Umbilicus: An autobiographical novel

NOT SO FUNNY BONES

'WHEN I WAS ABOUT six or seven, I had the first op, and then two years ago, when I was nineteen, and still on my parents' medical aid, I had the second op.'

Her eyes are like saucers.

'The first time anyone picked up something was wrong was when my brother and I were on holiday with my grandparents in East London. They used to do yoga every morning on their bedroom floor, and I would try join in. My gran told my mom she had noticed I couldn't straighten my right arm, my writing arm, and suggested we go get it checked out. When my brother and I got back to Durbs, my folks took me to see an orthopaedic surgeon, who was one of Dad's colleagues. They did some X-rays that showed a deformation of the joint, which they were really worried may have been caused by a tumour, so they scheduled me for a biopsy straight away.'

Her face is ashen now.

'They went in and excised a piece of my ulna bone, and sent it off for testing. Thankfully the results came back negative, and it was diagnosed as Panner's disease.'

'Never heard of it,' she says, wide-eyed.

'It's an orthopaedic condition that mainly affects boys between the ages of five and ten. Oh, and it's often a precursor to something called OCD — no, not that OCD — which affects the dominant elbow of teenage boys who play baseball.'

'Oh, Little League Elbow. Now that I've heard of,' she says.

'Yes.' You remember then she is a nurse, so she's probably familiar with a lot more medical terminology than the average Joe.

'Did you have to have a plaster cast?'

'Yip. Both times. Six weeks a piece. God, it was the absolute worst, especially in this town's revolting heat and humidity. I used to stick knitting needles down the inside of it to try and relieve the itchiness, but I had to be careful not to tear out the stitches. The first time the cast came off, and my arm came out all skinny and weak, I still couldn't straighten it. And to add insult to injury I was left with the residual deformity from the excision of the bone. It looked so ugly and I was so embarrassed. I had to go through the rest of my childhood and all my teenage years with this stupid crooked elbow, and this ugly protruding bone. I couldn't put any weight on this arm, so I could never do handstands or cartwheels or gymnastics or anything like that. They said sport like tennis and netball would be good to try and stretch the ligaments and build up muscles and basically strengthen the arm. So those were the two main sports I ended up doing, right through primary and high school.'

'Your arm looks pretty straight now, though,' she says.

'Yes. Well, once my bones had fully matured and I had finished growing, I elected to go in for the second op. I had the same surgeon, and he went in through the same scar from the first op, to shave off the protruding end of the ulna and make my elbow look more normal. It also gave me much better pronation, and now I can almost fully straighten my arm.'

'Sjoe! So much for a young girl to go through,' she says sympathetically.

'I've always been very self-conscious. Of the way I look. Not only did I not look like anyone in my family, but I also had this weird deformity, which forced me to sit on the sidelines during quite a few gymnastics-based classes in PE. I really hated it. And I subsequently found out that I had been given very bad advice regarding the type of sports I should play. The only thing that really helps Panner's disease of the elbow is rest of the affected joint. Kids usually grow out of it over the course of a couple of years, although they may never be able to fully straighten their arm. The surgeries I went through were unnecessary, really. Although, granted, they had no way of knowing it wasn't a tumour without going in to do the biopsy the first time.'

'Oh Charlotte, I'm so sorry,' she says. And you can tell she genuinely is.

'Besides those two surgeries to my elbow, I also had two ops in my mouth. The first was to excise a portion of my hard palate to facilitate the eruption and repositioning of an impacted adult tooth, when I was in late primary school. Which then necessitated railway tracks for my first two years of high school. And the second op was to remove my wisdom teeth, top and bottom. I actually met Gray a few days after, when I still looked like a chipmunk!'

You both laugh.

'And what about your eyes? Do you wear contacts?' she asks.

'Glasses. I'm way too squeamish for contacts. I'm long-sighted, with astigmatism in both eyes, so I need to wear glasses for reading, and my art, and stuff. When I was in junior primary the teacher noticed I struggled with ball skills, which they thought may be because of poor depth perception. My mom took me to see an optometrist, who was also a family friend, and he made me my first pair of prescription glasses, which were actually bifocals, in round tortoiseshell frames. Real little granny glasses, haha! I conveniently "lost" them sometime during senior primary, because I was teased for being a nerd, and for some reason they never got replaced. It was only in Matric, while writing Trials, that I got my second pair, from the same optometrist. By then I didn't care about being teased anymore, and the headaches from eye strain had become unbearable.'

'Gee, so between your elbow and your teeth and your eyes, your parents have forked out quite a bit on your health, hey?'

'Oh ja. And that's not counting all the dermatologist appointments and treatments I've had over the years for my acne. They must've spent a small fortune by now! Thank God for medical aid, that's all I can say. That's actually why I had my second elbow op and my wisdom teeth out all within the space of, like, three months, before I was no longer able to claim as a dependent on their medical aid.'

'Oh, I see. As a matter of interest, when it comes to doctors, I know they always have to ask if you've got any family history of heart disease, cancer, stroke, or diabetes. What do you tell them?'

'Oh geez, I hate it when they ask. I have no choice but to be honest. I just say, "I don't know. I'm adopted." It's so awkward. For them, and for me.'

'This is something that really upsets me,' she says. 'It should be a basic civil and human right to have access to this kind of information. Knowledge of one's genetic identity, and one's predisposition to hereditary diseases is one of the most essential tools used by doctors to determine a patient's risk profile.'

You nod sagely, impressed by her fervour and eloquence.