I am thirty eight years old. I have fair hair and green eyes. I live in the tropics. This, according to the website I was looking at, was the all the necessary requirements for a good dose of skin cancer. I enlarged a photo of a lesion and stared. I looked at my leg and stared. A slow dawning of impending doom crept over me pursued by a blood curdling panic. There was no doubt about it, I was going to die. A billion thoughts came crashing into my head all at the same time: I would gouge it off with a pen-knife; I would leave immediately to walk the earth, disappear mysteriously, leaving nothing but an enigmatic note; no, I would wake Novi with a phone call to tell her that I was dying, this was the kind of news that should should worry others too; this was punishment for being a bad person; maybe I should I start praying; how many times had I dissed Allah? I should never have mocked Islam! Oh God, the blaspheming I had done! I should never have moved to Indonesia; I should never have got sun-burnt in the summer of '76. I had not had sex with enough women. Was there enough wine in the fridge to get obliviated on?
Actually, I now had a genuine reason to become a full-blown degenerate alcoholic! With this comforting thought, I popped a cork.
I had had this small button of pale, scaly skin on my calf for around four or five years and had even had it checked out by a British GP when it had first appeared. He'd given me some eczema cream which I'd used a few times and then forgotten about it; I get eczema every now and again and it always goes away eventually. Over the last few months though, it had begun to scab and, instead of the scab getting smaller, it had got bigger. I booked an appointment with the cancer clinic; the next slot wouldn't be for another three days and so I coped with the waiting in the only way I know how; I drank myself into a stupor.
After work on the Friday, I tried to outrun a storm on my motorbike and ended up at the clinic soaked to the skin. Novi hadn't arrived yet so I slopped myself across the waiting room floor and sat on the only remaining chair, under the television, where the rest of the room's inhabitants were able to stare at me with impunity.
I sat shivering for a couple of minutes in the air-conditioned environs of the waiting room before feeling the need to relieve my full bladder, so I slipped and slid across the floor again and went to the bathroom where I opened the door on a lady in the process of using the facilities. Huffing a profusion of apologies I backed away quickly and returned to my seat where the bland stares of my fellow attendees were joined by the fierce glare of the returning toilet occupant. I decided to wait outside in the rain.
***
Novi and I sat in the consultation room staring at the computer screen in horrific fascination as the doctor cheerfully clicked through appalling images of skin cancer victims; technicolour sprawls of vivid red lesions blinked by, post-operative photos of limbs and torsos with large parts missing flickered endlessly past our horror stricken faces. This was a man who clearly enjoyed his work.
“It'll have to come off,” he announced presently.
“My leg?” I squeaked.
“No, the lesion,” he chuckled sadistically.
“Will it end up like that?” I asked, pointing at part of a woman's shoulder that should have been there.
He laughed indulgently, as to an inquisitive child, and assured me that it would just be a small amount they'd have to remove. They wouldn't know if it was malignant or benign until they'd hacked it out, but it would be safest to exorcise it anyway. Did I want a general or local anaesthetic when he did the operation? The thought of staying overnight in an Indonesian hospital was more than enough for me to choose the latter option. I was booked into St. Elizabeth's, a highly respected Christian hospital, for the following Wednesday.
***
Novi was left outside the operating theatre holding my bag while I was wheeled in on a trolley, whistling “I'm H.A.P.P.Y” unconvincingly. A male nurse leaned over me and removed his mask.
“Mr. Steve!” He cried. “You are one of the teachers from CASE! I was a student there a couple of months ago!”
“Oh, hi,” I waved weakly. I didn't know him but I hoped to the gods that he'd got his money's worth. “Did you learn much?” I asked lamely, not sure of what was appropriate pre-operative chit-chat.
“Oh no,” he smiled, shaking his head as if I were crazy, and replaced his mask.
I lay on the operating table and examined the room. It all looked very professional and clean. This was good. Not enough machines that went 'beep' in my opinion, but there you go. I wondered if this was going to hurt. What if they didn't give me enough anaesthetic? What if I got cramp? What if I suddenly jerked my leg uncontrollably when they were making a vital incision? What if it was more serious than they thought? What if the leg did have to be amputated? Curbing the turn my imagination was taking I turned my attention to the doctor and nurses: where were they? There'd been four of them here a minute ago. I heard a monotonous droning near my feet and raised my head to find one doctor and three nurses kneeling at the end of the operating table with their hands clasped and heads bowed over my leg in prayer. Jesus, I thought, I was hoping they'd be a bit more confident than that.
The operation took about forty five minutes and was done in near silence, with the occasional muttered instruction. However, there was a surreal moment about thirty minutes in, when the Bee Gees suddenly blared out of some hidden speakers:
“Nobody
gets too much heaven no more
It's
much harder to come by, I'm waiting in line”
And everyone carried on as if nothing had happened. I still wonder whether I hallucinated it. At least it wasn't “Tragedy” I thought.
The anaesthetic began to wear off towards the end of the operation and I began to feel the tugging of the stitches and an occasional sharp jab as the needle was inserted into the flesh. I was cheerfully told not to worry, only another ten minutes or so. I gritted my teeth and wished the Bee Gees would come back on. Eventually, the evidently delighted doctor stood up and waved a fatty and bloody piece of flesh under my nose.
“There it is,” he announced, as if he'd just found his wallet. I nodded my approval and he tottered off to show Novi.
The nurses loomed over me.
“We're going to give you painkillers,” one of them chuckled through his mask.
“Oh, good!” I chuckled back.
Another one slapped me on the shoulder, “We're going to put it up here,” he laughed laddishly, gesturing to his behind.
“Oh, ho ho, good one!” I laughed back manfully.
And then to my utmost surprise he inserted a suppository up my arse. Minutes later I was treading, in a rather bow-legged way, back up the corridor to Novi.
We had another few days to wait for the results to come back, and when they did, they were good. It was a benign lesion, a term which sounded positively avuncular.
And so, I celebrated in the only way I know how...
