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).