I have a sticky-out belly button. I always have had. It's one of those things. Nothing serious...just slightly raised instead of slightly sunken inwards. It's got something to do with the fact that old-fashioned pennies (the preferred currency when I was a nipper) didn't fit into belly buttons terribly well.
Doctors are always fascinated with my navel. Every time they see it they have an urge to give it a prod as though I'm some sort of fucking lift. Then, when I'm doubled up in agony, they ask me, "Does that hurt?" and try to do it again...presumably because they're all sadistic, evil bastards.
Apparently it's a hernia of some sort. I never knew that before Friday's prod. It doesn't usually bother me...except when some ignorant fucking g.p. insists on sticking his bloody finger in it. Anyhow...when I go for my operation on Sunday it's going to be sorted. I explained to the surgeon that it had suited me fine for all these years and I'd rather he left it alone. But he then explained back that one of the millions of tubes and pipes and cameras and dripfeeds and stethoscopes they're going to stick in me would be entering right through my bloody belly button.
That's made me feel so much better.
I have a sense of impending doom...especially for my navel, which is flinching at the thought.
I'm in the process of writing a letter to Amnesty International. Unfortunately I'm not holding much luck out. In the meantime...I've got to arrive at the clinic on Sunday morning at seven o'clock for my operation. Seven o'clock? What sort of unholy, blasphemous hour of the day is that? I thought such times were just urban myths amongst the old folk!