"Were we blind to miss this?"

"Were we blind to miss this?"
<-- polite blink, vague concommital smile
"I mean, it is really ugly."
<-- rapid eye movement, smile supernaturally still, sort of affixed to the lips
"Here is your disease, right there! We don't have to look anymore!"
"Ghaaa...?"
"There! You see it? (waving MRI results against spotty sunlight filtering in from the outside) It's HUGE!"
"Uhm..."
"It's a textbook case of a badly herniated disk."
"I... see."
"It really bears the stench of surgery."
"It bears the stench of surgery..."
"Yes. You know, when someone has something like you had, a herniated disk is just not stuff we think about. Oh, I do remember this 65 year old guy who had the same thing you did, and we treated him exactly the same way we treated you, and he developed a herniated disk in his neck as well."
"Uh...?"
"I am writing an article about it, right now."
"Aaah."
(Enter secretary) "Hi A------."
"Hi M-----. Guess what! I have a herniated disk!"
"Hahahaha. You are really crossing off the diseases at the Neurology Department, one by one."
"Hahahaha. Haha. Yeah. Ha."