HERE, THERE & ELSEWHERE . Sample kit

As part of my recently acquired health insurance package, I am about to receive a home-visit from a nurse practitioner. “How d’you know he will not be a serial killer?” asks Bins, in the calm voice of someone who thinks this is a reasonable question. “Because it’s a woman,” I say, matching the calm tone. “So the risk is greatly reduced. Now then: Will you please go out for a walk?” We both agree that it’ll be better for all concerned if I’m alone during the visit.

She arrives on schedule, a petite white-haired woman wearing a nurse’s sensible blue-on-blue pyjama-suit. She smiles and holds up her ID card for me to inspect when I open the door. Clearly Bins isn’t the only person worrying about serial killers! She carries a large plastic carton bearing all the tools of her trade, including a tiny folding stool, to ensure that she doesn’t even need to be offered a chair. She has an air of friendly, unhurried competence, as she explains what she’s here to do, speaking slowly and very clearly.

I am very conscious of her gaze: She looks straight at me, but without judgement. Observing me through different sets of filters. I see myself through her calm professional eyes, as a collection of symptoms contained within a body. She is here to assess me from the point of view of whether and when I might need medical interventions of some sort. She has a routine to follow but must also be careful not to say or do anything that might be interpreted as threatening or frightening. Because that would waste her time and mine.

I find myself thinking about the hundreds of different homes she’s stepped into and the lives she’s interacted with over the years. She asks questions gently and thoughtfully, filling up a data sheet that will be shared with my primary care physician. The whole process takes about an hour. At the end, she hands me a little kit. It’s for collecting A Sample at my convenience, to be sent by mail to the lab. She explains the procedure to me, then shows me the instructions, on a sheet. We say goodbye.

The kit consists of a tiny flat flask no longer than my little finger. Inside its twist-off lid is a plastic wand with screw threads incised into the end. The sample needs to be dry. So there’s a sheet of biodegradable paper to place inside the toilet bowl, floating on the water. Once a deposit is made, the wand is used to collect a tiny sample. The lid is replaced and snapped tight. The flask is wrapped, secured in a plastic sachet and sealed into a mailing envelope, ready to post.

Bins is mightily impressed by the kit. “Wah!” he exclaims. “Technology!” He’s dying to try it out himself. “We can send my sample!” he offers. “They won’t know the difference!” “Go get your own home-visit nurse,” I tell him, locking the bathroom door.

Manjula Padmanabhan , author and artist, writes of her life in the fictional town of Elsewhere, US, in this weekly column

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