Insane or In Synch

A man was about to stand up from his chair near the end of clinic consultation, when he asked me about his kidney problem. It's around lunch time on a rainy Monday, and after seeing 16 patients, I was wondering if I missed to make abundantly clear that his diabetes mellitus hasn't caused any complications.

"No, not at all. Not even a trace of protein in your urine. Let me repeat: your kidney function is perfectly fine," I explained in a professional manner after looking back at his blood test and urine results. I had a hunch (and it later proved to be pretty accurate) that this patient didn't believe in what his doctor – hell, a doctor with special interest in kidney disease – had said.

Yet, I saw no reason for the worry as to the odds of having kidney problems. He didn't even recall a single family member who had developed kidney disease. So our discussion went on and on and on. I told him it isn't possible. He told me it is. I told him it isn't. He told me it is. I was beginning to conclude that this guy must be insane until he told me about his weak kidneys taking a toll on his sex life. Bank on it. My patient was talking from the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine, wherein our kidneys take care of the sexual function.

There's a lot of this going around. The two of us were simply not in synch when we spoke to each other. There is a story about a five-year-old girl who was chatting with Daniel Gottlieb when they went for a trip in his van. Just as they pulled up to a traffic light, the girl asked this famous psychologist from the back of the van, "Uncle Danny, what does having sex mean?" Needless to say, this is not a question you and I want to answer. Finally Gottlieb took a deep breath, and whispered, "Having sex is what grown-ups do when they want to have a baby."

The older sister of that five-year-old girl wasn't impressed, though. "Uncle Danny, what are you talking about? My sister just asked you, 'What does heaven's sakes mean?'"