Tails and Heads

  Tails and Heads

In the Clinic Beau Soleil  19.09.2012

BOTTOMS UP!

            The thirty minute drive to the clinic (Beau Soleil) in Montpellier at six o'clock in the morning in a state of fast could have been harrowing, but the autoroute was almost as empty as my stomach. And then, I didn't have to cross town, only go to the tram terminus, park, and take the fifteen minute ride with early commuters. By the time we arrived (Nadine accompanied me, escort, administration assistant, driver for the return trip. Even on an empty stomach I was safer for the go trip at six a.m.) the desire for coffee had become a craving for a full English breakfast. For the moment, where to go, what to do? I took a numbered slip from the dispenser, even though the display was not ticking over, and we sat down.

            I need not have worried. After only a few minutes my name was called and I was summoned to the reception desk to be identified by name and number, give proof of valid insurance, and have a plastic I.D. Bracelet affixed to my wrist by Madame Try-to Stay-cool. 7.30. I am a priority patient.

            Hardly time to sit down again, an aide collects my sheets of ID print-out and leads us to my room. The time to look over my bed, paper dressing-up kit in sealed bags before a stretcher-boy looks in. Has the nourse been? No. OK, I'll be back. Nadine seems amused (early morning dementia).I'm waiting for the house lights to go down.

            The nurse. Stressed. Have you had the laxative, sterilised shower? No. Oh, you should have gone first, now you won't. Antibiotic pill? Yes. At least that. Not your fault, urologist should have briefed you. This, and this, then this, don't forget this, follow me. I was behind Nadine.

            In here, shower, Betadine, put on paper dress, funny hat and shoes, then back here, clear? Gone. At this point Nadine began to be indispensable. So, do I put the dress on with the opening at the front or at the back?         

            Stretcher-boy is back, I climb aboard. He throws the cover vaguely over legs, crotch, chest, front-tied dress offering little to modesty. A parting female visitor squeezes past, glances, addresses stretcher-boy rhetorically

            “You're taking all the room!” Coquetry.

            The loading bay. Two stretchers with female loads. Stretcher-boy nudges me through, I sense priority. From nowhere, bandit women with masks and floral paper head-scarfs.

            “Monsieur White!”

            “You've all come for me?”

            “Why yes!”

            “Do I have a choice?”

            “You must say now.”

            “Well, OK. You look stronger than me and there are more of you.”

            It is that operational area that I have seen before, that frankly, excites me! It's like going on stage, only you will be unconscious and your numbed body will be the star, in a state of total empathy with the crowd. As in a dockyard, wheeled stretchers are being docked right and left as teams assemble to commit the acts.

            A quick check to be sure I am he who is the one who is going to be the subject. Named, showered, signed, antibiotiked, laxatived, in accordance with regulations....under a silly floral head-scarf, a pretty young lady with pink lipstick is telling me she is my anaesthetist. I am very happy about this and I tell her so. She smiles and I am even more happy. She explains the procedure and my happiness knows no bounds.

            A nurse with a face mask asks if I am OK. I try to avoid saying that I am in paradise.

            Pink-lips advises me that a needle is going to be inserted into my (left) hand to receive the anaesthetic. I say that I am ready and restrain all other comment. The lips smile. The wait will be intolerable. But busy.

            “Lift your legs M. White!”

            I imagine the nurses are smiling behind their masks. In fact, I'm sure of it. There are four or five as well as pink-lips, chatting, doing operational stuff, but two are bed engineers.

            “Lift your legs into the stirrups, higher, voila!” I am ready to give birth.

            “ Move down a little ...” I squirm bumwards. A flap is released and I sense that my buttocks are suspended over an area of ambiguity.

            “A little more Monsieur White … très bien!” I am quietly proud of my bum position.

            “Must I count?” I ask of pink-lips.

            “No. When the urologist arrives I shall release the anaesthetic, and in a few moments you will sleep. It will be for about five minutes. He is washing his hands.”

