A bad day at the orifice

It was one of those days. When all the planets malign rather than align and everything that can go wrong, does. One particular planet plays a very specific role in this story. The planet Uranus is known in astrology as the “Awakener,” since its aspects and transits are thought to bring sudden changes and shocks. Uranus is also the butt of a thousand jokes about, er, butts. In both of these guises, the planet shown here cast its shadow over 31 January 2020. This is the story of that day.

When you are 55, and male, at some point in the following year after your birthday you will receive a letter from the NHS. It is not a birthday card. This letter offers you a screening to check for bowel cancer. About 47% of men don’t take up that offer. But I did. Well, best to know, I figured. The appointment was offered and I duly noted the time and date to attend the Royal Sussex Hospital in my diary.

The due date arrived for my bowel cancer screening. I parked in the NCP at the Royal Sussex having performed the necessary self-enema an hour previous with the kit that had ominously arrived in the post two weeks earlier. The warren of corridors and lifts and several dead ends eventually yielded the antiseptic waiting area for the screening. There was one other man waiting. The only other human being in evidence was a camp, northern, slightly porky orderly, who did his best to alleviate any nervousness he presumed we both had by repeating, in his high, sing-songy voice, the warning that the procedure would be ‘a little bit windy, a little bit farty’. If I wasn’t nervous before, I was now.

This nauseating phrase echoed between the cubicles where we two patients had been parked. It was his standard patter, delivered with all the loud, unfeeling insensitivity of officials the world over who have forgotten the meaning of what they are saying and for whom the words have become a sort of automatic incantation – more for their benefit than ours. He reminded me of the Michael Palin character in the film Life of Brian who ticked off the names of people scheduled for execution: “Crucifixion? Yes? Line on the left. One cross each.” The pretence of empathy was there but the reality was more brutal – there’s a job to be done. The orderly took a few details and got me to sign a disclaimer in case, during the procedure, they managed to cut the lining of my intestine and I bled to death with internal haemorrhage. I signed and put my pen back in my pocket with a slightly shaking hand. Now I was really nervous.

My turn came. I was escorted into the room. There were four people in there. Four. One junior doctor learner driver (who showed me in – we all have to start somewhere); the Head Honcho, gowned, bespectacled, grey haired; the chief torturer; and the one watching the telly. I was ushered in and told to lie on the gurney. Was it only four hours ago that the Revenue and Customs had fucked me up the arse to the tune of thousands? Was it a mere four hours since their bank account had syphoned mine and left it depleted, feeling used and sore? Yet here I was again, lying down, on my side, knees up to my chest and naked from the waist down, about to undergo the same, debilitating, impoverishing process. This time, the instrument of torment was not an anodyne binary bank code sequence but a 30 foot long black mamba coil of antiseptic tubing, replete with a miniature set of pincers, a camera and halogen headlight. Like some ravenous Sarlacc sandworm from your Return of the Jedi nightmare, it eyed me threateningly. We both knew who was the prey and who was the predator in this encounter. I swallowed hard as it began its cruel ascent. How many other men’s arses had this monster explored?

As I lay there, smothered in more lube than a Tory MP’s rent boy, the black mamba began its curious journey into the unknown. They had offered me a ringside view – sorry, you can’t avoid puns when it comes to bums. “Would you like to see it all on the TV monitor?” They wheeled a large screen atop a tall stand over to me. “No”, I replied firmly. (They say that you need to demonstrate to yourself that you are at least in charge of some aspect of your life in such situations, and I did.) This was my “here I stand, I can do no other” Martin Luther moment. I would not watch ARSE TV Channel O. There was nothing on it I wanted to watch. They looked a bit deflated. Clearly most people leap at the chance to ogle their innards. Not me. I would be all Bridge-over-the-river-Kwai-Alec-Guinness about it. Stoic. Quietly taking my punishment in the hot box (you see? Puns again.)

“Ooh. That looks sinister.” The voice comes from behind me. It is the black-mamba-monitoring telly addict glued to the images of my lower intestine. I stiffen slightly, the only physical sign of my reaction to this exclamation – apart from my eyes, which are now bulging. My brain is working at the speed of light. What is sinister? What do you mean by ‘sinister’? Immediately all my neurons are on red alert. But it’s funny – my years of training people how to communicate with others immediately kick in and instead of jumping off the table in a panicked dash for freedom, I find myself thinking: “You really should be trained to know not to say things like that out loud”. My mind jumps to what, at the time, seems an appropriate analogy: the British Airways pilots who calmly, amusedly, refer to the most vicious of turbulence as “we’re just experiencing a few lumps and bumps” – balm to troubled passengers. A black mamba monitor (I am sure she must have had a more scientific job title) saying out loud “Ooh, that looks sinister” is akin to the pilot shouting in to the intercom “WE’RE GOING DOWN!”. Training needed here.

I let this inner dialogue slide.

“Er, what does that mean?”, I enquire with my best British insouciance. The most senior person in the room, the doctor, says that thy have found a polyp – an abnormal tissue growth – in my intestine and it will need to be snipped off and sent to the labs for analysis. Great, I think. I’ve got cancer. It’s all over. “So I’m on Death Row?”. “Not quite”, soothes the doc. “Most polyps are benign. Let’s wait and see, shall we. (Was he a BA pilot in a former life?) We’ll know in 10 days.” Brilliant. I only came in here for a quick shufti and a nose about (no one’s nose was involved, obviously – that would be a very different story). I didn’t expect a death sentence..

There’s a bit more intestine that hasn’t been fully sodomised yet so they carry on in search of more polyps but find none. The snake slithers back into the daylight, limp and sated . Although I haven’t been cut and bled to death on the gurney, I feel defiled and violated nonetheless. It has been a shocking invasion. “You can tidy yourself up now”, the doctor invites, like a Commandant who has had his non consensual way with an inmate. I wipe myself, feeling sticky and dirty. He shows me the photo of the thing they will send to the lab and gives me a piece of paper with the description. I just want to get out of there. As I make my way back through the ward, I can hear “a little bit windy, a little bit farty” wafting around the cubicles to a new set of patients. Poor buggers. I slink out and return home.

Four hours later, as my sphincter starts to trust me again, Britain leaves the EU. I am bereft. Resignedly, I accept it in the same way earlier in the day I had surrendered my wealth to the Inland Revenue and that evening accepted someone sticking three metres of two centimetre diameter plastic coated industrial strength cable into my most intimate orifice. Brexit feels the same – very uncomfortable at the time, depressingly not what I want to happen and with potentially awful consequences in the long run. I go to bed exhausted, unable and unwilling to join in the celebrations – such as they are in Brighton. I heard one firework. Whoopee.

All three events happened on the same, awful day – the 31 January 2020. It was a very bad day at the office. Fucked up the arse by HMRC. Fucked up the arse by the NHS and fucked up the arse by Brexit. Three strikes. I’m out. (And so, apparently, is Britain.) At least the worst is over. I am sure that from now on 2020 can only get better…oh.