Those diving professionals must keep themselves pretty fit, don't you think? Don't you believe it - they just have ways of passing their medicals, as Brian Rees reveals
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Trade secrets of a medical examinee
MUM ALWAYS SAID I WAS SPECIAL. Now it's official. I have the lungs of a 20-year old, the looks of a 60-year-old, the reflexes of a corpse, and a certificate to prove it.
It's all down to diving. If I didn't dive, I wouldn't bust a gut trying to drag myself into sufficient fitness for a diving medical each year.
On the plus side: lungs with enough huff and puff to send the three little pigs scuttling for their buildings insurance. This results from my annual efforts to coax the old body back into shape.
On the minus side: I can thank the foredeck of a dive boat for a rearranged nose and two front teeth. This hasn't exactly left me looking youthful. Sheer disbelief too often greets my date of birth these days.
The ability to ignore the effects of a couple of hours' midwinter immersion in Stoney Cove can be considered a useful attribute in a diving professional. But it might explain why the funny bones are a little reluctant to perform on demand for a diving doctor's reflex tests.
Oh yes. I'm an old pro, and we're not talking about any old check-up that you amateurs might decide to take. If you haven't suffered a Health & Safety Executive Diving Medical Examination, you don't know you're born.
And as the years advance, that's the certificate - all seven pages of it - that starts to trump every diving qualification in the book. Without it, we're not working.
The trauma starts each autumn for me, as my annual medical renewal looms large.
It dawns on me that if walking around the corner for a pint at the Bell & Jorrocks is leaving me out of breath, I haven't a hope when it comes to passing the Army Step Test, which is the first hurdle of the approaching HSE.
There's no point in even dreaming of seeing the diving doctor until you've satisfied the surgery nurse that you can leap on and off a plywood step under her steely gaze and still draw breath afterwards .
Under no circumstances attempt to prove a point by trying to look sprightly at this stage, because once she's got you gasping she'll take your pulse to check for recovery. If you recover. So nice and steady does it.
When she shouts "stop" and your heart is leaping from your chest, it's time to pause, cup a hand to an ear and ask: "Do you want to answer that?"
If you can hear Nurse over the sound of the blood thumping in your lugholes, she'll snap: "Answer what?"
Think about it. That little diversion alone has already got the heartbeat down 10%. "The door," you gasp.
And she checks. And there's no-one there. And you say: "Funny that". And she checks your pulse, and by now the coronary has passed and you have a fighting chance of passing too.
My party trick of blowing up hotwater bottles stands me in good stead for the next bit. These days the lung-function test is monitored by a hi-tech machine.
Keep blowing until you can feel your windbags touching your tonsils and you have half a chance of passing out, and passing muster.
Six pints of tea for breakfast makes the urine sample a bit of a challenge. The pot I'm given to play with is the size of an egg- cup, but I've held it in so long that my back teeth are floating and I could fill a dustbin. I splash some in the jar eventually. And on my jumper and jeans. On the floor. The walls too. Perhaps even the ceiling.
I blame Dalton's Law. Or maybe Boyle's. Six pints of PG Tips equals one hell of a lot of pressure either way.
When the great physician himself approaches, he instructs me: "Clothes off, but for God's sake don't drop your pants."
With hindsight, it was a joke. At the time, I find it an insult, as I have always believed my privates to be my best feature.
What sort of medical doesn't require a bloke to drop and cough, anyway? I'm paying for this, remember, and I want my money's worth.
He whacks my elbows, knees and ankles with a lumphammer, looking for reflexes, and declares: "You need an undertaker, not a doctor."
Next up, he wants me on one leg with my eyes tight shut. I'm in my 36in boxer shorts, remember, but feel obliged to hold in the belly to a more modest 32in. The undergarments are rapidly slipping southwards, and I'm trying not to fall over.
The length of time before you topple determines whether you pass or fail this bit. The technical term for it is the Modified Romburg Test.
I swear they make it up, record you on webcam and sell it on to those people who make the short films you only ever see on airlines, about people being wound up in front of a secret camera.
Tickle tests follow. Apparently fiddling with your toes reveals all sorts of vital signs. I can certainly confirm that it makes me giggle.
I have learnt the eyesight chart by heart, so that's no problem. I can also find my nose with my fingers (well, I've been picking it for 40 years) and that is good, apparently.
Blood tests, X-rays and five minutes with a heart-checking contraption strapped to my front confirm that I have passed Medical in Confidence Diving at Work Regulation and I have the lungs of a 20-year old, the looks of a 60-year-old, the reflexes of a corpse and, indeed, a certificate to prove it.
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