Page 14 - COBH EDITION 7TH DECEMBER DIGITAL VERSION

‘Women have no idea about the suffering us men must endure with man-
flu’ - Trevor Laffan
There’s something about going to the doctor that makes me a
little uneasy and I get nervous whenever I go into a surgery.
I’m sure I’m not the only one and I think we’re entitled to be
a bit afraid. After all, doctors have the power to turn your life
upside down. They can stick needles in your body, send you
to hospital and they can even sign your death certificate.

They’re trained to have a reassuring smile and a calm de-
meanour, so they can convince you that everything is fine,
even when you have only about five minutes left to live. I put
all that out of my mind this morning when I went to my GP to
get the flu jab. I arrived early and took a seat in the waiting
room.
I was on my own, so I was just looking around the room, when my eyes fell on the notice
board on the wall. I saw a little poster about Parkinson’s disease pinned to the board. Looking
down through it, I read the list of symptoms for the early onset of this terrible illness.
Excessive sweating was the first one I noticed, and it made me sit up. I’ve sweated exces-
sively all my life. Back when I was playing tennis, I would always come off the court after a
game and my clothes would land on the floor of the dressing room with a plop. Even thinking
about it now makes me sweat.
The next sign to look out for, the poster told me, was the loss of smell. A few months ago, I
had a very serious illness called man-flu. Women won’t appreciate what it’s like to experience
this kind of pain and suffering, but let’s just say that it was horrific. We men don’t talk about
it that much, preferring instead to suffer in silence because that’s the way we are. We don’t
like making a fuss and we have this bravery gene that helps us to cope.
Anyway, when I recovered from this near-death experience, I noticed that I had lost the
sense of smell and taste. They both came back after a bit, but not to the extent they were
before.
Another sign was memory loss and I was getting concerned at this stage. I can’t remember
what day of the week it is, and I have difficulty with people’s names. When I’m out walking,
and I see people coming towards me, I try to identify as early as possible whether I know
them or not. Then I race through the alphabet trying to come up with their name in the few
seconds before we meet. I regularly fail, so that’s it, there’s no doubt. I have Parkinson’s.
There was more literature on the notice board too about other conditions like anxiety. Some
of these symptoms include dizziness, chest pain, neck tension, fear of impending doom,
weakness in legs and feeling like you are going crazy. I didn’t have any of these signs before I
came in, but now I reckon I’m close to death, depressed and possibly pregnant.
The buzzer brought me back to reality and I got the flu jab without any drama and without
being diagnosed with a terminal illness or an unexpected pregnancy, but it reminded me of
something.
One of my most embarrassing moments in a doctor’s surgery happened as a result of an inci-
dent with my daughter when she was about a year and a half. I put her lying on the floor one
day and I was in the process of changing her nappy when something in her mouth caught my
eye. When I looked more closely, it seemed to me to be a green fungus growing from the roof
of her mouth. It was hideous.