We Will Not Go Quietly - Centre Against Sexual Assault

CHE KOALA
DUTY OF CARE
Che Koala is a blogger at ‘Wobbly
teetering blogging’ where she blogs
about the good, the bad and the ugly
of autoimmune conditions, physical
disability and - what is all too often
- their invisible impact on social
interactions and expectations.
http://multiplesclerosisprincess.
blogspot.com
21
From where we sat waiting we could hear the leukaemia kids crying once
they were taken behind the doctor’s door. The stark heads of the ones still
on the waiting chairs had an eerie neatness, were orderly and aged. Their
stoic waiting somehow made their later crying more piercing.
‘Come on that’s us,’ my mother would call and we would walk to the other
end of the corridor. We would cross a threshold without me crying. It was a
mystery what was beyond their door making them cry.
I was eleven. He would sit at his desk to start with. He was immensely tall
and immensely old. This visit, upon my mother seating herself, he announced
from over his glasses, that, according to his learned diagnosis, I was entering
puberty. I became an apparition. ‘Oh she’s embarrassed.’ I willed myself to
loat out the window. ‘Well let’s have a look,’ he commanded. He stood up,
came around from his side of the enormous desk then paused. I felt him
watch me climb up onto the examining table. His long, learned face leaned
from a long, long way away. My mother sat in front of us. Her chair faced the
desk and the window light. Just like all the other visits. As usual, he paused to
pull the hospital curtain semi way around the table screening the end of the
examination from the light coming through the window. Making a dim corner.
Did he realise?
As he did every visit, he pulled my top up and leaned over with his
stethoscope. He pressed my lesh. I had a history of being ticklish.
The cold lat of his stethoscope pressed against my chest. His breathing
came without excuse into my ears as he checked whether my heart was
working. His ingers ostensibly prodded my stomach checking whether there
was anything below the surface.