You left me just before Christmas with an interesting case of Smurf-boob and two lines of embroidery that would do a seamstress proud. Both these phenomena were a direct result of having a tiny tumour removed from my right breast on 18th December (I have started to call it Tiny Tumour, stupidly. It’s like lambs – once you give them a name you start feeling sorry for them or kinship with them or whatever. But it’s an old habit, and I can’t shake it). Said tumour had gone off, along with my sentinel lymph node, to the path lab, so that they could find out if TT had wreaked any damage yet. Results weren’t expected until mid January, so I had a week or so tussling with the dressing and watching in a kind of lurid fascination as my boob turned from Harpic Blue to Toilet Duck Blue, and eventually to a washed out shade of Valtti 605 (Shetlanders will know what this looks like – there’s a lot of houses painted with this, ours included). It’s not showing any signs of disappearing soon. I guess I should look at it as body art.

Christmas and New Year duly went by, Ripley went back to her hibernation pod, and I got stuck into the business of conjuring up Worst Case Scenarios, something I’ve had 62 years of finessing.

But the letter for the appointment with Beatrix W, our local surgeon, came quicker than expected and Stuart and I found ourselves in the Out-Patients Waiting Area this morning, enduring daytime television (whatever happened to dog-eared copies of Readers’ Digest, Women’s Weekly and National Geographic?) and failing to disguise our nerves.

No need for nerves, as it turned out. Beatrix said that Tiny Tumour was indeed tiny (9mm) and had been expelled in his entirety. He turned out to be Grade 2, a kind of everyday, mediocre cancer, a minor villain in the pantheon of villains and nothing to scare the horses with. And the lymph node … was clear. Thanks to the annual screening programme for folk who have had previous breast cancer, and the eagle eyes of a heroic radiographer, it had been caught early and had not had time to go gallivanting off around my body. Hallelujah. No chemo. No needle/vein/toxic cocktail interface. Just radiation for the brucks of a month and ten years of Anastrazole, a drug which dissuades your oestrogen from ferrying any rogue cancer cells around your body. It has its own methods. I don’t ask. I must have blanched a bit at the thought of taking it for ten years, but Beatrix pointed out that I was taking other drugs for life, so ten years was a reduced sentence. I was tempted to point out that at 63, ten years might actually turn out to be ‘life’ but I could hear Ripley’s voice accusing me of melodrama again, so I forebore. It is definitely an improvement on the alternative.

Stuart and I celebrated with a cup of hospital coffee and a bag of cheese and onion crisps in the canteen (called … wait for it … The Casual Tea. I am not making this up, you can check it out for yourselves). Radiation is something I’m familiar with, having been nuked for a month five years ago. You get to be City Girl. There are buses EVERY TEN MINUTES. There is a Marks and Spencers for the procurement of brand new undies, after the near misses I’d had in hospital last month. The cinema is not as wonderful as our cinema, of course, but it is there, AND next-door to Pizza Express. And I can update the Hubbard League Table of Aberdeen Coffee Shops that I compiled five years ago. In fact, the person who comes off worst from this is Stuart, who has to feed the sheep every day whilst I’m gone (they hate him … he hates them … it’s a sort of Mutual Assured Despising). But he is nothing if not stoic.

It would be lovely to have your company so I’ll post again when I know when I’m off. I’ll need a strategy meeting with UYCWSH first. Four weeks of concentrated photons and I’ll light up the city of Aberdeen. That’s what Ripley would do.

Sorry this is late, but I didn’t think you’d want to be reading this kind of thing over your turkey/nut roast. Hope you all had a good one.

Previously on What Would Ripley Do: Kathy has been admitted to the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary for the extraction of a tiny tumour, about which she is making an enormous song-and-dance. She has had the dreaded guide wire inserted into the right boob and is now lying out on a couch in Nuclear Medicine awaiting three injections of radio-active stuff into said boob. Ripley has gone Christmas shopping on Union Street.

The three injections were duly administered whilst I tried to affect a Ripleyesque disregard for the whole procedure. This was nearly working until Joji the staff nurse explained the blue dye ‘chaser’. John Diamond’s theory of Incremental Information Giving was called into action once more.

