Innocence lost?

It's early in the afternoon and I'm working on the paediatric side of the department.

For some reason, the other junior doctors tend to avoid this side like the plague - because they tend to get trapped in the land of unreasonable babies and crying parents for hours. I don't mind hanging out in Paeds - it's fun and I get to watch cartoons.

Whilst I'm waving goodbye to a giggling 6 year old with tonsillitis, the nurse hands me with the notes of the next patient - a 13 year old boy, accompanied by his mother.

Breezing into the side room with a bright smile and a "Hi there!", I'm greeted by a red-faced lad with an equally red-faced mother.

"So, how can I help you today?"

The mother's cheeks take on an even more brilliant shade of vermillion and she gestures towards her son. Her voice seems to have gotten stuck in her throat but she manages to gasp, "Son, tell the doctor what's happened."

The boy, ruby skinned, gives his mother a stricken look and looks at the floor, mumbling something about a pain in his leg.

So I'm asking him the usual questions about leg pains - when did it start, what does it feel like, can you still walk - when the mother (whose countenance had gone through several marvellous shades of magenta) suddenly blurts out, "It's not his leg that's paining him, it's his winky!"

I swear the word "winky" echoed down the corridor and took 3 minutes to stop reverberating round the room.

Meanwhile, Tomato boy is giving his mother the Look of Eternal Damnation. Smoke is beginning to rise from tips of his scarlet ears.

I take a few steps backward. Spontaneous combustion is about to occur in this room. There's a fire extinguisher next to me. I grab hold onto it for support.

Then I smile at Tomato boy and say, "If you want I can ask a male doctor to come and see you, if that is what you prefer."

Tomato boy shakes his head, still glaring at his mother. His voice has been blown away by the gale force wind that is his blabbermouthed mother. He'll never forgive her, never!

So I smile at him, then put on my most expression-less professional mask, and get to work.

It transpires that he was having a shower and was paying attention to his (ahem) delicate areas and then certain flaps of skin got stuck and wouldn't go back and then everything swelled up and now it really really hurts a whole lot.

I examine him (much to his mortification) and then reassured him that his nether parts were in no danger of falling off. Then, with the help of some ice and some painkillers, I managed to restore him to his original appearance (much to his great relief).

As we're waving goodbye to them, my nurse turns to me and says, "Well, that's a hand job he won't forget. And in front of his mother too."

And my face flamed.