If you are of a queasy or nervous disposition and don't like reading about pus or cysts you might like to consider not reading today's entry.
I was back at the Bush Doctors today. I was last there
almost two years ago getting a lump on my back looked at. It turned out to be a cyst and the doctor said I could get it removed, but I chose not to. I liked my cyst. It felt like a friend to me. At the time TV's Emma Kennedy emailed me insisting I get it removed, worried that it might lead to something worse, but I poo pooed her. I wanted to keep my cyst.
Over the last few months my girlfriend has been concerned about it, believing it was getting bigger, asking me to get it removed. But the cyst is my friend and I don't kill my friends. Apart from that one time, but that doesn't indicate a trend.
In truth I kept meaning to go in, but left it and left it, until this week when suddenly the cyst began to hurt. It was a mild pain to begin with, but got increasingly worse and bigger and more swollen. If I lean back when I sit down I receive a big jolt of pain, which made driving to Ruislip and back a little bit awkward last night.
I was pretty sure it was just an infection, but at the back of my mind thought that maybe, because of my complacency something serious had gone wrong and that the cyst was turning cancerous or gangrenous and I was about to die.
By the time my appointment had come along I had come to terms with my imminent demise and was trying to persuade myself that perhaps it wouldn't be so bad to die now, or at least get a few months to put my affairs in order and say goodbye. I projected forwards and imagined the last ever Collings and Herrin podcast, recorded on my death bed, where I bravely laughed in the face of an infinity of nothingness and told Collings that it was him I felt sorry for because I was his last hope of rescuing his moribund career and now he'd have nothing.
I am a ridiculous twat.
Anyway, my original prognosis had been correct and the doctor told me that the cyst was merely infected and thus my life was not in any real danger. I actually felt a bit let down. I'd been looking forward to mocking Collings as well as to having an impetus to actually getting some writing done while there was still time (though I have to say, despite my worries I have still spent most of the last three days playing Texas Hold em on my iPhone, so doubt that confirmation of my death is going to make me suddenly industrious - I suspect I will mainly just cry). She wrote me out a proscription for some antibiotics and told me that as the cyst was still in one piece and sterile I mustn't lance or squeeze it, but simply wait for nature to take its course. And nature's course, apparently, would involve the cyst bursting of its own volition and spewing its pus-like (I want to put pussy, but that looks weird) contents all over the place. She seemed pretty convinced that that would happen fairly imminently and I had to agree that the excrescence was looking very much like a volcano that was about to explode. It is a vivid mixture of red and yellow, with a large peak and then surrounded by a subterranean reservoir of magma.
When would it go? If it happens during a gig I think it would not go unnoticed and am suspecting that whatever is in there is not going to smell too great. I am hoping it will go during the podcast and that Collings will have to lovingly clean me up. If he thought my burps were bad he's got another think coming. Maybe it will happen as I propose a toast at my parents' Golden Wedding this weekend.
I spent the rest of the day with a sense of tension and anticipation. The thing was getting bigger and riper and felt like it was on the cusp of disgustingness. It was like waiting to give birth and I started to wonder whether that was what was going on. After all my podcast talk of poo babies, maybe I was going to produce a tiny pus child. It couldn't be more unpleasant than the real thing.
So who knows when it will go? I had a bath when I got home tonight in the hope that that might do it, but place your bets. I will keep you informed. And I am afraid it's just too awful to show you any photos. I know some of you weirdos want to see that.
On the plus side I thought my life was over but I have been given a second chance. I intend to make the most of my time from now on. After I have played another 400 hours of solitaire on my phone.
The interview I did for XFM's "Marsha Meets..." podcast is now up
on iTunes or listen on
The XFM website.
