Moving on from the traumatic early days of wearing glasses, the next significant event was the annual school medical. This wasn’t a very pleasant experience for a little boy with so many health issues and certain aspects of the day were unpleasant for boys in general.

We didn’t have enough room in the school for the County Doctor to see us there so, class by class, we marched crocodile fashion to the working men’s club about thirty yards down the road where a side room had been hired. Once there the boys were ordered to strip to their underpants and line up while the girls got to stay fully dressed.

Loud complaints about how unfair this was fell on deaf ears and the girls all though it was terribly funny seeing us in our underwear. We did not think it was funny! it was, however typical of how boys of my generation were treated. Apparently we didn’t have feelings and so had no need of privacy or modesty.

We were called in to the doctor alphabetically so I came about half way through the list of twenty five or so names. The children in front of me all seemed to be in and out quite quickly so things didn’t look too bad. I suppose I should really have known better.

When I was called in I stood in front of the doctor’s table and there in front of him was my disturbingly thick medical record. As he read the pages his eyebrows went up, then went up a bit more then he looked at me over the top of his glasses and said “Well, you’re not a very healthy little chap, are you?” I’d been strictly taught to respect doctors so I simply responded “No, Sir”.

He checked everything and did things that I thought only my own doctor would do. I was not happy at being probed in that most intimate of places by someone I’d never even met before but it would never have occurred to me to question his actions or to object.

When I finally got out Rich, who as a ‘T’ still had quite a wait in front of him whispered “You were in there ages, Malc what was he doing?” still very uncomfortable and feeling a bit sorry for myself I whispered back “I’ll tell you later” and went to get dressed.

I did tell Rich on the coach going home that afternoon and he was appalled at what the doctor had done to me but in an effort to comfort me said “Be fair, Malc you are ill a lot, he was just making sure you’re OK”. With that dubious comfort I had to be content.

Love

Once my older sisters had left for school we got ready for the journey to Petworth. We could have waited until Thursday when the doctor held surgery in Lurgashall but I didn’t want yet another day off school. That’s absolutely true, by the way; I loved school and hated the many times I was ill and missed days.

I usually enjoyed the mile walk to the bus stop; I grew up in a beautiful if remote part of West Sussex and walking along the lane offered a wealth of visual and aural treats. That day, however I was in no position to enjoy the sights and in no mood to listen. In an effort to boost my spirits Mummy started singing a hymn and after a bit I joined in; at least my voice still worked.

When we got to the main road I automatically did my kerb drill and then realised how futile the gesture was; I wouldn’t have known if a cattle truck was bearing down on us. I was praised for remembering though, so I felt quite proud of myself.

We didn’t have to wait long at the surgery before Doctor Bell called us in and for the first time in living memory I got to keep my clothes on. When I was asked to read the wall chart I couldn’t even see the big letter at the top, with either eye. Doctor Bell was a bit surprised and said “Really, not even the top letter?” I got terribly upset, protesting that I wasn’t fibbing.

I learned a new word that was really going to impress my school friends, ophthalmoscope but I didn’t like the instrument much; it made my eyes hurt and left me with nasty afterimages. The eye drops that the Doctor put in made things even worse and for a little while I couldn’t see anything at all.

Convinced that doctors could fix everything I asked when my eyes would get better. I should have known the answer the moment Mummy took hold of my hand and squeezed it. They weren’t going to get better and I’d have to wear glasses all the time, forever.

I went into hysterics and screamed the place down. This wasn’t fair! All the children at school were going to make fun of me and call me names like “four-eyes”. Not even the threat of a smack could calm me.

The Doctor put a model of an eye on his desk and both he and Mummy made me peer at it while he tried to explain what had gone wrong. He was at great pains to describe the squishy bits; guaranteed to get the attention of a seven year old.

When we got to the little muscles that made the lenses work he explained that those muscles had started breaking that’s why I couldn’t see properly; he didn’t know why but it could easily have been worse. The wiggly thing I’d almost seen had been tiny muscle fibres breaking off; scary!

