I wandered to the doctors surgery only when the pain became unbearable. Three days non-stop seemed rather excessive, truth be told. It was a ghastly headache that no tablets could touch. That night, I didnt manage to drift off at all. The worst mistake was digging through the internet, searching what a headache could possibly mean.
Almost at once, my browser cast up panic-inducing headlines: “Is it a Migraine or a Brain Tumour?” and all sorts of unnerving horror stories. By the end of it, having read scenarios and compared symptoms, I felt I ought to go straight to the undertakers, skipping the GP altogether.
Jerome K. Jeromes hapless hero sprang to mindthe fellow who once leafed through a medical encyclopaedia and discovered he was riddled with every known disease bar puerperal fever: cholera, anaemia, St. Vitus Dance, and even foot-and-mouth, which happened to be the last entry. He felt insulted at being denied puerperal fever; hed only got typhoid.
That was me all over. Having scoured the internet raw, diagnosing myself with every fatal illness under the sun, I announced, “Enough! Tomorrow, I am crawling to the doctor.”
In the surgery queue, I found myself in a peculiar exchange with a lady in a plaid skirt and pearl earrings.
She eyed me and asked, “Were you drinking?”
I blinked. “Drinking what?”
“Last nighthave you been on the sauce?”
“I havent!” I replied, offended.
“Your eyes are redlike youve a proper hangover”
Brilliant. Sometimes I think all those appointments with my psychotherapist are just so I can better communicate with people who need therapy far more than myself.
“Thank you,” I forced out. “For your concern.”
Inside the GPs room, I (dramatically, as if introducing performers at the Royal Albert Hall) reeled off my symptoms. My scarlet, cherry eyes were the grand finale.
“I look like Ive been knocking back gin, but I havent,” I grumbled for emphasis.
The doctor looked directly into my eyes and shrugged: “Your eyes look fine, love. Stop imagining things”
Hmm. I keep saying, the ones who most need therapy rarely go.
He checked my blood pressure, pulse, blood-oxygen. He asked a series of questions. My answers, as far as I could tell, didnt paint a pretty picture: hardly a migrainesomething a bit nastier.
“Shall we do a brain scan? An MRI? Im willing to pay!” I suggested. Internet wisdom had recommended it, after all. Id turned myself into a part-time GP, neurologist and vascular specialist by 3am.
“Lets not panic yet,” he said. “Well work on your circulation and send blood tests off. If things get worse”
It seemed impossible anything could get worse, not after that night. Id cried, thinking after forty years on this earth, all Id produced was two children and ten books. Was that too much, or not enough?
The children were still small and rather unfinished…
Even the books, not quite perfectmy latest had a typo on page sixteen. So much left to nurturekids and future proofreaders alike.
After the doctor, I headed home, scooped up the children from school, picked up the prescribed medication, took it, and collapsed into bed.
The children appeared at my bedside.
“Mum, is there anything to eat?”
“There is, but it needs making. Hold on”
My head no longer throbbed, but I had no energy after three days barely awake.
Daniel wandered into the kitchen and made dinner himself. He fried eggs and reheated penne. “I fed Alice. Shall I bring you dinner in bed?” he asked.
I was instantly cheered. My goodnessmy son, almost grown! Complete! Hed never come to harm.
“No need for that; Im not very hungry. Ill eat soon. Good lad.”
“Alright,” he nodded, and brought in a plateful of sliced fruit. “Mum, theres kiwi heredid you know kiwis have more vitamin C than oranges? And apples have iron. And the clementines just for colour; otherwise itll go off”
My heart swelled with pride. Mine! My little caretaker! My energy began to return at once.
Then Daniel put on his shoes.
“And where are you off to?”
“Were out of cat food,” he explained.
“And buy some ice cream!” Alice called. “Im out of food too”
She entered my room with pomp: wearing Dads glasses, my old dressing gown, brandishing a toy doctors kit. Doctor Alice, at your service.
“Alright, patient, lets get you sorted. Shall we do a jab?”
“Please call me Mum, not patient”
“Youll be Mum again when youre better, patient. Open your mouth.”
I obliged.
“Youve had kiwi? And didnt give me any? Kiwi!”
“Help yourself,” I said, offering the plate.
“Ive had enough, I ate eggs. Im waiting for ice cream now. Alright, let me listen to your chest,” she declared, hanging a tiny pink stethoscope round her neck.
“I chase you every evening, book in hand, to get you to listen to mebut you never do.”
“Ooo, this is not good,” she announced after listening. “You talk far too much. And youre always running after children. I prescribe an injection and an ice creamif Daniel gets enough for all of us. If he only buys for those who asked… well, you shouldve asked.”
“So you wont share your miraculous Cornish vanilla with an ailing mother?”
Alice jabbed me in the leg with a plastic syringe.
“Ouch!” I laughed.
“Exactly as it should be, or how would you get well?”
Honestly, I felt alright already. Then Daniel came home with ice cream for everyone and I felt tip-topno headache, energy returning, eyes back to bright blue.
But I carried on playing the poorly mother awhile longer, and Daniel read Alice her bedtime story. She requested The Cyclopaedia.
“Its an encyclopaedia about cyclops,” Daniel quipped.
Soon they were reading about Saturn, then dinosaurs, then baby teeth. Somehow this led to a near-scuffle over whether dinosaur chicks had milk teeth.
I listened to their chatter, and melted with happiness, love, and a strange sense of lifes richest meaning.
Afterwards, I changed the sheets because the pair of them had managed to overturn the fruit plate and grind kiwi into the duvet.
Then, the three of us fell asleep, tangled together.
“And? Did the tablets help?” the doctor asked me next morning.
I nodded. But Im quite certain it was a different medicine altogethermy sweeties, my children.
The ones who refill your soul with strength instead of pain, joy instead of gloom, happiness instead of anger.
Hug your children tighteven when theyre taller than you. Theres nothing more healing in this world. Except perhaps, a nice, ripe kiwiand a good English hug.
