The One-Handed Golf Pro

Who would’t listen to the experts?

First Diagnosis

There was once a golf pro who was suffering pains and numbness in his right hand. He went to a doctor who examined him carefully and took tests. The man went to see the doctor again when the test results were in.

“I have bad news for you, I’m afraid,” the doctor told him. “You’ve been eating too many sweets. Now you have advanced diabetes. It’s so bad that in addition to daily shots, we’re going to have to amputate that hand.”

The man was shocked. “Doctor, I can’t lose my hand — how would I play golf? And if I couldn’t play golf, how would I make my living?”

“I don’t see any other way to read these test results,” answered the doctor. “If you won’t let us remove that hand the damage will spread. You’ll lose your arm then. After that your life could be in danger.”

Second Opinion

The golf pro went to see another doctor who ran the same tests and came to the same diagnosis. “It’s diabetes,” he told the golf pro. “A very bad case. You’ll have to get that hand removed or you will lose your arm — quite possibly your life.”

The man went to another doctor and another until he consulted with every doctor in town. They all agreed that he had an advanced form of diabetes and that he must agree to amputate his right hand within a few weeks. Some told him he might lose his arm as well, others told him his arm was in no immediate danger. One told him that the arm must come off straight away, never mind about the hand. But all the doctors agreed that the golf pro’s addiction to sweets had brought on a grave case of diabetes.

“But I love sweets,” the man said. “How could eating a few candies make my hand hurt like this?”

Somebody to Trust

The golf pro was shaken. He went to get his car. The parking garage attendant took one look at him and said, “Buddy, you don’t look so good. What’s wrong?”

The golf pro explained. The attendant frowned. “Them doctors don’t know it all,” he said. “One of them told my cousin he was going to drop dead in six months — that was three years ago and he’s still going strong. I tell you what, my brother in law is a pharmacist. You go tell him about it and he’ll fix you up. He’s somebody you can trust — not like them doctors who only want to cut a guy open and run up the bill.”

The golf pro went to the pharmacist who sold him some pain pills, and regaled him with a dozen stories of times doctors had given faulty diagnoses or operated needlessly. He assured the golf pro that his symptoms could have been entirely normal — just part of life’s occasional ups and downs.

The golf pro took the pharmacist at his word. He set aside what all the doctors had told him. He took the pain pills with some joint pills and felt better overnight.

The Moral

The moral of the story is, don’t be surprised when people tell you they don’t believe in man-made global warming. Not all of them are being paid by the oil companies either. They just want to go on eating candies and being golf pros … just like always.

Oh, about the golf pro? That wasn’t the end of his story. But I’ll leave it up to you to finish.

Who was right, the pharmacist and the parking garage attendant, or all the doctors?