Apparently my eyes had done in a second what usually took most of a lifetime; he’d never known it happen like that to someone my age. That didn’t make me feel special at all, it upset me even more.

Muscles could be mended, couldn’t they? I’d badly pulled a neck muscle when I was six and the doctor had come to our house and made it better so why couldn’t he do something now? He was was very sorry but that wouldn’t work with these muscles.

Because getting to Petworth was such a palaver for us the doctor phoned the optician and arranged for me to be seen as an emergency so, still weeping bitterly I was led out of the surgery.

Love

You’ve probably gathered by now that I was a skinny child although Mum always tried to persuade me that ‘slim’ was a much more attractive word.

When I was 11, during my last term at primary school, I began to lose weight quite visibly. My elastic belt had to be constantly adjusted to keep my shorts up and during a swimming lesson one of the boys commented that my ribs were even more countable than usual.

To emphasise my diminishing size my trunks fell down when I was getting out of the pool which all the kids thought was hysterically funny although I didn’t.

The most worrying part of this was that my appetite hadn’t suffered at all. I still demolished a cooked breakfast every morning and at lunchtime was almost always the first in the queue for seconds if they were on offer. As soon as I got home from school I wanted something to eat and always had a proper supper.

Naturally Mum was concerned about this weight loss so another unwelcome day off school was arranged and I was taken into Petworth to see the doctor.

Things started out predictably enough, me with no clothes on and the doctor with his finger up my bottom but nothing obvious was found via that route.

Then he moved up and started feeling around my tummy and I, being horrible ticklish, started to squirm around which got me a telling off, this was serious!

Finally he made me open my mouth, using a wooden spatula to depress my tongue, and shone a light down my throat.

With a “Ah ha!” of triumph he clearly found what he was looking for and told me to get dressed again.

For the first time ever he actually spoke to me rather than talking to Mum as if I wasn’t even in the room and delivered the verdict that I’d got a tape worm. I had no idea what that was and being an inquisitive little chap demanded a full explanation.

I wished I hadn’t when he not only explained what a tape worm was and how it worked but showed me a horribly graphic drawing of one with a diagram showing just how much of my innards this monster was inhabiting.

He also explained how we were going to get rid of this thing. Every morning I’d have to take some medicine which was “a bit nasty” but would hopefully make the worm release its hold and eventually nature would take its course, the worm would end up leaving by the only available route.

The idea of of expelling something as long as that absolutely fascinated me although the doctor did explain that as it lost its grip it would shrink quite a bit. Nonetheless it seemed a suitable fate for such a beastly thing.

The following morning, after breakfast I had my first experience of the medicine that was “a bit nasty”, it was absolutely disgusting! I’d never tasted anything so bitter and vile in my life and was very nearly sick on the spot. There were floods of tears and a great deal of persuasion was needed to convince me that this was for my own good.

The second morning, knowing what was coming, I put up a terrible fight and pretty well threw a full scale tantrum. I lost the battle of course and still had to take the medicine, it just meant that I went to school with a sore bottom as well as a vile taste in my mouth.

With morbid fascination I checked the toilet every time I went and at long last, over a week later, was thrilled and terrified to see a worm shaped thing and a lot of blood.

I was delighted to have got rid of the invader but the blood scared me into another fit of tears and Mum had to invest about a quarter of an hour reassuring me that not only was I not dying but I was actually better.

Just to be absolutely certain that everything was clear I had to keep taking that awful medicine for another week but there was no further evidence of worms and I even regained a tiny bit of weight.

Love

The combination of pain killers and drugs for certain other problems are proving to be a rather powerful cocktail.

To use a clumsy metaphor, proof if it were needed that my brain isn’t functioning properly, my train of thought has been totally derailed.

I’m planning to sleep quite a bit over the next few days and will get back to some proper writing when I can finish a sentence without forgetting what I was going to say when I started it.

