‘Don’t Google this’, the doctor ordered.
The command – with its authoritarian tone; implied threat (if I did, I’d find out something sinister); distrust in my ability to sift and understand information; suspicion of uncontrollable emotion – would have raised my hackles in any circumstances. As it was, I’d already been shocked by the GP’s telephone speculations and could not reply.
The casual, unthinking cruelty of medical professionals is something I’d encountered before, in caring for my elderly parents. The media regularly uncover evidence of nurses chatting while their patients plead for help and hospital administrators pushing out the ‘bed-blocking’ elderly and infirm.
But this time it hit me really hard. Because the doctor was talking about my daughter.
Just before Easter we decided to test Izzy, 11, for anaemia: she was looking pale and thin and was complaining about being tired. The condition ran in my husband’s family.
A GP at our local NHS surgery saw her and ordered a blood test.
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