It just needs to calibrate.”
“Of course.”
“The reference value comes from Utrecht.”
I decided not to ask what exactly they used as a reference there. Some knowledge does not make you richer.
The doctor looked at the display.
“Good. It’s set correctly.”
“And what are you going to do with it?”
“Measure.”
I might have expected that answer.
He put on gloves.
I looked at the proctoweather.
The proctoweather looked back, insofar as a proctoweather can.
“Just relax.”
That is probably the most pointless instruction in Dutch healthcare. Nobody relaxes when someone in rubber gloves is standing behind them and there is a device next to the examination table with DO NOT PANIC printed on it.
Something happened.
I decided not to ask what.
The needle moved.
Four.
Five.
Six.
The doctor frowned.
Seven.
The orange area drew closer.
“Hmm.”
“Is seven bad?”
“Seven is seven.”
There was not much I could say to that.
The needle touched eight.
A light came on.
“Ah,” said the doctor.
I liked ah even less than hmm.
“What does that mean?”
“Let’s see.”
He picked up the manual.
That did not reassure me.
He leafed through it.
“Here. Eight point two to eight point seven: increased urgency with mild atmospheric instability.”
“Atmospheric?”
“That’s what it says.”
The proctoweather beeped again.
The display read:
PARTLY CLOUDY
Underneath:
CHANCE OF URGENCY: 70%
I looked over my shoulder.
“Is this a medical device or a weather station?”
“Medical.”
“Are you sure?”
He turned the device around and looked at the back.
“ProctoMed Instruments, Nieuwegein.”
“Then I suppose it must be.”
The needle slowly fell back to six.
The doctor took off his gloves.
“Nothing alarming.”
“Good.”
“Probably still some irritation from the rubber bands.”
“That’s what I thought too.”
He nodded.
“The proctoweather confirms it.”
I pulled my trousers back up. My dignity slowly returned, although it would probably still need outpatient treatment for some time.
At the door, I looked at the device once more.
“Doctor?”
“Yes?”
“What exactly does that thing measure?”
He was silent for a moment.
Then he looked at the proctoweather.
“Opinions differ on that.”
“But you still use it?”
“Of course.”
“Why?”
He smiled.
“Because patients ask considerably fewer questions as soon as you use a device.”
I nodded.
There was something in that.
“And the red area? From ten onwards?”
“No idea.”
“Has that ever happened?”
“Once.”
“And?”
The doctor looked serious.
“Leeuwarden, 2019.”
He said nothing more.
I opened the door.
Behind me came another beep.
Then a mechanical voice:
MEASUREMENT COMPLETE.
A moment’s silence.
PATIENT: SLIGHTLY DIStrustful.
I turned around.
The doctor looked at the device.
Then at me.
“Hmm,” he said.
“Nothing to worry about, foctor.”
And I went home.