Until then love to all.

On Sunday what I thought was going to be be brief visit to my local GP out of hours service ended up with an immediate admission to hospital.

Even after I’d been put on a ward I expected no more than overnight observation and then perhaps a follow up appointment with my GU Consultant.

Unfortunately my “water works” decided to shut down so on Monday morning I found myself catheterised and effectively imprisoned in bed.

On Monday afternoon an ultra sound scan showed that I didn’t, as feared, have an inguinal hernia, so at least I didn’t need emergency surgery but it did show that the attempted removal of the varicocele last Wednesday had only been approximately 50% successful and that there was a large blood clot in the remaining part.

If things go according to plan then this clot should dissipate of its own accord and the problem will eventually go away. It has to be said that my history doesn’t bode well for things going according to plan.

I finally got home at about 3pm today (Wednesday) and am hoping against hope that I won’t have to suddenly go back.

Further tales from the list of facts will be told starting tomorrow after the current fog of morphine and similar drugs has cleared.

Love

After a couple of months being molested every weekend I reacted by becoming a bed wetter. I had absolutely no history of night time accidents since potty training days and I was devastated.

The first time it happened Mum took the approach that it was just an accident but when it happened the following night and the night after that it was obvious that we had a problem.

Mum was hoping for a medical cause, so an appointment was made at the surgery in Petworth and I was given a day off school. I wasn’t at all happy about that, I loved school (my primary school that is) and hated being away for any reason.

It was an early appointment so Mum came with me on the school coach and we got off at Lane End to wait for the Southdown bus to Petworth. After what felt like hours in the surgery waiting room, probably about 30 minutes, we got called in to the doctor.

By the age of 10, having a pretty poor health record, I’d got used to certain things happening whenever I went to the doctor or he came to see me at home.

The first thing was that I always ended up with no clothes on, not too big a deal at 10 and certainly no worse than having a female teacher supervise us in the changing room after our weekly swimming lesson.

The second thing was that regardless of what part of me was misbehaving I always seemed to end up with the doctor’s finger up my bottom. This had been happening for as long as I could remember and I had a dark suspicion that it would happen even if I complained of a headache.

Apparently satisfied that there was nothing wrong there, nobody bothered to explain why this might reveal something, the doctor got me on my back and started looking at the area that I would have thought the obvious culprit.

After poking around for a while he tried to pull my foreskin back and it refused to go. He looked up at Mum, frowned and said

“Hmm, that’s not right”

Then without another word he just yanked the damned thing all the way back and told me to be quiet when I screamed at the top of my voice.

After finishing his examination he talked to Mum, referring to me in the third person as if I wasn’t even in the room. He told her that there was a strong possibility that I’d need a circumcision.

OK enough! Nobody used words like that around me without some sort of explanation, I demanded to know what this “circumcision” was. Holding the offending bit the doctor explained that they’d put me to sleep and snip the problem off.

I went berserk.

Indignant defiance isn’t easy when you’re 10 and naked but I managed it pretty well. Putting me to sleep and taking away my tonsils and adenoids had been one thing but putting me to sleep and cutting bits off my willie was not happening.

I jumped off the couch and stood there quivering with rage while both adults tried to explain that lots of boys had this done, in some countries all of them had it done when they were babies.

No sale! Taking a deep breath I put every little bit of my voice into one of the most dangerous word I knew where Mum was concerned.

“NO!”

That got me a quick, hard slap on the bottom but made no difference to my determination. We were getting perilously close to a full scale tantrum, something I could still quite easily do at 10.

Amazingly the doctor retreated, my first ever victory over authority, and suggested there might be another way. What he’d just done to me I’d have to do to myself, rather more carefully and gently, every night when I had my bath to stretch my foreskin.

While sceptical, I preferred this idea to butchery and agreed to try it. He did warn me that it wasn’t a guaranteed solution and that I’d probably still need something done when I started growing up, but for me that was ages away and of no consequence.

