Skin Job

 I got up early to phone my local doctor's surgery. Here's how it works: you can't just make an appointment to see a doctor anymore. You can't show up and sit in the waiting room until someone asks you to come in and remove your trousers. You ring the receptionist at 8.30 in the morning and hope someone will pick up the phone. I sat in my office, my symptoms written out in front of me, plus the word "Vaseline" in case that became important, and on the dot of 8.30, I dialled. An automated message answered, telling me a lot of things I didn't need to know and, eventually, telling me a thing I did need to know: if I wanted to speak to the receptionist I needed to press "5". I did so. There was an engaged tone and, after a short while, the phone went dead. I rang again. Same thing. I rang again. Same thing. I rang again. Same thing. I rang ag…I mean, eventually I rang the surgery 28 times. It took me half an hour. Sometimes, I switched it up and pressed "2", to speak to a G.P. instead of "5" to speak to a receptionist, but it made no difference: the same engaged tone beeping away. The same cut off. Eventually I timed it. The call cuts off after 40 seconds. I wonder how they decided that 40 seconds was the earliest opportunity to terminate the call without seeming rude. Call 28 was completely different, however. If madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome, the NHS had just proved I wasn't mad. I don't think they get enough credit.

     I was in a secret garden of stern warnings about being rude to the staff, or I'd have my doctoring lopped off. I had no intention of being nasty to the receptionist. I was on my holidays. I'd stopped doing my full-time job, ringing up the surgery and getting cut off, and which I'd been doing since birth, and now I was here in medical paradise. The mood music featured synthetic flutes. A voice told me I was number 11 in the queue, and I'm really fascinated to find out how you get to be first in the queue for this, it must just be in the wrist. My call was important. To them, they added, as an unnecessary caveat. My call was only important to them, but at least it was important to somebody. I was terrified that the call would just ring off, but the 40 seconds came and went, and I was still hanging on the telephone being told I was important, or at least the 11^th most important person currently ringing them. You don't get a medal for 11^th place. Imagine the podium. If it was a scale model of the Alps, Mont Blanc would be first, that's the biggest one, they name pens and puddings after it. But the 11^th highest Alp is The Matterhorn and, let's face it, that's better. I was The Matterhorn of this queue. So cool. So fresh. So many cow bells.

     Suddenly, someone was talking to me. She was called Fiona. She was calm and Scottish. I didn't mention that I was The Matterhorn. She didn't ask, "What's the matter, hon?". She asked me why I was calling and I referred to my notes. "I think I've developed eczema or psoriasis," I told her, "I have a rash on my neck, my eyelids, the inside of my elbows," I corrected myself, "the crook of my elbow, and, cough, my groin." We both knew that groin was the big one here. That's why it had last billing. Fiona advised me a doctor would call me "this afternoon", confirmed my telephone number, and our business was concluded. I had anticipated being asked to send some photographic evidence and had taken selfies of my most livid areas including my very first dick pic. Nice to know that's out there in the cloud not looking its best. But Fiona didn't ask and I didn't offer. I still don't understand dick pics. People used to leave their card. Now they slide into your DMs with an erect penis and a pout. What's wrong with an 8 by 10 glossy of you, smiling and with a cricket jumper draped over your shoulders or chewing on the stem of a pipe while wearing a captain's hat. I don't want to meet the man whose penis looks better than his face.

     It's now mid-morning. I've done the washing up. I've bathed. I've phoned Susan. I've checked my rashes. Still foul. I'm going to make some breakfast. And my phone is my constant companion. I can't leave it. It follows me everywhere, like a toddler when you're trying to use the toilet. It's a little early but it could ring at any time. I can't miss that call even though, whatever happens, I will not enjoy it. These are the options, in order of humiliation:

1)      The doctor will ring. It will be a woman because I've never seen a doctor who wasn't a woman, and she will ask me to describe my symptoms, and I will describe my balls to her, and she will suggest a topical cream which I shall purchase from my local pharmacist, also a woman, who will provide a tub of itchy ball cream. Fine.

