I've just come back from an appointment with my dermatologist. He kept looking at my right ear.
“Well, Doc, what is it?”
“Let me put it like this, what’s your star sign?”
“Virgo.”
“Close. Cancer.”
"What?"
“We all have our little jokes. Don’t worry, it won’t spread, but it is a form of skin cancer – what we call a rodent ulcer, or a basal cell carcinoma. It’s caused by excessive exposure to sun in earlier life. Have you ever spent a lot of time in the sun?”
I certainly had, back in the days when sunshine was good for you and we soaked up as much of it as we could get, little dreaming that one day it would be as dangerous as coffee, alcohol, food, water and air.
Anyway, I’ve seen all the medical dramas, so I was straight in with the pointed questions.
“So er… er… what are my options?”
“Well, you could simply leave it there to rot into your head, which might work as a conversation starter, or you could do what most people do and have it removed.”
Surgery!!!
“With a knife?”
“That’s right.”
“Couldn’t you do it with a laser, or a damp cloth or something?”
“Don’t worry, it’s nothing. Local anaesthetic. Chop chop, couple of stitches, ten minutes tops.”
“Chop chop?”
“Technical term."
“Thank you, Dr Schweitzer."
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'I'm a Naval surgeon,' he replies. 'My word!' spluttered the woman, 'How you doctors specialise these days.'
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