After that I was allowed to dress and the doctor said that he’d found no physical cause for the bed wetting, it was probably just a phase that I’d grow out of.

He did recommend that I have nothing to drink after 6pm so no more bedtime drinks for me.

At no point did anybody suggest that there might be an emotional cause behind the unprecedented problem.

The first few times I did the stretching thing Mum supervised and I’m not sure which of us was more uncomfortable, the first couple of times hurt like hell and I did a lot of crying. Eventually she was satisfied that I was doing it properly and stopped coming in to the bathroom to watch.

The drinks ban didn’t solve the problem, it just reduced the volume so an intervention system was devised that meant me being woken just before Mum went to bed and being supervised until I’d had a pee. It was a desperate measure for a desperate situation but at least the immediate difficulty was taken care of, I was waking in a dry bed.

I did grow out of the problem but I was almost 12 by that time and had never been able to stay over at schoolmates homes which almost certainly affected my social development.

Eventually I had a circumcision, by my choice and as an adult.

Love

It was my first experience of undergoing surgery while still awake, although quite heavily sedated, and it was very strange listening to the surgeon and the radiographer discussing what they were doing.

I was hoping that I’d be able to watch but the monitors were obviously set up for the surgeon rather than for my benefit and I couldn’t see.

I don’t think it’s particularly weird that I wanted to watch, apart from being quite fascinating to a former nurse, it would have been nice to see that unpleasant reminder of a traumatised adolescence disappearing.

Now, onto other matters.

When I published my list of odd facts about me a while ago, several people commented that there were items on that list that suggested much broader stories explaining them.

I agree and so I’m going to spend the next few posts expanding some of those facts to give a broader picture of the little oddity that was Malcolm (aka Malc & Mac) McLachlan.

Some of the stories are quite funny, some of them are fairly unhappy and several of them, in the best traditions of drama, are a mixture of both.

I may have had to put up with more than my fair share of problems as a child and a teenager but one thing I can never complain about is that my life was ever dull.

Coming up next then is number 7 on the list which is a story I did tell quite a while ago but it bears revisiting as it really is quite funny. It wasn’t funny when it happened, at least not to me, but eventually I managed to laugh about it.

Love

It hadn’t gone away, it was the first thing that the doctor looked at. Unfortunately when he ran his finger down my spine I started squirming, it’s exactly what a certain teenager had done to me once when I was ten and it had proved to be one of my major ‘hot buttons’. My reaction just got me a stern rebuke for fidgeting but nothing sinister was implied.

After the spine it was onto the knees and a new torture. I was told to squat and then stand up without assistance or support which produced the most awful noise like a pistol shot, this didn’t bode well.

Allowed to get dressed again I sat between my parents and asked the all important question. “Can I start playing rugby again in September?” The doctor re-read the consultant’s letter, looked at me for a long time in silence and then spoke.

“Sorry, Malcolm but you can’t.”

“Well, when can I start then?”

“Your consultant doesn’t want you playing any more and I agree.”

It seemed that I was the only person in the room labouring under the delusion that I’d be able to play again. Neither of my parents looked in the least surprised and the look on Mum’s face could only be described as relief. I got the distinct impression that the three adults in the room had already discussed the situation behind my back.

It transpired that I was showing early signs of arthritis in both knees and the fear was that one bad tackle, a fairly common occurrence , could do serious damage. The spinal problem just added to the overall concern and the feeling was that the risks were too high. I could play any other sport of my choice but rugby was out for good.

The problem that nobody seemed to understand was that my school didn’t have any other winter sports. Boys played rugby from September to March and that was it apart from the weekly gym lesson which I could carry on doing. I begged, promised to be extra careful and to be honest about pain but all to no avail.

I was almost in tears when we left the surgery and complained loudly all the way home that it wasn’t fair and that I didn’t deserve it. All that did was make my parents cross and by the time we got to Lurgashall I was getting perilously close to a physical punishment so I finally shut up and just sulked for the whole evening.

