Читать книгу Confessions of a School Nurse - Michael Alexander - Страница 10

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Marcus cried, whipping up his tracksuit bottoms to hide himself from the family crowd gathered outside.

I bundled Marcus out the office, into the car and off to the local doctor’s office. Thankfully, Dr Fritz’s surgery is in the centre of the village, only a five-minute drive away.

Proximity and willingness alone made Dr Fritz the unofficial school doctor. In addition to running a full-time GP practice, he was also our first port of call if there was an issue the nursing staff felt needed a doctor’s opinion, and we would make an appointment at his office and send the child along. Even on his time off, it was not uncommon for him to see our students if the matter was urgent. Dr Fritz was also there if a student needed specialist help, as he knew who the closest and best experts were, and referrals were made through him.

Like all born and bred mountain men, Dr Fritz is a no-nonsense man. He’s also one of the hardest working GPs I’ve ever met. He is always there during the day or available in the middle of the night, no matter what, and it wasn’t unusual for him to put in an eighty-hour week.

He even has the ‘unique quirks’ that often come not only with living in an isolated mountain village, but being the only GP for a whole community.

He was happy to see Marcus straight away. Pain in the testicles can be very serious. Torsion (a twisted spermatic cord) is a surgical emergency. Within minutes, the doctor had Marcus lying on the examination table.

He began his assessment as all doctors do, by examining the whole person and not just the affected part, and gradually worked his way to Marcus’s testicles. I had wondered if he was going to glove-up as he doesn’t always, and in this case didn’t, although he was completely professional in his exam. At one point Marcus raised an eyebrow and gave me a worried look, but he kept quiet. It isn’t wise to question any man who has your nuts resting in the palm of their bare hands.

Once the examination was over, Dr Fritz arranged for an ultrasound scan to take place as soon as possible.

‘I do not think it is a torsion,’ he explained, ‘but we need to be sure.’ We were standing by the reception desk, as he turned the pages of his diary. He licked the index finger of his right hand to turn another page … the same hand he’d just used to feel Marcus’s testicles.

I glanced at Marcus to see if he had noticed, and saw him staring at the doctor’s hand, his mouth hanging open. He leant towards me and whispered in an appalled tone, ‘He just tasted my balls.’

Dr Fritz does wear gloves when strictly necessary, has always been proper and he did wash his hands, but not before the ultrasound had been arranged. Where other doctors usually wear gloves when examining warts, fungusy toes, and the like, Dr Fritz doesn’t. I don’t agree with Dr Fritz sometimes, but he is completely trustworthy if a little unprofessional – you wouldn’t get away with it in most places, and in a way, that shows just how unique this little community is.

This was the first of many peculiarities I would eventually come across while working with the doctor.

As for Marcus, the ultrasound showed that he had a hydrocele, or a little cyst full of fluid, attached to his left testicle, that is absolutely harmless. Marcus calmed down a great deal once he realised his balls weren’t going to drop off, and the pain settled with some ibuprofen.

As first weeks go, this was pretty ridiculous … but, as I was to find out, this was just the beginning.