The look on the receptionist’s face should have warned me. It was my turn to do the lunchtime visits. Having trained as a surgeon and transferred for family reasons into general practice, I was required to do a year’s attachment at a large practice on the edge of London. The receptionist handed me a packet of notes and told me the patient lived within walking distance. I wondered why the sound of laughter followed me out the building.
Within minutes I had arrived at the patient’s home. The bungalow looked in reasonably good condition, although the garden was rather untidy. I rang the doorbell and heard a shuffling gait heading towards the door with the rhythmic tap of a walking stick, and the highly pitched yap of a small dog.
Eventually both human and canine resident reached the door. It swung open to reveal an elderly lady in a dress and cardigan and what, at first sight, looked like a moth-eaten white rug. The rug immediately leapt off the floor and wrapped all four of its short legs around my right calf. The patient peered at me through bottle-bottom spectacles, unaware that her faithful companion was bouncing like an invigorated satyr against my lower leg.
“Come in, doctor,” she cried. “Follow me into the front room”.
I only wished I could. Struggling with a feverishly pumping dog intent on mating with my trousers, I swung my medical bag into my other hand and dragged an overburdened and fully extended limb behind me up the hall. Unseen behind the dog’s owner, I stopped every few steps and tried to shake the demonic creature from my leg, to no avail. By now it had the adhesive properties of a fully entwined octopus. I was not going to escape so easily.
I finally reached the chair proffered, having negotiated small tables and piles of magazines, and attempted to sit down, the mammalian limpet still humping happily. My patient began to discuss her health, oblivious to the unbridled carnality existing below the rim of her thickened lenses. The moment came when, pausing to push the heavy glasses up her nose, she stared with horror at the scene of inter-species fornication that unfolded beneath her blurry gaze.
“You disgusting animal!” she shrieked – meaning humankind’s best friend, not me – and reached with surprising alacrity for her walking stick. The dog, clearly used to this manoeuvre, interrupted its amorous activity and dashed unseen by his mistress to hide. The lady’s frailty and poor eyesight proved no obstacle either to her aim or swing, and she struck out at the last known location of her quivering pet, thrashing my right shin with surprising gusto.
Feeling the Hippocratic Oath could be served just as well with wisdom rather than valour, I jumped up and with bruised and painful lower parts made for the exit as best I could. My attacker hobbled in hot pursuit and stood with stick raised angrily in the door frame. As I reached the gate I turned to see my leg’s canine admirer smirking longingly between her feet. A final cry of “filthy animal” followed me down the street, causing onlookers to turn and see a bowed figure limping hastily away.
I returned to the health centre hot, flustered and violated. The receptionist had already assembled a number of colleagues, who stood sniggering at the desk in anticipation of my undignified retreat. I handed over the notes and glared at her.
Guffaws followed as I hurried away to the washroom with her calling out after me: “I see you’ve met her dog then”.
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