            “You can not make it last longer?”

            “No!” Pink-lips smiling. This is the way to go!

            The urologist enters. Everyone says hello. He comes to me and we shake hands. We met two weeks ago for paperwork. He says hullo. I say Sahlam. He is Abdulah, a Bedouin from Saudi Arabia. While doing the paperwork we talked of the Arabic, English, French cultures and poetry. He prefers England to France but his boss, THE specialist, is a very knowledgeable man, important to work with. While we chat he pats my right leg to reassure me, then pulls his mask back up over his face, and I wake up.

            “Ca va?”

            “Oui.        Oui.!” A mixture of wonder, disappointment, curiousity, more wonder, slight excitement then attempted analysis. Basically, like before, but with vague anal sensations. Stretcher-boy wheels me back to my room. Nadine is grinning: things are OK but I am betraying after-effects. Carefully, I shift from stretcher to bed. Stretcher-boy disappears and in privacy I assess. Nadine asks how I am. Ca va. Well, not quite. I feel an unwanted need to have a crap.

            “Can you manage …?”

            “I think so ...”

            The journey to the Gents is alright but the event is a surprise. During the five minutes under the spell of pink-lips I have been subjected to a prostate biopsie, via my anus (therefore my legs raised in stirrups and the trap door below my bum). In spite my positive karma my body is not as before. What I fancied to be a need to shit turns out to be the passing of the placenta. Or, less dramatically, I have had my first period. With the feeling that nothing has been rectorially satisfied!

            But it is not like a broken leg or rape or catching boiling water. Quand même. Heroically, I stagger back to my room, mount on the bed (Nadine is still smiling …) and doze.

            But not for long! My fast is over, I can eat! Blurred coffee, croissant, butter, jam for breakfast. I try not to dribble. Nadine tries not to laugh.. Then, I sleep.

            Then, we go home, by tram and then by car. With Nadine driving and me very much aware of the feeling that I have been technically buggered. A few days later at a rendez vous with THE specialist urologist the results will be translated.

In the Clinic Beau Soleil  24.09.2012

HEAD-CASE

            Salle d'attente, second on the left. Monday mid-morning, pretty crowded. Facing Dr. Rebillard's secretary across the corridor. I won't miss the call and I can follow the ins and outs. While reading my book. Aware of comings and goings, arrivals and departures. A departure hovers on the edge of vision, by the time it is in full vision it has become a crumpling figure, and by the time I realise this, the woman's head donks onto the floor in front of my feet. She is stretched across the corridor on her back as though it is normal.

            Most of those waiting, like the woman, are past the age of retirement: the identification is immediate and total, chairs scrape and bodies tilt towards upright. Posing my book I lean over the woman's head, notice the closed eyes, the stillness, can I make her move, what should I do?

            My reaction lacks the urgency of the couple opposite, already standing, expressing horror, demanding help, recounting the incident. Already. To an intern who has arrived, now to a second intern, the two men talking quietly to each other, asking the woman clearly, loudly

            “CAN YOU HEAR ME, ARE YOU ALRIGHT, DOES IT HURT, WHERE ARE YOU?”

            “She hit her head.”

            “Yes, she hit her head.”

            “She hit her head?”

            “Yes, she hit her head, I heard it.”

            The woman's eyelids stretch, almost reveal eyes. A stretcher has been called. A woman has tipped her chair over and is lifting the fallen's feet onto it, blood to the head, which hit the floor, presumably she knows about these things.

            “Her head hit the floor!”  My neighbour has taken up an accident-chant, will probably use it  as a calmative for a few days. The interns are stroking the tumbled woman's hands, have made contact through her wooziness, feel the back of her head under thick grey skeins. Between them and the pseudo para-medic patient they pull her to her feet, and escort her to a chambre, saggingly conscious, to await the stretcher.

            “She hit her head!”

            I remain, patient. And eventually learn from THE specialist that my slightly bulging prostate is in no way cancerous. At the moment.