Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.
Hagrid danced as best he could – he would live to throb another day.
I had never been to a holistic doctor before. Maybe that should be Holistic Doctor. I paid through the nose – and what did it buy me? It bought me a personable woman, younger than me, who said things like ‘bone broth’ ‘adrenal fatigue’ and directed me to a favourite website where I could order the supplements she recommended. I paid a lot, so I had her to myself for an hour. The medical history she took was exhaustive. Right at the top she asked whether there was anything particular I wanted looked at, other than the normal blood tests.
“There’s a spot under my eye that keeps flaking and is sometimes itchy…”
“OK, I’ll have a look at that.”
“…and I have an enormous haemorrhoid. I’m scared my bum is broken.”
“We’ll have a look at that too.”
She continued taking her very in-depth history and we eventually almost reached the end of the one hour consultation time. I had to haltingly prompt her to to assess Hagrid the Haemorrhoid; she appeared to have forgotten.
“Lie over on your left side… OH! Oh. Yes. OK. What are you putting on it?”
I resisted the urge to say ‘human growth hormones’ and told her the name of the ointment.
“OK, I’ll have a look at what’s in it.” She scrolled through the ingredients of the medication, and then compared it to another that she had listed. “Try this one – it might be a little more effective, but it’s possible you might have to have it injected…in order to shrink it.”
“INJECT it? Is that a thing?”
She nodded, and printed me out a prescription for what I hope was ‘The Incredible Shrinking Haemorrhoid Ointment’.
She was so struck by the enormity of Hagrid that she never looked at the spot under my eye.
After I paid, through the nose, and had my blood drained by a pathology nurse who I felt could have chatted less and concentrated more, I sat in my car and looked at the prescription. It had something on it I had not seen before (as a longtime holder of a Health Care Card). It said ‘Not Available Under PBS’. I decided to ignore that, but I had my suspicions.
The pharmacist confirmed them. “Are you aware that this isn’t available under the pharmaceutical benefits scheme?”
“Oh. I went and saw an expensive Holistic Doctor. How much is it?”
“An expensive Holistic price. Forty-five dollars a tube.”
Hagrid pulsed with hope. Holistic hope.
“Forget it. I’ll keep using the stuff I’ve already got.”
“And what’s that?”
She looked it up and rolled her eyes, just a little bit. “Use that, but use it a bit more often.”