'Two Months After Treatment
'Two Months After Treatment
A Hepatitis Poem Parody
By Bill Buckels
Based on an Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas
('Twas the Night Before Christmas)
By Clement Clarke Moore (1779-1863)
'Two months after Treatment; I was feeling quite bold,
Not a virus was stirring, not even a cold;
I dimly remembered Hepatitis'' first scare,
Thinking Success just hadn't a prayer.
The druggists were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of profits danced in their heads;
My claims had been settled without any cr*p;
I was thinking 'bout taking a long liver's nap.
When out in the back there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my keyboard to see what was the matter;
Away to the window where my cat turned and tossed,
I opened the blinds and scraped off the frost.
The moon on the breast of the now-yellow snow
Gave the lustre of jaundice to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a wizened old croaker, with a nurse he called "Dear",
He was a quack doctor, I could tell by his beak;
Plus-he made duck-sounds when starting to speak;
More rabid than beagles his treatments they came,
And with them he shouted, each pharmacorp's name;
"Now, Amgen, now, Schering! now, ICN! Roche!
On, Maxim, on, Viragen!, SciClone, Oh Gosh!
They have promised you nothing so you've nothing to lose!"
"Like fecal dry-doogie their efficacies lay,
They come-out in the-wash and crumble away."
Then up to the house-top a coin-flip he-threw,
He said "Heads or Tails?" while it twinkled and flew.
And then, as he caught it, he banged on the door,
His Nurse looked familiar, I had seen her before;
As I got to the knob, and was turning it 'round,
Crashing right past me they came with a bound.
He was dressed all in white, from his head to his foot,
But his clothes were all soiled with hospital food;
A bundle of drugs he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.
His eyes -- how dilated! His speech it was slurred!
Unclear as the writing on his scribbled words!
As I looked at his nurse I recalled that we'd spoke,
But it must have been years back when I was broke;
I'd gone to his office and they'd taken some blood,
But I'd long since changed doctors, there was no follow-up;
That was back in the the days of my large swollen liver,
That quivered and shook, and that fact made me shiver.
Back then I was sick, not a jolly old elf,
I now re-a-lized he'd just thought of himself;
The blank of his look and his hand on his nurse
Soon gave me to know that he thought of self-first.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
But he stopped all his writing and turned with a jerk,
When I said to him "Doctor, there's been a mistake...
I'm already treated, you're too f***in' late."
"If you give me a Bill I'll just 'blow the whistle'
So please save your bull and I'll take my milk-thistle."
And then I exclaimed, ere he drove out of sight,
"HEPATITIS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD-NIGHT!"
Copyright(C) Bill Buckels 2000, 2001
All Rights Reserved.
Copy Freely but Not For Profit
http://www.mts.net/~pb999874/hepsongs/main.htm
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