From Uncle Vellanoff's Journal

Medical Situations On the Road

     As our troupe traveled around, we sometimes had medical situations arise where we needed to consult or otherwise use the services of medical people or medical institutions. Many in the troupe were immigrants like myself, where English was not our native tongue, so occasionally there was some confusion around these medical situations that turned out to be sort of humorous, when not lethal.

          One such incident happened to Olaf and Henrietta Olson. We were staying in a boarding house while playing in South Bend, Indiana. Henrietta was very pregnant and her time of delivery was close.

    One evening Henrietta started having contractions, so Olaf got very excited, ran downstairs to the phone, and called the hospital. He yelled, “MY WIFE. WE THINK SHE’S READY. SHOULD WE COME NOW?”

    By this time, we were all standing outside our rooms waiting to see if we could help in some way.

    The doctor tried to calm Olaf down and asked him how far apart the contractions were.

    Olaf yelled up the stairs, “HENRIETTA, HOW MUCH TIME BETWEEN THE CONTRACTORS?” Luckily, Henrietta knew what the doctor meant.

    “Tell him ten minutes.”

    Olaf yelled into the phone, “TEN MINUTES.”

    The doctor asked, “And this is her first child?”

    Olaf was astounded, and yelled into the phone, “ARE YOU SOME KIND OF IDIOT? I’M HER HUSBAND!”

   

    Another member of our troupe, Lydia Proludsky, came back from a call to the Doctor’s office a little embarrassed. She told the following story.

    “I got to the office and they gave me a little glass jar, which I later found out was for a urine specimen. But how was I to know? Huh? The nurse said, ‘The bathroom is over there on your right; the Doctor will be with you in a few minutes’.

    A few minutes later, I came out of the bathroom with the empty container. The nurse took the container with a puzzled look. I explained to her: ‘Thanks! But there’s a toilet in there, so I didn’t need that after all.’ Now I know better.”

    Judy, our lead piano player, always thought something was wrong with her. I understand the medical term for that is Hypochondriac, or something close to that. Every time we got close to Chicago, Judy stopped by to see her doctor with some real or imagined ailment.

    On one visit she said, “Doctor, you know those voices I’ve been hearing in my head? I haven’t heard them for several weeks now.”

    The Doctor was very happy, “Wow! That’s wonderful. I’m happy for you.”

    “Wonderful?” exclaimed a sad looking Judy. “There’s nothing wonderful about it. I think my hearing has started to go.”

    Then there was an experience I had which points out the difficulty of understanding the nuances of a foreign language.

    After checking me over the Doctor said, “I’m not exactly sure of the cause, but I think it could be due to alcohol.”

    Felling sorry for the guy I replied, “That’s okay Doctor, I’ll come back when you’re sober.”

    Well that didn’t go over so well, but after I told him that I didn’t drink alcohol, he got down to business.

(Editor’s note: I’ve heard this last one from so many sources, I’ve an idea Uncle Vellanoff just hijacked it for his own use in his journal, or maybe he’s the one the story started with.)