A stitch in time

    I recently wrote about having some moles excised at the dermatologist and this Friday, two weeks to the day, I went to have the stitches removed from my ear and the back of my head. The rules, having been changed to ensure social distancing guidelines, were that I had to go around the side of the health centre, to the staff car park, where I was under strict instructions not to park (I haven't had a car for five years), then I was to press the buzzer at the staff entrance and announce myself. 

    Dutifully, I did as ordered. Hello, I'm a bit early but it's Richard Douglas, I have an appointment.

    The person at the other end huffed irritably, and replied: Right, I'll let 'em know. 

    The intercom fell silent and I began loitering in the car park. I was the recipient of two, side-eyed, suspicious glances from people who had parked and assumed I'd come to break into their hatchbacks, and almost the victim of a hit and run, except they didn't actually hit me and the only running was done by the flustered healthcare worker who, at 9.40am, I think was running late. 

    I paced the potholed tarmac and checked the time on my phone. I'll let them off, I thought, the appointment wasn't till quarter to. T minus two minutes. I examined what appeared to be pieces of a tiny, plastic palm tree strewn across the ground and, bored, sent a message to Alison to ask her if Lego still made those little green trees. She told me to Google it, I told her I had become too reliant on Google. I paced some more.

    Are yer still there? The voice eventually bellowed through the tinny intercom, like a furious Metal Mickey. Noticing they were now a minute late, but not wanting to say anything, I trotted to the door and confirmed that I was, indeed still there. She'll just be a minute, she's findin' a visor, said the voice.

    A full three minutes later than my assigned appointment time an excellent woman opened the door and beckoned me in with wide eyes and an enthusiastic voice. I immediately forgave her tardiness as she led me down the corridor and asked if I'd eaten because she didn't want me fainting like all the other men that have stitches taken out. I told her about my Weetabix, took a seat in her room and pointed out where the stitches were. 

    Have you been fighting? she asked.

    No, I had some moles removed. Do you get a lot of fighters?

    Yeah, loads. And stabbings.

    Really? I was shocked, this is a nice neighbourhood.

    You'd be surprised. After the pub when they all start scrapping. She paused before adding, And gunshot wounds.

    I couldn't tell if she was joking so I didn't pursue it.

    One of her colleagues came into the room and, so as not to disturb me, pulled a blue curtain half way across the room. I'm not sure how it was going to help as, despite the fact I couldn't see her, I could certainly hear her as she struck up a conversation.

    Where did you get them fancy biscuits? she pried.

    Reception, but I had the last ones. Do you want them? offered my nurse.

    No. Yer alright.

    Are you sure?

    Yeah. Then almost as an afterthought, They're fancy though.

    By now I needed to know just how fancy these biscuits actually were so I piped up: If I'd have told you I hadn't eaten this morning would you have given me your biscuits?

    Yeah, do you want them?

    No, thanks.

    Are you sure? You can have 'em.

    I leaned forward to have a look: Biscoff, extra large, double pack, separately wrapped. I wanted them but I knew I had some baby Biscoffs at home so I declined. The other nurse collected her tools—something about an open wound on a foot—and left. I never did see her face as she ogled the biscuits.

    Right, which ones do you want done first? my nurse asked as she sat down next to me with a tiny blade in her hand.

    A few minutes later, I was done, stitches removed with only one tiny twinge of pain—they were very tight knots I was told—and I was sent on my way with instructions to call if I had any problems with anything, At all, she emphasised. I wanted to ask if I could call her about a few personal issues I wanted to work through but thought better of it. I liked her very much, I think I'd enjoy working with her.

    An hour after I'd left the house I arrived home. There was a letter waiting for me from the NHS with the results of the biopsies. The larger, uglier mole behind my right ear was thankfully harmless but the small dark one, on the rim of my left ear, was described as 'moderately abnormal'. The letter went on to inform that, to cure it, I would need to have further surgery and that I would next hear from their colleagues at Wythenshawe Hospital.

    I'd not expected that. I'd been a bit concerned about the results but everyone, myself included, said it'd be fine, no need to worry, better to be safe than sorry and so on. I'd almost written it off as a formality.

    The letter was short and, while on the face of it, it appeared to the point, the more I thought about it, the more questions I was left with. What does moderately abnormal mean? Is there an abnormal scale and if so, where does moderate sit on that? Should I be worried—I already am—or is it routine? What is further surgery? I'm already missing a small chunk out of my ear, which has left me looking like a bad cat after a fight, but how much more will I lose? A couple of millimetres; half a centimetre; half an ear? Can you get your ear reconstructed on the NHS? I wondered. 

    And this is where I started catastrophising. What if I end up without an ear? What if the radiotherapy (that nobody has suggested I'll need) gives me a brain tumour? Is it too late to get life insurance so Chris isn't lumbered with the rest of the mortgage? Should I leave my grandparents' antiques to my brothers or Chris? An upward spiral of ridiculousness; ad nauseam.

    There's been an (un)fair amount of cancer in my family, we've waved farewell to a lot of people before their time, and this is obviously where this neurosis comes from. 

    My granny buried four of her children—twins in cot deaths, my mum's half brother Peter at the age of seventeen from cancer, after having his legs amputated at the knees, and my mum's sister Anna (the only one I knew) at the age of 45, who died after a particularly bad seizure at the Chalfont St Peter Epilepsy Centre where she was a patient; and my dad and his three siblings all lost their spouses in their fifties—all but one to cancer. These things have led me to spending a lot of my adult life both worrying about dying young and trying to fit as much as possible into my time because you never know when it's up.

    I like to think I'm rational but I've also spent the last nineteen years counting down the years till I die. In my head it's inevitable that I'll pop off at the same age as my mum did, 56, giving me slightly more than a decade left to squeeze everything in. Somehow I manage to dismiss the knowledge that her dad lived till he was 94 years old and on the Douglas side of my family—various ailments, conditions and situations notwithstanding—all seem to be plodding on into or at least towards their seventies.

    The rational side of my brain tells me I should wait for information from the hospital, or indeed contact them myself and ask for it; it says this might not be cancer (but that's what they check moles for isn't it?); half a centimetre of my ear is not such a big deal in the grand scheme of things; medicine has moved on since 2002; this is why I got it checked in the first place; better now than in five years time; and whatever you do, don't Google it. I haven't Googled it, but I'm sorely tempted.

    The side of me that I show to friends, family and colleagues makes light of the situation, because that's what I do. I've joked that I've always wanted to wear a monocle (I don't even wear glasses so the joke's on them) and I talk about looking like that bad cat I mentioned earlier. 

    I make light of it because I don't know what the letter implies, because I don't want folk to be awkward with me and make it weird, and because it's only a tiny little mole. But mostly I do it because I'm a bit scared that I might have skin cancer.

    Time will tell, that's all I know, and so I imagine a day, when I'm ancient and wizened, that I find myself sitting in the corner of one of those down at heel modernist pubs from the sixties, pint in hand, with my one and a half ears and my monocle. I'm telling stories about the olden days during the great pandemic, when surgery meant being stitched up with a needle and thread, the nurses were all called Jackie, and if you pretended you were going to faint you could get your hands on a packet of posh biscuits.