April Fool!

I may be recycling my post titles, gentle reader, but I thought it would be apt. Today, you see, I want to be a bit selfish and discuss amongst other things my health.

As blogged before on 1 April I went into hospital for yet more tests to explore and ideally pin down my Symptoms. Fella and I went down to the ward I was booked into and I changed into a not-very-fetching gown and special shorts with special flap at the back for access. Fella was quite distressed actually, which resulted in him – somewhat annoyingly, in my view – being fussed over by nurses to brought him tea and cake. I didn't even get morphine damnit! Well, the hours wore on and eventually I have yet another examination which was remarkable in three ways – it was very, very uncomfortable (they gave me minimum sedation so I could leave more quickly when it was over). I also was able to watch then entire exploration on a TV screen right in front of my face, which was somewhat surreal. Thirdly, a number of biopsies were taken and whilst I couldn't feel the samples being removed the displacement of my internal organs by the biopsing machine (or whatever it's called) was most bizarre.

Afterward the nurses very kindly gave me my report, and a bit of cake for me too – having not eaten for 24 hours I was truly grateful – and then I went home.

Since then my health has been on somewhat of a low ebb, I'm afraid. Alongside the Symptoms there is the niggle that all the easy stuff is slowly being eliminated until rather more serious conditions are all that remain. It is interestingly, or to put it another way, it is soul-crappingly scary, that my symptoms are virtually identical to what one might expect when HIV develops into full blown AIDS. Now, whilst sowing my wild oats I have been careful to guarantee a crop failure and indeed when tested nothing of that sort has ever been detected. But it's not really great news.

So it's time to come clean. Reality check – pesky reality, so rare a visitor to Strumpetville and not a welcome one in any event. What are we dealing with here?

• Crohn's disease
  
• Bowel cancer
  
• An unidentified auto-immune disorder
  
• A parasite (yippee)
  
• Madness!
  

Or any combination of the above, I suppose.

To be honest I am not best pleased. I belong generally to the Stuff and Nonsense school of healthcare. If I ignore the illness it shall go away. Well not this time, it would seem. I wondered today if this is what it's like to be old... everything so tiring, that much more difficult than it used to be. Well, at least I can say Stuff and Nonsense to that! In the meantime I have reached a point where I just want to be well.