I am summoned to deal with a huge boil that has erupted on my brother's forehead. I reluctantly cancel a playdate with a friend's baby pigs to call in at my mothers on the way home from yoga where I find him sitting in the kitchen in his pants; braying softly as he rolls his already large and now expanding head from shoulder to shoulder.
The patient could previously have been described as one of heavy brow. Now a huge hard lump above his right socket lends a lopsidedness that is more elephant man than homo robustus. For one reason or another I have a ready supply of sterilised needles and syringes, which are not specified for the lancing of boils, but we agree that their prescription is merely advisory, like the traffic lights at a set of roadworks, and that our Trust could only applaud us putting them to multitask in these austere times.
He flinches as I approach with the needle but the pressure on his eye socket is affecting his vision and the horror of a life half lived: a status half posted; the instructions on a protein drink cannister half understood....but I can't do it. It is bizarrely impossible for me to stab my brother in the eye even though he's been asking for it for years.
