Outbreak

I see black mostly, with the occasional red or blue blotch. Is that normal? The blotches are warping. I should check if that’s normal. 

            “And by the time you open your eyes, all your phobias will have dissolved.”

            I open my eyes, expecting to be the new owner of a fearless brain, but instead, the room is brighter than I anticipated and I worry it might make me feel lightheaded. The hypnotherapist sits opposite me smiling.

            “How do you feel?” she asks.

            Sitting up, I blink a few times to check for residual blotches and am relieved to see they’ve gone. “I don’t feel any different right now,” I say, “but maybe it takes a while?”

            Her clipboard rattles as she places it down on the coffee table that separates us.

            “What were you thinking about while I was speaking?”

            “Well,” I say, “quite a lot.” She sits unmoved, waiting. “At first I was just trying to get into it. To relax, I suppose. Then I wondered if laying down this long would lower my blood pressure and cause an issue when I stand up. Which I’m still slightly worried about, if I’m honest. Do you think that’s possible?”

            No reply.

            “Then, I wondered about who’d sat on this couch before me, which made me very aware that the side of my face was laying directly in the centre of the cushion. Were they wearing jeans? Denim is very germ absorbent, which means if your previous patient had perhaps wiped their hands on their legs or sat on a park bench, then their jeans would likely be a Petri dish of bacteria. My mind then, obviously, went to my rash.”

            “Right,” she said, “that must be quite exhausting.”

            “It is.”

            I leave the hypnotherapist with a hand full of leaflets, one titled ‘How To Battle Iatrophobia’, and head straight home. For the top-rated in the UK, she’s taking her time to fix me. On the bus, I pull my sleeves over my hands before pressing any buttons and ensure that my lower back isn’t exposed to the scratchy seats.

            Maggie is waiting for me as I walk through the front door, her tail weaving left and right. She brushes herself up against my legs and purrs into my shoes. Owning a cat was the best decision I’ve ever made; she’s soft on sensitive skin, self-cleaning and demands only minimal attention.

            I start my usual routine the moment I get inside: wash hands with dermatologist approved soap, wipe down arms with water (ensuring not to peel off any flaking skin), change into fresh microfibre t-shirt and moisturise any exposed areas. Despite having dealt with this rash for over seventeen years, the routine never gets easier. After feeding Maggie, I settle into the couch and pop on Radio 2. I open up the first leaflet, the largest of the three. Hospitals are the safest place on earth. In an emergency, you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. I disagree – I’d rather die in my own bed than have to face the horrifying scenes that dwell behind the sliding doors of a hospital. With doctors and nurses around every corner, you’re in secure hands. They forget to mention the blood, needles and dying people. And since when are doctors comforting? They’re literally the bearers of bad news. I flick through the other leaflets, decide they’re no good and throw them in the bin.

***

This Saturday morning’s suit of choice is a DKNY number, chosen for me by my daughter Anne. That’s a perk of having daughters – shopping. Without them, I’d be walking around in a pair of twenty-five-year-old shorts bought for me by my ex-wife. You can lose a lot when your mental health is bad, and my wife was my biggest loss of all. I don’t blame her; there’s only so long you can deal with a brain like mine.

            “Morning, Ron,” Arran from finance says as he clocks in, “looking sharp.” I straighten my sleeves and smile in response, the corners of my rash peeking out of the cuffs.

            “Busy day?” He lingers at my desk, taking a long slurp of his coffee.

            “Busy as usual!” Some may say that working as a receptionist at a carpet factory is a sad way of life, but I love it. We make Cornwall’s most eco-friendly carpets and I get to share my days with Jayne, the senior receptionist. At forty-eight, I have twelve years here under my belt, while Jayne has fifteen. We spend our mornings welcoming the staff and handing out any mail from the day before. I like to think we’re the South West’s Ant and Dec. As we chat through our lunch boxes of the day, the Duty Manager Marcus approaches the desk.

            “Can we talk?” he asks me, pointing towards his office.

            I glance at Jayne who suddenly has her head buried in sign-in sheets. “Absolutely,” I say. Marcus leads me across the factory floor and into his office, closing the door behind me. Despite having been in here many times throughout the years, I feel a sense of dread come over me. Perhaps it’s the dim lighting and closed blinds.

