There’s something about going to the doctor that makes me a little uneasy and I get nervous whenever I go into a surgery. I’m sure I’m not the only one and I think we’re entitled to be a bit afraid. After all, doctors have the power to turn your life upside down. They can stick needles in your body, send you to hospital and they can even sign your death certificate.
They’re trained to have a reassuring smile and a calm demeanour, so they can convince you that everything is fine, even when you have only about five minutes left to live. I put all that out of my mind this morning when I went to my GP to get the flu jab. I arrived early and took a seat in the waiting room.
I was on my own, so I was just looking around the room, when my eyes fell on the notice board on the wall. I saw a little poster about Parkinson’s disease pinned to the board. Looking down through it, I read the list of symptoms for the early onset of this terrible illness.
Excessive sweating was the first one I noticed, and it made me sit up. I’ve sweated excessively all my life. Back when I was playing tennis, I would always come off the court after a game and my clothes would land on the floor of the dressing room with a plop. Even thinking about it now makes me sweat.
The next sign to look out for, the poster told me, was the loss of smell. A few months ago, I had a very serious illness called man-flu. Women won’t appreciate what it’s like to experience this kind of pain and suffering, but let’s just say that it was horrific. We men don’t talk about it that much, preferring instead to suffer in silence because that’s the way we are. We don’t like making a fuss and we have this bravery gene that helps us to cope.
Anyway, when I recovered from this near-death experience, I noticed that I had lost the sense of smell and taste. They both came back after a bit, but not to the extent they were before.
Another sign was memory loss and I was getting concerned at this stage. I can’t remember what day of the week it is, and I have difficulty with people’s names. When I’m out walking, and I see people coming towards me, I try to identify as early as possible whether I know them or not. Then I race through the alphabet trying to come up with their name in the few seconds before we meet. I regularly fail, so that’s it, there’s no doubt. I have Parkinson’s.
There was more literature on the notice board too about other conditions like anxiety. Some of these symptoms include dizziness, chest pain, neck tension, fear of impending doom, weakness in legs and feeling like you are going crazy. I didn’t have any of these signs before I came in, but now I reckon I’m close to death, depressed and possibly pregnant.
The buzzer brought me back to reality and I got the flu jab without any drama and without being diagnosed with a terminal illness or an unexpected pregnancy, but it reminded me of something.
One of my most embarrassing moments in a doctor’s surgery happened as a result of an incident with my daughter when she was about a year and a half. I put her lying on the floor one day and I was in the process of changing her nappy when something in her mouth caught my eye. When I looked more closely, it seemed to me to be a green fungus growing from the roof of her mouth. It was hideous.
I was on my own and I didn’t have anyone nearby who could offer a second opinion and I was beginning to panic, so I just scooped her up, put her in the car and raced off to the doctor. I was in a hurry to get there before this thing growing in her mouth choked her or invaded her entire body.
I was waved straight into the surgery because this was a major emergency and I only hoped that modern medicine could deal with this horror. I laid her down on the bed and she was looking up at the ceiling, smiling away to herself. She was so brave I thought.
I got out of the way to give the doctor room to carry out a life-saving procedure, but I was taken aback when he asked me where the obstruction was.
I thought the guy was losing his marbles and I practically elbowed him out of the way to show him this potentially fatal growth on the child’s pallet. But I couldn’t see anything. Both of us looked all over her tiny little mouth but there was nothing there.
When I explained to him exactly what I saw, he nodded very sympathetically, because by then he realised that he was obviously dealing with a complete idiot. It was, he decided, a bit of phloem that got lodged in the roof of her mouth while she was lying on her back when she was being changed. Once I lifted her upright, she probably swallowed it and the problem was solved.
I slinked out of the surgery and drove home with the sun visor down, using the back roads, in case anybody recognised me. I figured that by now, it was common knowledge that there was this dopey dad who couldn’t tell the difference between a green baby killing monster and a harmless bit of phloem.
That’s another reason why I don’t like to visit the doctor’s surgery, it just reminds me of my shame.