I got some rather bad news today. Apparently my lower colon is rife with cancer. The doctor who told me was Dr. Rasheed and I find it nigh on impossible to understand anything he says. The fault is most certainly on my side as Dr. Rasheed is, after all, a doctor. I am only a struggling misanthropist with a shadowy background and suspected links to the IRA who has about two weeks to live. So anyway, Dr Rasheed spoke to me for about half an hour and I imagine he was very tactful and sensitive. It was nurse Sally Baker, an ex girlfriend of mine, who cleared up the matter in about thirty seconds after I left the doctor’s office. Considering the whole incident with me and her sister, I think she quite enjoyed it.
“Hello Bruce. You’ve got cancer of the lower colon. It’s terminal. You’ve got about two weeks to live. Did you hear that my sister is a lesbian now? See you.”
I had been pretty much floored as soon as I saw Sally so she managed to escape down the corridor without any smart and cutting retorts from me to bother her. Two weeks to live. After I started breathing again, my first reaction was to ask someone if they were sure. They might have made a mistake, a wrong diagnosis, got my name confused with Barry Campbell or Bertha Campig or someone. However, I couldn’t ask Dr Rasheed because firstly, he might take it the wrong way as a slur on his competence and try and stab me with a hypodermic and secondly, I can’t understand a word the man says. And I wasn’t going to give Sally the pleasure so I left the hospital and walked, in a mood of deep dejection, all the way home.
Two weeks to live. I hardly need mention that it came as quite a shock to me, a healthy 26-year-old living by the sea in, what I had presumed to be, a fit and healthy body. How can I have the six-pack of a Greek Adonis and the colon of a ninety-year-old leper from Damascus? I’ve always eaten healthily, exercised regularly, smoked only a little, drunk slightly more and said my prayers, when it turns out that all I ever needed to do was stick a tube up my bottom and colonically irrigate myself twice weekly. Let that be a lesson to you.
That’s all for now as I’ve got to catch a plane to Bulgaria in about twenty minutes. Just because I apparently only have two weeks to live doesn’t mean I’m going to let my business go to pot. Vladimir called yesterday and said that he has two crates of brand spanking new Kalashnikovs for me.
“Hello Bruce. You’ve got cancer of the lower colon. It’s terminal. You’ve got about two weeks to live. Did you hear that my sister is a lesbian now? See you.”
I had been pretty much floored as soon as I saw Sally so she managed to escape down the corridor without any smart and cutting retorts from me to bother her. Two weeks to live. After I started breathing again, my first reaction was to ask someone if they were sure. They might have made a mistake, a wrong diagnosis, got my name confused with Barry Campbell or Bertha Campig or someone. However, I couldn’t ask Dr Rasheed because firstly, he might take it the wrong way as a slur on his competence and try and stab me with a hypodermic and secondly, I can’t understand a word the man says. And I wasn’t going to give Sally the pleasure so I left the hospital and walked, in a mood of deep dejection, all the way home.
Two weeks to live. I hardly need mention that it came as quite a shock to me, a healthy 26-year-old living by the sea in, what I had presumed to be, a fit and healthy body. How can I have the six-pack of a Greek Adonis and the colon of a ninety-year-old leper from Damascus? I’ve always eaten healthily, exercised regularly, smoked only a little, drunk slightly more and said my prayers, when it turns out that all I ever needed to do was stick a tube up my bottom and colonically irrigate myself twice weekly. Let that be a lesson to you.
That’s all for now as I’ve got to catch a plane to Bulgaria in about twenty minutes. Just because I apparently only have two weeks to live doesn’t mean I’m going to let my business go to pot. Vladimir called yesterday and said that he has two crates of brand spanking new Kalashnikovs for me.
Comments