            “So,” he says, gesturing for me to sit down, “I think it’s time we addressed something.”

            “Right,” I say, my mind reeling over every post-it note I’ve accidentally stolen or email I’ve forgotten to reply to.

            “I’m not sure how to say this, Ron. But we’ve had a few complaints. No, not complaints - comments.”

            “Comments?” I say, “What about?” His eyes flick down to my wrists where my sleeves have hitched up and my rash is exposed. “My… my skin?”

            Marcus gives an apologetic nod. “We just need to know that you’re doing something about it, that’s all. It’s a duty of care matter.”

            “I’m fine, honestly! It’s nothing.”

            “We know you haven’t been to the doctors about it. And now that it’s been brought to our attention, we can’t legally let you continue to work until it’s been seen by a medical professional.”

            “What?” I say. “That’s surely not right.”

            “There’s nothing I can do I’m afraid. Jayne will man the desk until we’ve received a letter from your surgery. I’m sorry, Ron. Really, I am.”

            I spend the rest of the day moping around the house feeling rather sorry for myself. For anyone else, this work issue could be sorted within a day or too – a simple trip to the GP, taking no more than ten minutes. But when you add a phobia of doctors or medical equipment into the mix – a phobia that years of counselling, hypnotherapy and exposure therapy are yet to have helped – it becomes a trickier issue. What to others looks like a blip in the road, to me looks like a meteor-sized pothole. A pothole that grows by the second, swallowing cars, houses and the humans inside them. If I’m lucky, the pothole will reach my house before I have to call the doctor.

            When 5:00pm rolls around, I’ve successfully wasted four hours procrastinating instead of making the call. I suppose I’ll have to wait until Monday now – what a great shame.

***

I watch as the white-coated doctor sets up his tray. A scalpel, syringe and a pair of bent scissors, all laid out on blue tissue. My head swoons a little at the sight of it on my screen. Even the lights look blinding through the camera. After a Google search that lead to an article titled ’10 Tips To Cure Your Fear’, I jumped in at tip one – ‘Look It In The Eyes.’ With the power of YouTube, I can do exactly that from the comfort of my own corduroy armchair. However, even typing the word ‘doctor’ into the search bar made my stomach lurch and palms sweat. Now, forty-five seconds in, my arms feel heavy with dread. I reach the one minute mark and press pause, the fear of fainting becoming too much to handle. I crawl onto the floor and lay there for several minutes, willing the nausea to ease. Is it possible to be hospitalised by fear? I can only imagine how pathetic I’ll look when I tell the paramedics that I collapsed at the sight of a tray.

            Thankfully, after a quick lay and a chunk of cheese, I’m back in my chair, this time watching videos of TV show bloopers. I’ll mark this morning down as a solid effort. A success? Possibly not. A good try? I’d say so.

            By the afternoon, hunger pangs drive me out of the house. Cooking involves too many knives and harmful objects for my liking, so most days I find myself in Café Neu, a family-owned business with French decor. The women behind the counter have become familiar with my order – decaf flat white coffee and a vegetable lasagne – and bring it to me without me having to even approach the till. They heat the food twice, a request I made after watching a documentary on food poisoning. The same documentary that persuaded me to give up meat and soft cheese for life. I tell Joanna, the cafe owner, of my work predicament.

            “Just get it out the way, love,” she says, “it’ll be over before you know it and you’ll feel great for it.”

            I nod along, taking in the words I’ve heard thousands of times.

            “And you never know,” she goes on, “it could be much easier than you imagine.” As she speaks, the image of my body laying lifeless on the doctors surgery floor floods into my mind, washing a wave of anxiety over me. My counsellor calls these images ‘intrusive thoughts’. I call them likely outcomes.

            “When did you last go to the GP?” I ask her. After coming here almost daily for eight years, there are minimal boundaries between Joanna and I.

            “Two weeks ago, I’d say,” she replies, “got a mole removed.”

            “Did you get put under?”

