FAR TOO INTIMATE...

So, I’ll cut straight to the chase: I had an internal ultrasound today.

Yay for me.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever had one of these, but they’re not totally unpleasant, and I would rather this than a fucken mammogram ANY DAY.

I feel that there are just some things that you shouldn’t have to deal with, and this is one of them.  Sure, I understand that if you want to be thoroughly ‘checked out’ with certain issues, that this is the best way to go.  However, there are just personal boundaries that are crossed that simply make one cringe.

I’m sitting in the waiting room at the medical imaging place, and the only other people in there, are a little fat kid and his father.  The kid’s crying like a bitch; I don’t know what he’s done to himself, but I was thinking it would have had something to do with a lunchbox being stolen…

Anyway, I stuck my head in my book (Ken Follet – The Pillars of the Earth), and braced myself for a wait.  Past experience has taught me to expect such things.

This I find ironic.  You make an appointment, right, and to me, it’s a mutual agreement to meet.  For my part, I will be on time to the appointment, hand over some cash, and for their part, they will had over goods or services to the equivalent value of the aforementioned cash.

Why do doctors and medical services not seem to understand this simple system?  Really?  It’s not that hard.  I’m expected to turn up on time, why the fuck can’t they be ready for me? 

Anyway; forgive me for digressing.

So, my appointment was scheduled for 2.30pm.  Im sitting there reading, trying to ignore the fat kid, the television with some doctor on it banging on about gynaecologists and vaginas (maybe this is why the kid was crying?) and silently praying that I won’t end up with an ultrasound technician (or whatever the fuck they’re called) that’s either male or twelve.

I’m old; everyone younger than me looks fucken twelve.

A voice calling my name cuts through the noise, and I look up to see a rather handsome young man, holding a heap of paperwork, waiting for me.  Smiling.

And he’s fucken twelve.

I slap my book closed, grab my bag and head over toward him, hoping to Christ that he’s just going to take me into the examination room, and not be the one that shoves the ultrasoundy thing up my clacka.

Wrong.

‘Hi, I’m Stephen, and I’m the technician that will be working with you today.’ He smiled, leading me toward my fate.

Working with me?  We’re not making a cake here, champ. Since when did this become a mutually positive thing?  At what stage did we undertake a project together? Wtf?

As I walk through the door to the dimly lit examination room (how romantic), I leave my dignity behind.  I’ll pick that up on the way out. 

Although Stephen was incredibly professional, considerate and discreet, I couldn’t help feel like I’d been violated by a video camera, which was being operated by a fucken twelve year old, who strangely seemed at ease with the whole thing. 

Like… this was not unusual in any way, shape or form for him.  Possibly wasn't, considering the circumstances, but it certainly was for me.

I took false comfort in the fact that he didn’t really need to look at my clacka, which was discreetly covered with a sheet.  Possibly a good thing, because the awesomeness of it would have blown his juvenile little mind.  Professional or not.

So after about half an hour of embarrassing torture, me freaking out that I could see the outline of a baby (don’t get excited; it was just my paranoid imagination) and me trying to turn my big arse over on a bed that’s as wide as a 2x4, young Stephen turns to me. ‘Well, we’re all done Lee.  I’ll leave you to get dressed again, and the specialist will analyse the results, and forward them to your GP.’  He smiled happily, handing me a box of tissues.  Classy.  ‘You enjoy the rest of your day now.’

And he was gone.

I sat up, looked around the silent room, and couldn’t help but feel like a slappa after a night out on the piss with some American frat boys.  I half expected to walk into the hallway and see a group of dumbarse twenty-something’s chanting ‘Take the walk of shame!’ whilst someone snapped a Polaroid of me.

*sigh.

After such intimacy, was it wrong to expect at least a hug?

As I got dressed, picked up my dignity and bolted from the room like Makybe Diva (no dumbarse’s or cameras in sight), and couldn’t help but wonder how I would ‘enjoy the rest of my day’ after that far too intimate experience.

Peace out?