Tag Archives: Illness

Sheila’s wheelchairs

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So, here’s how things have been.

Christmas was wonderful. I ate lots of nice things, tried to dodge the permacloud for glimpses of heavenly bodies using my telescope. The moon wooed me. Jupiter evaded me.

It was lovely. Irrespective of my conscious or subconscious motivation for making the most from the festive period, I found the whole thing… super. I was quite drunk on port and sherry for a lot of it though, so I’m sure that helped somewhat.

And then came the letter.

Having been called into the GP after a second blood test showing high calcium and parathyroid hormone levels, I’d been booked in for a chest x-ray (naughty smoker, possible lung cancer) and another blood test to confirm previous findings. I’d phoned up the surgery after the blood test and was told that my results were “compatible with my condition” – whatever that was. The chest x-ray was performed the week before Christmas and I’d presumed all was ok… until the letter… the letter that said that I should book an appointment with a doctor to discuss recent tests.

I have my appointment on Monday morning and I’ve now convinced myself that I have lung cancer and that I’m going to die. Soon.

I know that I’m way off the mark, but the more I read about lung cancer symptoms in women, the more I convince myself that I’m now amongst those annual statistics of people whom everybody thinks, so what, they deserve it. And I agree.

But how have I been spending my dying days, have I been wallowing in self pity and self loathing? NO! I have come up with a splendid business idea.

I have no idea about statistics and stuff, and about how many people who are living with terminal illness who are alone, without a significant other, but I’m sure there are some poor souls who would love to spend their final months sharing that time with somebody who’s close to them. And then it came to me: what about a dating website for people who are terminally ill? It’d be great: find a close companion for those horrible months, maybe get a sympathy shag!

I shall call it Sheila’s Wheelchairs, or LoveU2Death.com. I’m not sure how well gay men would fair, but I can bet there are plenty of Chorlton-dwelling lesbians who have been turned down for cat adoption who would jump at the chance of having a trophy cancer sufferer.

All I’d want is some lovely homemaker type who’d make me nice sausage-based food, push me around in my wheelchair, offer me support, embraces, and the odd bit of sexy fun. I’d probably get a left wing vegan who just wanted to drape me in crystals and read me poetry. There’d be monthly, non-religious memorial services to mark the start of my menstrual cycle. With chanting. Lots of chanting. And no doubt “Thatcher” would get blamed for my sad, premature demise: “You know she was a student when Thatcher was in power? That’s when she started smoking!”

All of this is enough to make me want to be well.

Please let me be well.

P’THetic

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I’ve been engaged in a constant battle against exhaustion this year; not just tiredness and needing to sleep, but weakness as a double-whammy accompaniment. On a regular visit to my GP a couple of months ago, I mentioned this and, having a thyroxine level hovering at just above normal, she saw fit to order a panel of blood tests just to make sure everything was in order.

I hadn’t heard anything from my surgery so I just thought everything was fine and plodded on, but then a couple of weeks after the tests, a letter arrived asking me to make an appointment for a two month follow-up of the tests. I went for these on Monday this week, was told I’d arrived on the wrong day, and turned up again on the Tuesday. The day after, I was left a message to phone the surgery:

Receptionist: “You’ll need to make an appointment to see a doctor”
Me: “OK, when have you got?”
Receptionist: “Can you come in tomorrow morning at 9am?”
Me: “Yes, that’s fine.”

I thought it odd that I managed to get an appointment for the next day when usually there are none free for a few weeks, especially in the run up to Christmas.

So I went today and met one of the GPs I’d never met before. He was lovely and told me that I’d been asked back because my blood tests were showing high calcium levels and high parathyroid hormone levels. I found it quite charming and reassuring that he used his reference books to check up on certain things before he said he was referring me to the endocrinologists ASAP, that he wanted a chest x-ray and that I was to go back for more blood tests next week to make sure my calcium levels haven’t increased further . If they get too high, I’ll start with any number of simply ghastly symptoms that I don’t want to have to deal with when I have a Christmas dinner to prepare.

After my appointment, I did something that you should never do: I googled hypercalcaemia and now I’m convinced that I’ve got lung cancer or a parathyroid gland tumour. Fucking brilliant.

Then it occurred to me that I’ve spent the entire year wanting to die. I’m actually probably absolutely fine, but if I was diagnosed with a life threatening illness, I probably wouldn’t actually mind that much so long as it wasn’t too painful and death wasn’t prolonged.

So I’m in for an exciting couple of weeks, starting with deciding on which hospital I go to for my chest x-ray. I think I’ll choose Hope, they have that lovely M&S Food there. Besides, Bolton Hospital stinks of pig shit and Trafford will be full of people from Old Trafford who say they live in Chorlton (but they can keep for another day).