I AM recovering from a minor medical ailment that has given me some major grief in the embarrassment department. I noticed a worrying growth on, how shall I put this, the base of my spine (if you catch my drift) and imagined all sorts of malignant cancers so I took myself off to the doctor for a check-up.

She artfully took the top part of my trousers down for a peak. "Oh," she said, "I will have to send you for a rectal check-up at the hospital's anal department". I pulled my trousers up, reeling from all the lurid words she'd managed to use in one sentence. Up until that point, my problem had been an innocent worry about a growth on my spine but she had turned it into a bottom issue. Shouldn't she be sending me to the spinal tumours department? Wait 'til I have to come back when the rectal lot find nothing wrong!

Nevertheless, I had a more vigorous shower than usual and turned up for my early morning appointment. Finding the anal department was not the worst part: I hadn't realised how busy such a department could get. The place can only be described like a crowded shopping queue in which everyone peers into each other's baskets with open curiosity. I finally found a seat - a fairly difficult task if you are attempting to avoid all eye contact - and immersed myself in reading a no-smoking sign on the wall.

As I sat there, I felt every eye in the room was boring into me and thinking, "Aahh, you've got bottom problems too, eh? What is it? A fierce case of piles, persistent motions, haemorrhoids, at your age?". Anyway, things got worse when I began to take a look around the room, which was filled mainly with men, some of whom were semi-attractive and around my age. What must they think of me?, I thought, blushing like a teenager.

I heard the nurse bellow my name at the top of the room and I had to take the walk of shame as the other patients studied me. I was led into an office where I had to re-describe my problem.

The nurse then took me to a surgery and told me to lie on my stomach. Before I knew what was coming next, she whipped down the top of my trousers to bare my bum and we both waited for the consultant to appear, her view of the room undoubtedly worse than my own. My mind frantically searched for appropriate small talk but there is only so much you can say when you are lying face down on a couch with your rear to the wind.

An eternity later, a consultant came in and started speaking to my bottom as if it were an old friend. Just as I was beginning to accept the situation, he laid out his stark diagnosis: "Oh, Ms Akbar, what you have here is a classic case of hairy buttocks. I find this fascinating as it usually only occurs in hirsute men. You have ingrown hairs that have collected to form a lump. All you need is hair removal."

And with those words, he left me a broken woman.