            To this, she laughs. “No, love, it was a quick injection to the back of the neck.” I’ll never understand how people can stay awake for any type of procedure, big or small. I worry that I’d leap up in fear, causing the blade to drag across my skin and create more damage than good. From there, I’d of course bleed out and die a slow and gruesome death. Perhaps my job isn’t worth all this hassle.

            After finishing my lunch, I hop back on my bike and head for home, ensuring my helmet is clipped tight. As I’m cycling, tip two pops into my mind – ‘Visit The Fear.’ Without allowing myself time to hesitate, I veer into a side road, following the signs to the local surgery. The thoughts inside my mind begin to whir as though a sandstorm is forming between my ears, each piece of sand a new worry. What if a doctor is in on a Sunday and invites me inside? What if they had a seriously ill patient in yesterday and haven’t yet cleaned the carpark properly? Is it possible to catch a bug just from being in the vicinity? These endless streams of thoughts almost force my hands to turn and feet to pedal backwards, but the one small shred of resilience inside me stays put.

            I arrive at the surgery carpark and linger by the entrance. The building is short and wide, as though it’s sinking into the ground from the weight of the grief it carries. Every blind is closed and a chain hangs from the door handle. The red bricks are faded and speckled with moss, the mouldy aesthetic mirroring the grim sense inside me. ‘The Harbour Practice’ decorates the entrance, the ‘T’ and ‘e’ peeling slightly. I go to step forward, but my legs are stuck to the ground, led-laden with anxiety. I look down at them, willing them to move, but they ignore me as though they aren’t attached. My chest rises and falls with increasing rhythm as the familiar buzz of tinnitus swamps my ears.

            “Come on, Ron,” I whisper, “you’re fine.” But even as I say it, the voice of reason lacks conviction.

            Swallowing becomes more difficult, and although it’s likely due to my dry mouth, I can’t help wonder if sudden, unprompted anaphylaxis is possible. I feel for my inhaler and take two puffs, the pain in my chest growing greater by the second. The gravel beneath my feet begins to feel unsteady and my vision grows dark around the edges.

            “It’s all in your head,” I say out loud, “you are fine.” But I don’t believe me. “Calm down,” I say, “the panic will pass.” But it won’t, will it? And even if it does, it will be back tomorrow, refreshed and ready for another round. Ready to scissor kick any positivity that dare pipe up.

            Scrabbling onto my bike and speeding back down the road, I try to control my jumbling thoughts. But it’s no use, the panic has taken over. I am merely the co-pilot to this moment. The moment in which I realise that I shall never work again, I shall never be brave enough to seek a doctor’s advice or strong enough to push through the fear. My life is little more than Germolene and Beta Blockers. I fight back the tears, choke on the shame and picture my daughters’ faces when I tell them I’ve lost my job.

            I turn down Ascott Road, then West Way, then Cheam Road, swerving between cars and pedestrians. My pedals moving faster than ever before. With a swift veer to the right, I enter Sonder Street, cutting off a Volvo as I go. With food carts and jewellery stands filling the road, I bump up onto the pavement, speeding back past Café Neu, not slowing my speed. But within seconds, my handlebars drop from below me, feet sail above me, and my back makes contact with something hard. I hear a crack, a thud and a gasp, and in that moment, my mind goes quiet. All breath from within me is gone and I’m left gasping.

            A woman runs to my side and I watch as blood drips from my forehead onto her yellow dress.

            “Call an ambulance,” she says to another passer-by.

            “No,” I reply, “please don’t-”. But before I can fully protest, another man runs over. “I’m a doctor,” he says, “everyone step back.”

            My stomach lurches as he kneels beside me and scans over my body. “Can you sit up for me?” he says, and I do so with surprising ease.

            “Good,” he says, “nothing major it seems.” He inspects my forehead and presses a t-shirt against the wound. As he rolls up my jacket sleeve to take my pulse, he runs his thumb across my rash. “Pretty bad case of eczema you’ve got.”

            I look at him for the first time, allowing myself to acknowledge that I’m in the presence of one of my greatest fears.

            “I don’t suppose you could help me with it?” I ask.

            “Of course,” he replies.