1. Roughly Spherical

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 In the last few weeks my body has decided that is doesn't like me and has done everything in it's power to, frankly, piss me off.

I suffer from a little known syndrome called "The Barrel of Tit's" this is described thusly, I am so lucky that if I fell into a barrel of tits I would come up sucking my own thumb. As some of you know some years ago I had an inordinately large amount of mini strokes, most people have one or two.  This was not good enough for me, not by half, oh no, I had to have roughly 30 or so. Not joking, I actually lost count after 25. These entertaining incidents were preceded by my mouth and tongue becoming numb. Well, they eventually diagnosed what the problem was, I was a fat boy with diabetes, high blood pressure and, crucially, a mid left cerebral artery that had a narrowing that was gathering up all the lovely fat in my blood and firing it into the left side of my brain.

This was fourteen years ago, a fourteen years that has been characterised by a singular lack of ice cream, cake, chocolate in fact a lack of every single food that makes glad the heart of man.  It has also been characterised by a sudden interest in the nutritional benefits of the lentil. In short, for fourteen years I have pursued a diet that has reduced my formerly spherical figure to what my doctor describes as "Yes, you could do with losing a bit more weight", this however is fucking impossible and I have maintained a weight that is exactly wrong side of overweight. 

So I have spent fourteen years without sugar, diligently consuming lentils and almost permanently hungry.  I can tell you that as far as my weight is concerned it's made fuck all difference, I remain stubbornly about 4 or 5 kilos overweight. Nobody believes me but I have had this confirmed in a letter from the doctors.  

"You have been flagged in our records as overweight, would you like to take part in some research to find out why you are such a fat knacker", 

I politely declined, I know what the reason is, I eat too much and don't exercise enough QED...fat bastard, alright, alright, slightly overweight perfectly legitimate offspring :-)

So forward to October 2024, I inadvisedly told Helen that I kept getting a numb face, before I knew what was happening I was whisked off to the local GP who took one look at me and she didn't like what she saw so she in offloaded me to the TIA (mini stroke) clinic at the Bristol Royal Infirmary where they proceeded to probe practically every orifice and some places that weren't even orifices in order to find out whether my brain was no longer keeping up with the rest of me.  

I hasten to add that they found bugger all, nothing, nada, zip, the great and wonderful FA. Which, as far as I was concerned, was all to the good.  They did however schedule me for an MRI scan to have a closer look at my recalcitrant grey matter and, this is important, pay attention now, an ultrasound of my thyroid because they had seen something or other on the doppler scan they'd done of my neck. 

At this point you should start to hear the theme from Jaws, dum dum, dum dum etc et al. There may be a shark circling at this point and you should be shouting at me to get out of the water.

The sensible advice to anyone is "Don't Google your symptoms you'll only convince yourself that you have cancer. Leave well alone", of course I did not leave well alone, I'm an IT professional after all, my life is spent Googling stuff, some of it actually useful. Now, the letter I received from the hospital said and I quote "...an incidental finding of two hypoechoic thyroid nodules. We have requested a dedicated thyroid ultrasound to investigate this further." Marvellous I even have the right terms to put into Google and I duly did.  Hypoechoic thyroid nodules are fairly common and 99% of them are benign. Nothing much to worry about, some can be cancerous but that's rare.  

So reassured by Google I set off on my trusty Honda Transalp 750 to have the second ultrasound a couple of weeks later. I've had quite a few ultrasound scans and out of the family of scans that the NHS like to do they are the most innocuous. I had hardly sat down in the waiting room when I was whisked into the presence of a fairly severe, Spanish, radiologist. I sensed he was not a man with a highly developed sense of humour. He whipped out the KY Jelly and smeared it all over my neck, well I presume it's KY, and proceeded to ultrasound me to within an inch of my life.  Within a minute, he said "There is nothing here, your thyroid is completely clear, what on earth are they talking about?", he didn't sound terribly pleased about this. I on the other hand was ecstatic, I'll be out of here in a minute or two, I thought.  

"Let me have another look at those notes" he snapped at the nurse and then in much the same tone said to me, "Tip your head to the right, please", I immediately complied, this was not a man to be messed with. He then ultrasounded to such a degree that I nearly needed to gag he was pressing so hard on my throat.  "Ah, yes, you have a lump on your lymph node".  This did not sound good, no one had mentioned lymph nodes before.  He then said one of the scariest things that I have ever had said to me. "I'll need to stick a needle in this"...fuck off, you have to be joking! I didn't actually vocalise this you understand but it was a close run thing. 

At this point I am almost literally shitting myself, "Um I have a bit of a needle phobia, I might faint".  This did not put the fucker off, oh no, he just tipped the chair back a bit further, nodded to the nurse in a matey manner and proceeded to stick a fucking great needle into the lump in my neck, there was a gush of blood and I screamed and fainted...alright I didn't, to,be honest I hardly felt the needle going in, he did waggle it around a bit which was...interesting.  

"I'm just going to take this to the pathologist" he said and left me in the hands of the lovely nurse with whom I had a lively discussion about motorcycles.  This discussion was just getting interesting when he came back into the room...with two other people and I thought "Oh fuck"....

"I'm one of the consultant ENT surgeons here, I'd like to have a closer look at you if you don't mind"

"I mind, I mind a lot, you might tell me something I don't want to hear", is what I was thinking, what I said was "Of course, no problem"

I was ushered into another room and he said "The pathologist found mouth cells in your lymph node and they shouldn't be there, if you don't mind I need to have a look at your mouth and throat" 

Urk, I do not do well with people doing anything in my mouth, I have the gag reflex from hell.  I duly told him this and he said "Don't worry I shouldn't do anything to make you gag",  he proceeded to have a good rummage around in my mouth. "Hmm, can't see anything here, would you mind if we put a camera up your nose" 

"Of course I mind you putting a fucking camera up my nose, it's not normal, what are you, some sort of deviant.", was what was running through my rapidly increasing panic. What I said was. "Of course, go ahead, I might gag however"

"Don't worry, it goes behind your palate so you won't gag"

"Oh that's good then, carry on, there is nothing I'd like more" I muttered to myself.

A scrubs clad teenager escorted me to another room and I was placed in a chair that tipped backwards. The consultant came in and the horror show proceeded.  Now if you have ever done a COVID test you'll know the feeling when you jam the cotton bud as far up your nose as you can. Not nice, makes the eyes water, this is what I was expecting, oddly the nasoscope slid up my nose and past any restriction without any sensation at all, and he began looking at my throat. He was right, I didn't gag at all, until he touched the back of my throat that is and I nearly projectile vomited over his assistant.

"Nothing there either" he said, by now I'm past the point of thinking this is a good thing.

"I'm going to book you in for a CT scan and an MRI as soon as possible"

I nodded dumbly, this is not going well, I knew exactly what was coming. "I'd like you to come to the clinic that we have here every Tuesday, just be aware that they will be talking about cancer"

On the whole not the best day of my life, but oddly definitely not the worst, that was yet to come.