I really wasn’t looking forward to breaking this news to the Games Master and I was pretty certain that the word “spas” was going to figure quite extensively in my remaining time at Midhurst, three whole years of misery lay ahead of me.

Love

I bemoaned that fact to my Form Master when he asked how the appointment had gone and was dismayed that he agreed with my parents. I admired that man a great deal and had thought he would take my side, which just goes to show that I should never have really trusted anybody. The conclusion I’d come to while I was being abused was, after all, the right one. The people who had influence over my life simply enjoyed wielding power over me.

Anyway, in the spirit of of not letting me do anything important for myself, Mum made an evening appointment at the GP’s surgery and then decided that instead of coming home and going with them in the car I should get off the school coach in Petworth and wait for them there.

In fairness Mum did offer to give me some money so that I could get a snack while I waited but in a truly Malcolm display of cutting off my own nose to spite my face, I claimed that I had my own money and would take care of myself. That’s what being grown up was all about wasn’t it?

Small wonder that an argument started and Dad got involved but I was in absolutely no mood to compromise and ended up being sent to my room to “calm down”. The claim that I had money was rubbish, I was utterly skint, but I wasn’t admitting that, I’d chosen martyrdom and that’s the way it was going to be.

So it was that on a thankfully mild afternoon I sat on a low wall and buried my head in the Robert Silverberg book I’d taken out of the school library that lunchtime. My parents didn’t approve of my obsession with Science Fiction and there’d been more than a few serious rows about it, I was only supposed to read curriculum appropriate books. I also knew that Mum found some of the subject matter in SF a bit disturbing. Probably a good thing that I hadn’t discovered Philip K. Dick at that point.

Despite the discomfort of a brick wall under my bony bum I was soon lost to the world and was quite startled when Mum said “Hello, Malc Darling”. Looking up I saw two frowns aimed at me and my reading material. Hastily stuffing the offending volume into my pocket just brought a rebuke, that blazer had to last me until summer holidays.

It had already been reinforced with leather patches on the elbows and leather strips on the pockets and lapels. There was a dark blue stain against the royal blue where some twat in my Form had punched me in the chest and broken my fountain pen. That pen had been a gift and I was heartbroken at it being smashed like that, I didn’t give a damn about the damage to a blazer that I loathed wearing and somehow the incident became my fault.

Dad tossed his car keys at me which, being a very good slip fielder, I neatly caught getting a little smile of approval from him and I ran over to the car to stick my satchel, violin and viola in the boot. It hadn’t been games or gym that day so I only had the three pieces of luggage to carry around.

That done, and the boot carefully double checked, I’d be in so much trouble if I left it unlocked, I rejoined my parents and we went off to the surgery where, I was completely confident, I’d be given the green light for a continued rugby career.

Love

On Monday an old medical problem reasserted itself and at 4pm I found myself in the A & E Department of my local hospital. In the past this problem has been quite straightforward, go to A & E, get admitted, have surgery sometime around midnight and be let out the following afternoon.

This time, however, things didn’t quite go to plan and I eventually went down to theatre at 11:30am on Wednesday. In all that time I was allowed to eat one sandwich and was given a cup of coffee and a cup of hot chocolate.

Having finally had surgery and got over the anaesthetic, with a drastic drop in blood pressure and a completely unexpected loss of core temperature, I was finally seen by the consultant at about 8pm and told that I had to stay in to have an MRI scan on Friday afternoon.

I eventually escaped at 7:30pm on Friday evening and made my way home to be reunited with Gary and Kyril.

So, what I’d expected to be a day’s absence became almost a week and I was getting quite worried at one point that they were going to keep me in over the weekend as well.

This is about the twelfth operation I’ve had on this particular bit of me and the problem isn’t actually curable so it’ll happen again and again.

Thinking about it I hope that raping me when I was 19 was the best shag that a certain person ever had. That would be some small compensation for the operations I’ve been put through.