2)      The doctor will ring. She will ask me to send her the pictures of my various be-rouged areas, and I will do so and, once she's stopped dry-heave laughing, she will send me off to the pharmacist for soothing ball balm. Ballm.

3)      The doctor will insist on my coming to see her to show off my naked and diseased body in person. The eyes, elbow and neck can all be seen while I wear a tee-shirt, but I will need to get the cock and balls out to give the full display. Donald ducking in the submarine-like confines of a doctor's office. How very intimate. I'm blushing already. I'm red there, too.

4)      I'm examined, naked, and there's nothing to be done, it's just going to get worse, and then I'm on a ward in hospital, skin peeling like a ginger sunbather, flaking all over my winceyette pyjamas, when nurse Joanne Whalley appears with a jar of Vaseline and a concerned expression, but it's too late, I've desiccated myself to death. I'm a man-sized packet of pork scratchings. They won't even have to cremate me. I'm already dust.

     Those are the options. Also, it's pissing with rain today so my hair's going to look shit too.

     I have had to get it out for a doctor before. Amazingly, for a man who has done precisely six days of manual labour in his life, I once gave myself a hernia. Or rather, I didn't. It was an inguinal hernia, a swelling or lump caused by tissue pushing through a weak spot at the top of your inner thigh. The upshot of this was that I looked down one day, and notice I had a third bollock. This caused some concern but, being a man, I decided to silently fret about it for a week or two before seeing a doctor. This was the 90's, so I recall going to the local surgery, saying the receptionist "I'd like to see a doctor, please" and then sitting in the waiting room until I was called. What a crazy system. I was summoned into a room where there was an attractive female doctor lying in wait. She was about my age, which was also great. I wondered whether I'd gone to college with her. We had a little chat and then she invited me to remove my trousers and pants so she could look at the third man on the mountain (and we're back to the Matterhorn again). Two things struck me as I stood there, the air con gently buffeting my pubic hair. Firstly, it was a sunny autumnal day in Basingstoke, and her surgery had a large window, looking out onto Down Grange Sports Complex where, even as I stood, my testes desperately trying to climb back into my body like nervous fledglings missing the nest, I could see school children carrying sports bags just wandering past the window. Secondly, the doctor was walking towards the window ledge, where a tape measure was resting on top of a small, wooden box. Was she going to measure it? And which bits was she going to measure? And why? Was she doing her own research?

     She wasn't. She moved the tape measure, opened the box, and removed some fresh latex gloves from inside. Then she spent a good thirty seconds manipulating my testicles and asking me if it hurt. I'm amazed I didn't fall in love with her.  I ended up in hospital, having key-hole surgery to push my rogue guts back into place. No scar. No trouble since.

     The doctor rang back. A man. I told him the fun stuff that was happening to my body, and he invited me to come and show it to him. This was like Grindr when the Republican party is in town. There was no messing about. I had an appointment for 3.40. I wrote two thousand words and continued to paint my portrait of Seamus Heaney, and then I headed out.

     I'm in the waiting room, waiting. I'm here to show the doctor my balls. I'm going to show him my eyelids, the crook of my arm, my throat, and some new patches of red skin that have started to appear on my wrists. But really, when your genitals are involved, that's the main thing. Your cock and balls get star billing. They'd be the main attraction, if there were anything attractive about them. There is little erotic frisson here, despite it being little more than socially sanctioned cottaging. Still, I was glad to get the appointment, despite the obvious potential for blackmail. I don't know what this scabby, scratchy, red malaise, that burns and disfigures is, and I'm really hoping it's the sort of thing a topical cream will be able to handle. My biggest fear is that it's symptomatic of something else, something quieter, more deadly. I live the life of a sybaritic voluptuary and I'm far from the first flush of youth. The cistern packed in long ago and your left prodding the float ball in the tank as water trickles meekly into the bowl. I fear this is my fault, that I've done this to myself by being disgusting. Do I not wash enough? Am I a filthy tramp living in a bin? Did the Lady in the Van have this scratchy redness all over her fanny?

