Jack of all Trades.

‘I’m not a high-class escort… you know…. here for my annual check-up.’

I just got all flustered. It was a laundry list of STI’s; gonorrhoea, syphilis, chlamydia and more that I didn’t even know were STI’s. He just looked at me blankly and I felt ashamed that I had derided sensible sex workers looking out for their health and getting tested regularly.

I almost said ‘hooker’ but I knew that wouldn’t be entirely believable and I didn’t want him to think ‘sure, you’re not a hooker but you might be a high-class escort…?’  Obviously if I was a sex worker, I would be a high-class escort not a hooker. I’ve watched every episode of Law and Order Special Victims Unit and therefore I know that because I have good teeth, clear skin, clean nails and a designer handbag it would be clear I was ‘high-class’.

But it was such a long list of possible ills with my lady parts, that required ruling out, I felt it required some explanation. This combined with the silent two minutes he took slowly reading the list and putting one vial after the other into the kidney shaped bowl with the antiseptic swab in the KFC style sachet and the elastic band to cut off your circulation and then bring it back again. It was a dreadfully long silence where I assumed he was thinking about my sex-life and I panicked and filled it.

His name is Jack. I know this because he has taken my blood before and for my past two or three visits to my doctors surgery, I noticed he had also been sitting on reception checking people in and answering the phones. I asked my wonderful doctor what was going on; should the guy that takes the blood and handles the urine samples also be rushing off to answer the phones?

She explained that cuts had been made, the receptionist had left, and the practice manager thought that of course Jack could fill both positions. I am unconvinced by the practice manager’s full grasp on the differentiation of skills between a receptionist and a nurse but hey-ho, in the interests of cost saving we can all pitch in, no?

Following the two minutes of silently putting vials in the kidney shaped bowl, a doctor’s voice came down the corridor calling for him as they had inadvertently put a patient’s charges through incorrectly and couldn’t fix it, thus requiring his urgent assistance. This left me sitting in a mild sweat in the special chair with the arm pad thinking ‘I don’t need to do this now… I could come back another time… Jack’s clearly busy with admin…I hate blood tests…run!’

But, Jack came back in the nick of time having, I can only assume, resolved the accounting issue and was now ready to stick a needle in my arm to check that I don’t have chlamydia. (Which I categorically don’t have because I haven’t had sex in at least a year and at my last full health check-up 12 months ago, my very brilliant and efficient doctor checked for all the common ones then too and unless we can now catch syphilis from toilet seats it’s as impossible as the virgin birth.)

I also did a urine test and as Jack had to return to the reception desk to handle appointment booking, I left it on the side in the blood retrieval room as directed and walked to reception for Jack to also process my payment and left.

Within 45 minutes I had a text message telling me to book an appointment with the doctor to discuss the results which can only be the results of the urine test because there’s no way blood tests can be done that quickly. This put me in a mild panic as I know we were also testing for ‘tumour markers’ and a quick Google search told me that tumour markers can be tested in urine.

I rang the surgery but no answer. That’s because Jack knocks off at 4 because he’s actually a nurse not a receptionist and as my doctor had just told me she’s so busy she just doesn’t answer the phone after he leaves; frankly, entirely fair enough.

Anyway, let’s see. It may well be nothing or it’s probably cancer. I’ll sleep well tonight quietly pondering my womb.