Free Born in a Burial Gown by Mike Craven

blood test today. Very clear instructions. I’ll take the blood and run it straight away. You can go after one of the registrars has had a look at it. Unless they say you can’t, obviously,’ she said.
    ‘Obviously,’ he repeated, a bit too sharply.
     
    Two minutes later, Fluke had a doctor trying to stick a cannula in the back of his hand. The first two attempts missed.
    Fluke hated cannulas. Doctors always struggled to find veins, a legacy of his treatment. On the odd occasion he was having blood taken by someone who wasn’t familiar with his medical history, he always ended up giving an explanation. The most common reason for poor veins was intravenous drug use and Fluke felt compelled to tell them his condition was due to chemotherapy, not heroin.
    His hand would be stiff in the morning. It was getting to the point that every time he had his bloods taken, his hand froze up during the night. Or it could just be that I’m getting old , he thought. Today it was the turn of a small Asian doctor he’d seen around on the ward but had never spoken to, one of the multitude of junior doctors hospitals seemed to spawn.
    ‘Sharp scratch,’ she said, as she tried again.
     

 
     
     

Chapter 8
     
    ‘Sharp scratch.’
    Fluke vividly remembered the first time he’d heard that phrase. It was at the Patterdale Ward in West Cumberland Hospital nearly two years ago. He’d thought then what an odd phrase it was, to describe a needle puncturing flesh as a scratch, and he still thought it now. And they all said it: doctors, nurses, phlebotomists, the lot. He assumed it was part of some blood-letting course. Or it could be the same as detectives picking up evidence up with pens. Monkey see, monkey do. The first doctor to say it had no idea he’d started a global phenomenon.
    At the time, the only thing on Fluke’s mind had been getting out of a relationship that had run its course. Hayley, a nice woman, recently divorced and trying to rediscover her youth, but she needed someone younger. Someone who still wanted to go out Friday and Saturday nights. Fluke wasn’t that man.
    She’d phoned earlier asking if they could go out and Fluke had lied, saying he wasn’t feeling well. He’d reheated the previous night’s corned beef hash and settled down in front of the TV for the night. And in truth, he’d been feeling a bit unwell; a sore stomach that had been bothering him for some time. Not enough for painkillers, but enough for him to go and see his GP.
    But she’d called his bluff and turned up anyway. She took one look and called the emergency doctor’s number. Fluke would never know whether she’d been trying to make a point or she genuinely thought he looked ill. He’d been using the ‘too ill’ excuse more and more to get out of things.
    Whatever her real motivation, he’d been given an immediate appointment. Despite living in Carlisle, the out-of-hours appointment was thirty-five miles away at the old Workington Hospital. Trapped in his own lie, he’d no choice but to play along and attend. She’d even driven him there.
    Lying on a bed in a ward that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Hammer Horror film, Fluke had been expecting the standard ‘I can’t find anything, see your GP if it persists’, medical terminology for ‘fuck off and stop wasting our time’.
    That wasn’t what was in Fluke’s immediate future, however – the doctor found something. And he hadn’t had to look too hard either. His lower right abdomen was as hard as iron. When he felt it, he was amazed he hadn’t noticed it himself. Looking back he remembered small things though; favouring the same side when he slept, not being hungry, heartburn.
    Small things, big problems.
    Admitted to hospital that same night, he was nil-by-mouth and subjected to a battery of tests. Ultra-sound, X-Ray, endoscopy, colonoscopy, bloods, urine, Fluke had the lot while the doctors stood round scratching their heads – they knew something was wrong