The things you hear while looking for a replacement rear view mirror at the scrap car yard! It’s enough to put you off leaving the house, not that I’m that big on it to begin with. The world is a dangerous place; there’s no two ways about it.
Here’s an example of what I’m on about. This guy at the scrap yard was talking to his mate about his four year-old daughter, who’s wound up with some kind of rare allergy combination. It means she has to be rushed to the emergency room at fairly regular intervals. I couldn’t tell you exactly what it was that she’s allergic to or how it affects her, but it was something to do with airborne pollen and oxygen restriction.
The guy’s mate then started on about how his cousin also had some kind of rare medical condition, and that he treated it via a device I’ve never heard of. By the sounds of it, it’s some kind of walk-in chamber that has a high ambient concentration of oxygen. I think he called it mild hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Melbourne medical people, have you heard of anything like this? Maybe it’s actually not that uncommon; I’m not exactly up on the latest in medical technology.
The first guy – the one with the allergy afflicted daughter – was nodding in agreement, saying that he’d heard about it and that he’d wondered if it could help. He said he wasn’t sure, though, because this hyperbaric therapy is not normally used for allergies, although it’s a particularly unusual and aggressive condition that his kid has. Plus, he added, the treatment is meant to be relatively gentle and completely non-invasive, so giving it a go doesn’t seem too risky.
The second guy then launched into how you can get portable versions of the oxygen chambers for home use, so users don’t have to be going to the hospital all the time for the treatment. It was around that point that my attention trailed off, as I’d finally found my mirror, or at least something close enough. I was glad to retreat to the safety of my truck.