People come up to me in airports, they walk into the office, and they say, 'I'm going to cry; I'm going to pass out.' And I say, 'Please don't pass out; I'm not a doctor.'
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I spent a day in a neck brace on a hospital trolley after falling from a horse and cart in Ireland. All the nurses thought I was a traveler, which made me laugh. Who else comes into a hospital saying they've fallen off a horse and cart?
Flying back from New York, the flight attendant said 'God, I wished you were here yesterday, we had a stroke on the plane. I said, if I have a stroke on a plane, I hope the pretend doctor isn't the one on the plane. I want a real doctor.
When I meet people who say - which they do all of the time - 'I must just tell you, my great aunt had cancer of the elbow and the doctors gave her 10 seconds to live, but last I heard she was climbing Mount Everest,' and so forth, I switch off quite early.
When I walk through an airport and people go, 'You're not fat!' I'm like, 'Thanks. That's great. Good to know I'm not fat today! Thank you!'
I try to visit people in hospitals when I can, smiling and joking while I'm there. But when I leave, I just start crying.
And I have always told the patients when I talk to them. When they come around and say, 'What will you have to drink? Oh that's right you don't drink.' Just speak up and say, 'Of course I drink. But I just don't drink alcohol.'
I get depressed at airports.
The nurses at the hospital tried to soothe me, and they even tried unsuccessfully at one point to return me to Americans.
When I got out of the hospital, it was one of those classic things - you're looking death in the eye, and it changes you. I thought, I ought to go back on the road.
I had to stop traveling alone because I missed so many planes. When somebody runs up to you in the airport and begins to tell you their life story, you can't say, 'Excuse me, boo,' as they're weeping on your bosom.