Maybe I'm wasting my time saying this but the BMI is inaccurate and the idea people should lose weight before operations is not only old-fashioned and cruel but belies the highly professional standards of today's medical training.
If a very fat patient had a motor accident, would they be denied treatment? Of course not.
My surgeons went to a lot of trouble to explain all this to me, not knowing I'd spent 10 years researching and writing two books about obesity.
We have a strict Code of Patient Rights in NZ, which prevents such blackmail. I played a very tiny part in its inception, having fought size discrimination for many years.
www.hdc.org.nz/your-rights/the-code-and-your-rights
Good health care should not be based on size, just need.
End of rant.
However, I'm jolly glad those waiting for operations and Grammaretto's DH having his, will get good care.
Cherry I had a full check-up only last week and all my numbers (BP, BS and cholesterol) are good, the doc was delighted with me. Please don't worry. I'm going to try one more thing to beat this and will let you know if it works.
Doodle Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin....
My invitation to become a harlot began with the Dam Busters (shock)
My son had a wonderful cassette tape of one of the DMs talking to him about his experiences in 617 Squadron and needed more info about the operation.
I order a book and man there said he'd deliver it when it arrived.
We lived in a rural area then and from politeness, because it was a longish trek out and also because he'd brought as freebies, several more books on the Dam Busters, I asked if he'd like a coffee.
He accepted and noticed books about massage on my table. I'd just finished a course on How to.
He said he could send people out to me if I liked, it'd be a nice little earner as people charged pretty high prices for a good massage and still do.
I was so naive (and poor) so agreed enthusiastically but I had no massage table and said I'd let him know when I acquired one.
Even when he said, as a parting shot, 'You could always use the bed in the interim,' the penny didn't drop.
I said, 'I'd be too low, I'd get back ache.'
In that profession, as you know, you must look after your back.
When my son, then 17, came home, I gave him the books and cheerily told him about the man who would send clients my way. "He said it would be mostly business men so I could charge quite a good price."
My son, dear soul, didn't laugh or patronise his poor out-of-touch mother, just explained that this was almost certainly nothing to do with massage as I knew it and I should be very careful.
Later, when the bookshop man rang for a progress report, I told him I was taking women exclusively.
He was very cross, 'You missed a chance to make BIG money, ' he snapped and hung up on me.
So there we have it - an opportunity to swan bout all day in a satin peignoir and fluffy mules, quaffing chsmpagne and taking 'big money' from businessmen who wanted rural massages.
Remind me to tell you one day how I was headlined by name in a leading newspaper (and syndicated around the world) as having had "1,000 men" (time frame not stipulated )
I still have that newsaper featuring my physog.
Ah, my life has not been dull.