Ironic surgery

The weather has been warmer for the last week - at last! I've done some jobs outside that have been waiting for me for months - since last November to be precise.

I went for a routine medical check up this time last year and my blood count was very low. "No problem", the Doc said, "but just to be sure we'll monitor it over the next three months". Well of course it didn't improve and so I was booked in for an x-ray and cat scan. "Ah ha!" They said, "there's a lump, but don't worry, it's probably nothing but just to be sure we'll book you in for a bronchoscopy". So I had a general anaesthetic and then they shoved lights, cameras and some kind of biopsy grabbing tool - which could not only cut and scrape but bring back whatever it found to the light of day and the pathology lab. - down my throat. After a couple of weeks they called me to say that they had good news and bad news. "Oh great!", I thought, "a doctor with a sense of humour," just what I need!"

"OK, so tell me the worst". "Its a tumour, but its a benign one". "Hurrah!" I exclaimed. "Ah well it's not all good news, you see it might turn nasty or grow bigger or just sit there doing nothing for years and then suddenly flare up. Best have it out".

"Riiigggghhhhtttt. So how big is it?" "Oh, only tiny really, maybe an inch by half an inch". "Oh thats no so bad. How do you get at it, keyhole surgery?" "No actually we'll go in from the back while you're under a general anaesthetic and takeout the the top third of your right lung". "What!!!!!"

So they did it on November 5th. I'm back and well enough but the ironic feature of this is that by the time I was operated on my blood count had returned to normal and was thought to be due to a bad chest infection I had been suffering from - not the tumour!