Notes from the Doctor's Room

“Do I get a sedative?” I asked sheepishly.

“A sedative? For what?” the doctor replied.

I looked at the large plastic gun he was holding. It was still enclosed in its wrapping with ‘Single use only’ stamped on the side.

“Well, you said you were going to stick that up my back passage and that seems a slightly uncomfortable option. So, I was hoping I might be knocked out.”

The doctor seemed confused; as though I was the first patient he’d ever met who thought a large object being rammed up his rectum was a cause for concern.

“Oh, Good Lord, sorry. I wasn’t clear. I won’t be shoving the gun up there. I’ll be using a telescope with a torch and an air tube to expand the colon. The gun is attached to this on the outside.”

His description made me think of a miner about to embark on a solo mission down a long and dangerous mind shaft.

It was another rainy day in Auckland and I was sitting in the office of the city’s top ‘General, Breast and Endocrine’ surgeon. Before you delve into google, I should point out that ‘endocrine’ has something to do with glands. I don’t have issues in that area and despite appearances; I am not in the possession of breasts. So, I can only assume that I was referred to this good doctor because of his expertise in ‘General’. I have had a few problems with haemorrhoids this year, including a lot of bleeding. So, my doctor suggested that I get them banded.

Mister Moss (I notice that you go from Mister to Doctor and then to Mister again in the medical profession) was doing his best to explain the procedure to me. Like most doctors, he wasn’t very good at communication and mumbled through the description. He managed to do all this without ever mentioning pain or even discomfort but noticeably did all this without ever making eye contact.

He picked up the plastic gun and pointed out the three green bands at the end of it.

“Right, we shoot these little fellows at the affected area and hope one of them sticks. Then it will seal the haemorrhoid and fall away after two weeks.”

“Why are there three?” I asked.

“In case I miss with the first two,” he replied. “It’s not an exact science.”

“Is this a game of darts? Or is it like that game where you throw horseshoes at a stake in the ground.”

Mister Moss let out an embarrassed laugh. “Don’t worry. I haven’t missed yet.”

“But what if you do?” I asked.

“Then you come back in a couple of weeks and we try again.”

I looked at the gun on the desk and decided I’d rather put up with the bleeding than come back again.

He then made his excuses and said he had to get some more equipment. He came back with a large machine on wheels with tubes and valves attached. He whistled a dainty tune as he checked that everything was working. He showed no indication that he was going to explain what the machine was for. So, I jumped in the deep end and asked.

“Oh, this has two purposes. It blows air into the colon to expand it and then when we see the little fella that’s causing the trouble, I attach the gun and it air blasts the bands onto the haemorrhoid.”

I looked at the machine and figured that it had the capacity to launch a hot air balloon. I wondered why he needed something that big for my little colon. But then I realised that it allowed him to do the job on his own. A hand pump would have needed a willing accomplice.

This realisation unsettled me. My doctor (who is a middle aged Sri Lankan woman) has had cause to examine my nether regions given my current condition. When she does this she brings in a chaperone, because it is health board policy to have an observer when you’re sticking your fingers up a patients bum. This is apparently for the patients benefit, although personally when I’m lying on a table with somebody searching around my back passage like a drunk pensioner trying to find her keys in the bottom of her handbag, the last thing I need is another person watching.

This policy doesn’t seem to apply to consultants. And so I found myself in a room with a man I’d never met before, who was standing over a large machine with a plastic gun in his hand and who was asking me to strip and face the wall with my knees tucked under my chin.

The less said about the actual procedure the better. I wouldn’t describe it as particularly painful but it was probably the most uncomfortable thing I’ve done since I presented myself to a doctor with a lump on my left testicle and she said she had to check that it wasn’t a sexually  transmitted disease first. It turned out to be testicular cancer in case you’re wondering. All I will say is that I was very relieved when I heard the third blast of air.

I was given a couple of minutes to reclaim my dignity behind the curtain while he scribbled notes on the other side. When I retook my seat beside his desk he asked me how I was feeling and explained that he didn’t want to tell me the full details of the procedure beforehand because if he did it would make most people walk out.

I said I was feeling ok, all things considered. He said I had good colour in my cheeks and then pointed at the wall, which was painted a sickly yellow colour and said that most people looked like that after the procedure.

He then offered me his hand. Before I shook it, I wondered where it had been. But in a list of indignities that day, a hand shake was well down the list.