Anciens Regime

I’m not very good at receiving bad news when I’m away. The sense of isolation, helplessness and quite phenomenal levels of ‘drama-queenery’ kick in so that even the smallest thing gets blown out of proportion. I down tools and rush home, which to be honest is something I’m generally looking to do anyway. But when Natalie rang to say that she had collapsed and was frightened, I panicked and desperately wanted to get home as soon as possible.
I persuaded her to call the doctor out and to rally friends and family to help with the boys. She did so and promised to call back when she had more news. The news was that it was nothing too serious, a result of exhaustion; the doctor had been out, medication had been prescribed and the local community had indeed rallied and everything would be fine. There was no need to rush home, she said. When I eventually got home four days later it was clear that she was still not right though and we booked another appointment with the doctor who ordered a series of blood tests.
“While we’re here...” I said to the doctor hopefully and went on to explain my latest problem. Regular readers will be aware that I was diagnosed with gout in January which at the time our doctor, who regards me as just a ‘Friends’ boxset away from full womanhood, put down to an excess of white wine and chocolate. Well, I’d given up both and the medication he’d prescribed at the time was either the wrong kind or was lacking oomph. The ‘gout’ had returned, but only after I’d been lying down (quite a bit) and was non-existent after exercise (around quite a lot) and so he re-examined my foot.
“The main area of pain,” I said, “is around this toe here which I broke playing sport about six years ago.” He looked at me and the ‘kerching’ of simple diagnosis rolled around his eyes like in a slot machine. It’s true I had broken the toe, but ‘sporting’ injury may have been a slight exaggeration. I was staying with Natalie’s parents and had been listening to England playing cricket in India all night, in truth there hadn’t been much action so when, at about seven in the morning Steve Harmison finally took a wicket I celebrated wildly. Unfortunately I was at the top of the stairs in my stockinged feet which slipped on the carpet and I went sliding down the stairs until my fall was eventually broken by the balustrade. My right foot had taken the brunt of the impact and in particular my fourth toe which in cricketing parlance was heading down the Bakerloo line when it should have been on the Northern one.
I was seen quickly at the hospital but the nurse didn’t like me at all. She bent down at the end of the bed and took the offending toe gently between her fingers, “My ex husband was a mod.” She said menacingly and looked me in the eye as she yanked the toe back upwards. I screamed the place down and once I had exhausted myself doing that, screamed some more. “You won’t be wearing winkle pickers for a while, will you sunbeam?” She said gleefully.
Well it seems that a combination of this NHS fed brutality and indeed my desire to be back in said winkle pickers have led to my current malaise, to whit, I have arthritis in my foot and it seems to be affecting the nerves up my right leg too. Why the doctor couldn’t have diagnosed this before is frankly beyond me but also not all that surprising. His diagnosis history is so poor, Thérence’s skin problems, my stomach problems, various issues during Natalie’s pregnancies (including getting the sex of the child wrong) that I suspect ‘diagnosis’ to him is less evidence based and more an internal multiple choice dialogue that, like an enthusiastic but limited child, he consistently gets wrong, always plumping for the wrong answer.
The arthritis, though I’d suspected as much, is something of a blow. Okay gout is no prize in life’s lottery but at least it gives the aura of a life well lived. It’s known as the ‘King’s Disease’ after Henry VIII and as such gives the impression that the sufferer has over indulged his passions of wine, women and song, a larger than life character with stories to tell. Arthritis has the air of decrepitude and the withering of age. It’s the bell just before the final lap.
Having dealt with us both the doctor as is his wont while writing out lengthy prescriptions, expounded on his latest theory of medicine, ‘positive thinking’. “Think yourself healthy,” he was saying and went off on a lecture about some 19th century chemist who had originally formulated this theory. I’m all for this kind of thing in other people but positive thinking is not, nor has it ever been, my forté to the extent that I have made a half decent career out of being a stage miserabilist and have no intention of getting all happy-clappy now thank you very much. Besides which positivity is an extremely unlikely emotion while a doctor inspects your ‘worrying’ varicose veins and prescribes ‘orthopeadic socks’ to wear on planes.
The doctor blithely introduced the notion of ‘medical legwear’ like it was the most natural thing in the world, and not something that a 42 year old man might find somewhat deflating. “Yep, there you go put these tights on – next stop rubber pants.” The only ‘positive’ I could see in this situation was that the whole incongruity of me wearing the bloody things had seemingly had the effect of cheering Natalie up no end, a smile (more like full on laughter) had returned and she had a definite spring in her step as we left the surgery.
The ignominy didn’t end there either. I thought I’d picked a quiet time at the chemist in which to collect my new undergarments, I was wrong. Not only was the place not quiet it was full of young gypsy women, all barefoot and outdoorsy but who stopped their chaotic buzzing around the chemist as the strangely dressed ‘foreigner’ was measured – MEASURED – for his socks. They gathered round as the female chemist rolled up my trousers and measured my calves and ankles, clearly regarding the decadence of the spectacle as the main reason vindicating their decision to drop out of society altogether what with its rules and too ordered underwear.
“Would you like them in black or beige?” asked the chemist, apparently oblivious to our audience.
“Do you have them in Argyle?” I asked, trying to claw back some dignity.
You can approach the onset of old age and decay in two ways. You can let it get to you and give up or you can come out fighting, ignore the ravages of time and face it down with a disrespectful sneer. Frankly I’m all for the first option but having young children means that you can’t let this show, not yet anyway, and following the chemist debacle I decided to show I still had some physical strength and mend the goats’ wooden stable wall. They’d kicked it down the night before and it needed putting back together.
I drew the hammer back and attacked the thing with gusto, letting out the frustrations of the day, if not life itself. The hammer hit the wood mightily, in fact so hard that the iron head flew off the hammer and into my forehead. It then seemed to pirouette in front of me before bouncing off, and smashing my watch, then coming to a rest on the floor. I stared at the thing for a full two minutes. The wall remained unattached, I had a bruise on my forehead and my watch was broken. I think the socks frankly are the least of my problems.

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