I visited the clinic several times and usually found it busy.
The reception staff were front and centre of visible operations and the coffee in the waiting room was superb. Behind the scenes, the back office staff were always hard at work. Based in an extension beside the car park, they sat in rows staring intently at their desktops as they dealt with all the enquiries and planning of procedures that generated the income required to keep things afloat.
I'd come to this place in my hour of need and therefore its clinical staff inevitably became the focus of my attention.
I met several nurses there and was impressed with all of them. They had to work with a small army of sessional dermatologists, plastic surgeons and a multitude of other skin disciplines, some of whom were relative newcomers to the protocols and practices of the business. I suspected the nurses were the clinic's unseen heroes; the glue that held the clinical side of things together through the day to day demands of obvious perpetual pressure.
I received details of my treatment plan within two days of my appointment with the third dermatologist. The date for the surgery was six weeks away and my appointment to receive the lab results from the surgeon came six weeks after that. My son had his concerns about the timescale but I thought it was okay. No one ever said that treatment in the private sector didn't involve a wait.
Around two weeks later, I realised I was in trouble.
When leaning forwards to pick something up I carelessly brushed the smaller lesion against my tiled bathroom wall. The pain made me gasp and by the time I made it to the sink there was blood flowing over my forehead. I knew that scalps are very vascular and wasn't too worried. Having mopped things up and stopped the bleeding, all was well. Or so I thought.
The following morning I was quite taken aback when I glanced in the mirror. Overnight, the smaller lesion had begun its journey to transform itself into a replica of the larger one. Same colour but not as dark. Same horrible appearance as its crust formed. Same utter abhorrence. Same everything, only to a lesser scale.
As if acting in unison with its smaller counterpart, the larger lesion then transformed even further. The first I knew of this was when I noticed the skin on my scalp to one side of it was glistening. I gently cleaned it up with a tissue and saw it had produced a clear fluid with a vaguely yellowish tint. I wondered if this might be the 'weeping' the fourth GP enquired about.
Whatever it was, the larger lesion 'wept' intermittently over the next few days. Then something far more dramatic happened when a large globule of thick yellow and dark brown muck appeared from its base like a stagnant lava flow. Not content to merely appear like something out of an Alien movie it was now throwing in some additional visual effects to make its point. And it was growing bigger and bigger all the time.
As was the smaller volcano higher up on my scalp. Its base was spreading out and its dome heightening with alarming speed. In no time at all it had reached a size to hold its own against the bigger one. I could hardly believe the pace of its transformation. Some weeks later, one of the nurses explained to me this wasn't unusual when she remarked: "When they start to go, they can really go."
It had become obvious to me that curettage was now unlikely to take care of the smaller lesion. I was therefore worried that the surgery would be stopped in its tracks and rearranged to a later date. For me, this would have been a disaster.
On a Friday at the start of October I emailed the clinic and explained my concerns.
The third nurse phoned me immediately after the weekend on the Monday morning. She was reassuring and obviously efficient. On top of everything else she was doing that day, she kept in touch with me over several phone calls and was finally able to suggest a new plan.
I was to come to the clinic in the late morning of the following day. The timing was intended to coincide with the possible availability of one of the plastic surgeons. This wasn't the surgeon who had been booked for my surgery two weeks later. It all sounded fine to me and I appreciated the flexibility of everyone involved.
The third nurse assured me she'd try her best to squeeze in a quick appointment for me with the surgeon but couldn't guarantee it. In any event she wanted to see me herself because, as she put it: "I want to get a really good look at that head of yours."