     I'm the only one in the Waiting Room. They're playing a terrible song called, "I'm on the Edge". It features a bellowing woman and a foul, shirtless, 80's saxophone solo that young people probably like now. "I'm on the Edge". The lyrics add, "of glory". Oh, so we're doing irony now? Fine.

     When I first entered the surgery, the doctor greeted me with, "Ah, Mr Higgins. You're not exactly a frequent flyer, are you?" and I was so confused that I started to think back to the last time I was on a plane. Was it good for your health, flying? Being trapped in a high-altitude cylinder of other people's farts was good for you? Really? And then I realised he only meant I didn't visit the surgery very often. Was I not sick enough? Would they throw me off their books for lack of attendance? Are they a bit strapped for sick people in the NHS? I should have said that one of the reasons I don't go to the doctors very often is because I had to ring reception 28 times before I got through to somebody. But I didn't say that. Because, as usual, I wanted him to like me, and because I wanted him to fix my crumbling skin.

     I showed him my neck, my elbow, my wrists, and my eyelids, and that seem to occupy him. He was quite vague. I asked him whether my recent chest infection had compromised my immune system and that's why I had this, and he said, yes, or it could be the opposite, my immune system was working far too well. Okay. What was it? It was eczema or dermatitis. Are they the same thing, I didn't ask. Are they catching? No, they're not catching. Later, trousers round my ankles, I asked if it was possible I had "jock itch". He agreed I might. But that's fungal, isn't it? And highly communicable. A vague noise of affirmation. Okay.

     It was touch and go, though I should be clear there was no touching, but I did show the doctor my cock and balls in the end. He was far more focused on my neck and elbow, which is fair enough, and had proscribed three separate unguents for them, but I really wouldn't have got my money's worth if I hadn't whipped it out. He drew a curtain, bless, and I dropped my knickers and stared manfully ahead. I fought an urge to start talking about football. He bent down in front of me. No gloves. He wasn't touching it. 

     "Yes," he said, "that is quite red."

     Quite red? It's like a Chinese lantern. Like a couple of clown noses. I was anticipating relief but not the comic kind. I put my boiled extremities away and he went over to the computer and typed up another script, this one with steroids in it. Christ, how bad were my balls? They needed propping up like an angry incel with a kettle bell in his basement. I expect he's now very pleased I'm not a "frequent flyer", though I'd struggle to get these toxic plums through customs. "Anything to declare?" "I'm concealing a pair of flammable objects in my knickers. Are you going to strip search me?" "No, I'm going to keep as far away from your flaming knackers as possible. They look like they might melt my gloves!"

     Have I got them out in the airport in this scenario? Are they glowing red through my trousers? Have I made the X-ray machine malfunction? I don't know. I just write this stuff.

     I left the surgery, carrying prescriptions for four creams, and a post it note telling me where to rub each of them. I have a special eyelid cream. He told me if I got some in my eye it might make my vision blurry. Well, it makes sense. He was the only doctor I've ever been to who didn't ask me how much I drank and call me morbidly obese. They were doing that when I was thin.  Before I went off to fill the script and take my medicine, I decided to buy a bottle of wine. As an unimaginative drunk, I award myself a drink whatever happens: if I have a bad day, I commiserate with a drink. If I have a good day, I celebrate with a drink. This was a neutral event. I was sick but I had sought treatment and hopefully would soon be cured. Equally, I'd had to confront a stranger with a pair of testicles that looked like they came with a light dusting of shaved pecorino. It was anti-heroic, both good and bad, a curate's boiled eggs. Wine was more than necessary. Wine was the best medicine.