Biopsy Results

When Keats wrote the marvellous poem ‘When I Have Fears That I Shall Cease To Be’ for all his poeticalness he wasn’t so much having intimations of mortality as wondering where his next shag was coming from.

While waiting for the results of the tests on my stubbornly painful throat my own thoughts have been no less prosaic, and the nearest they came to joining in the mortality debate was to wonder whether I’d be living long enough to see ITFC win another trophy. Now I’m a glass half full type but I have to say my conclusion had been.

Recovering slowly from the biopsy experience, which had involved a generaI anaesthetic and an awake all night stay in what seemed like the dementia ward, I waited for the promised letter from the hospital inviting me in to hear the results. They said expect to hear in two to three weeks. The pain caused by having chunks excised from all around my soft palette gradually lessened until I found myself back with just the same old painful swallow.

They’d said not to read anything into the wording in the letter, which would be the same whatever the biopsy result was.

But I didn’t have to wait for the letter. I had a phone call telling me there wasn’t any cancer. But they didn’t know what the problem with my swallowing was. I got another appointment.