Читать книгу Confessions of a GP - Benjamin Daniels - Страница 28

I was spending a few weeks working in a very pleasant rural practice. It was nice to have a break from the poverty-fuelled social problems of the inner cities. I had dug out a few ties that I had long since stopped wearing and also rediscovered my best posh accent that I had last used for my medical school interview in 1996. Surrounding the surgery was a collection of very pleasant villages with big houses and twee thatched cottages. It was fox-hunting and green welly territory. During a sweltering few weeks in July, it was a pleasure to be cruising around the countryside doing my home visits rather than stuck in city traffic jams cursing the lack of air conditioning in my car.

Driving down a small country lane, I came across a row of small run-down bungalows. They looked a little out of place in contrast to the rest of the local housing. They were the area’s small quota of council housing that the rest of the village tried to ignore.

The patient I was visiting was called Mr Hogden. He lived quietly with his sister in one of the less well-kept bungalows. He was only in his early forties but hadn’t left his bungalow for nine years. The medical notes seemed to suggest that this was due to a history of agoraphobia, but more obvious on meeting him was that there would be no way Mr Hogden would have fitted through the door. He was fucking enormous.

Mr Hogden resided in the smallest room of the bungalow. It was about the size of a double bed and was taken up entirely by Mr Hogden himself sprawled out on the floor. He had long since broken his bed and now spent his time on a very old, filthy-looking mattress on the floor. Each of his limbs was made up of several huge rolls of fat with a hand or foot poking out at the end. His head emerged out of a humungous mass of lard that was his torso.

The sight of Mr Hogden sprawled out on the floor was a bit of a surprise but it was the smell that I really struggled with. The bungalow was like an oven in this hot July sunshine and there was only a tiny window in the room that barely let in any air or light. Flies were buzzing around in their hundreds and as my eyes slowly adjusted to the dimly lit room, it became apparent where they were coming from. Unfortunately for Mr Hogden, the flies had found that the warm sweaty crevices between his rolls of fat were a perfect place to lay their eggs. Emerging from his legs and body was a legion of maggots. The sight of the maggots and the horrendous smell were almost too much for me and despite priding myself on a strong stomach I had to do my utmost not to vomit.

‘You’ve got to help me, Doctor,’ Mr Hogden pleaded with me as he watched me take in the horror of his predicament. Despite the terrible state in which he was living, this was the first time that Mr Hogden had called out a doctor in the last ten years. He had managed to get to the toilet and back up until now and he simply spent the rest of his time lying on his mattress watching a tiny television that was mounted on the wall of his bedroom. His sister brought him his meals and Mr Hogden had quietly grown enormous without bothering a soul. Until now that was. This was yet another of those moments where I felt completely useless and, like all good cowards, I fled. To be fair, what was I going to do? I could have crouched down and picked the maggots out of Mr Hogden’s groin creases but I would have vomited. The flies would have fed off the regurgitated contents of my stomach, only adding to his problems.