“Anyway, they’ll follow this up with a blue dye so that they can see where your lymph nodes are hiding. It’ll make your wee turn blue.”

I’d been warned about this by fellow UYCWSH members (more about UYCWSH in a future post) so I felt I could afford to be nonchalant. “Oh yeah … no problem.”

“It will probably stain your skin too.” “Right oh.” “But that probably won’t last very long.” “Fine, that.” “But sometimes it does.” “Oh, OK then.” “Sometimes it’s permanent.” No answer to that.

Ray trundled me back to the ward, and I didn’t see him again after that. Thus ended my career as Hollywood superstar Katharine Hepburn. I was a bit sad about that. But back on Ward 309 there were still things to do before surgery could commence. The problem was, I was unable to actually DO them. Many of you will be familiar with the “Have You Been?” pre-op procedure. It consists of a rota of nurses coming up to your bed and whispering “Have you … been?” Nothing, but nothing – not even the dreaded guide wire insertion – fills me with as much terror as this. People react to fear in may ways; in my case, the intestines and the bowels go into total lockdown. Nothing moves. Nothing. Until they are absolutely certain that it is safe for them to come out. So as many times as I scuttle to the loo in response to yet another nurse asking the dreaded question, all is in vain and I am beginning to panic. It’s obviously important or they wouldn’t keep asking you with that blend of anxiety and hopefulness in their voices. But the Hubbard Bowel says No. No chance. Nada. Niente. Nichts. What if I can’t produce the goods? I immediately conjure up an image of the anaesthetic taking effect, the body slipping into a relaxed state … and a massive biohazard erupting in Theatre 4. But there’s no arguing with your bowels, as I have come to learn over the years. The theatre staff will have to take their chances. No use asking myself What Ripley Would Do; she probably doesn’t even have bowels, and if she does, they would definitely obey her orders and fire on command.

I have Enda with me for the journey to theatre. He is my absolute favourite student nurse. He has impossibly red hair and he most glorious County Meath accent I have ever heard. Enda was born and brought up on the farm, and consequently, is a fount of rural wisdom the true equal of medical science. Enda knows, for instance, that a cup of tea without a biscuit is worse than useless. And that Bourbon biscuits carry additional powers of healing. You can’t teach that. He had asked me if he could come down and watch my operation as part of his learning. Mindful of the bowel biohazard potential, I was a bit uncertain about agreeing, but this is a lad who can muck out forty cows before breakfast. Nothing like that’s going to phase him. So Enda, Brian (new porter, no awareness of my previous career as a film star) and I set off on our odyssey to the operating theatres, a process I like to think of as the “hospital ceiling tiles and lighting inspection” as you get a good look at everything above you on the way. Estates should have given me a chart and a biro and I could have told them what was due for replacement; all part of the service.

When we arrived at theatre, we were met by Inez, the lovely anaesthetic nurse and a bonny lass from Orkney whose name I didn’t catch but who held my hand until I’d taken leave of my senses (in a planned and professional way for a change). The anaesthetist, Dr Anderson, and a small but determined band of associates were doing mano a mano combat with my recalcitrant veins, which emulate the Bowel Lockdown as soon as they see a needle approaching) when I became aware that I had landed in the middle of an intense clinical conflict, which we shall here call “POIT/NPOIT”. This stands for ‘Pants On In Theatre/No Pants On In Theatre’ and it is evidently a matter of passionate debate, and no doubt, the subject of a stream of peer-reviewed research papers in medical journals.

Inez: “Have you got your pants on?”

Me: “No … should I?”

Shocked exchange of looks between Inez and the bonny Orcadian nurse. “Well, you really should …”

Me: “But they were adamant in the ward that I should take them off.”

Unwittingly, I had clearly hit something of a sore spot, as there ensued a murmured and troubled exchange, which included more than one reference to “this is ALWAYS happening”. Inez peered at me with concern. “Shall I send up to the ward for them?” I had a panicked vision of a relay of messengers running from the theatre back to the ward, calling for my knickers, and then worse, said knickers arriving in a clinical hazard bag, sporting that special faded charm that comes with being at least five years old and the veteran of hundreds of machine washes. “No, honestly, I’ll be fine!” After all, Enda had probably seen worse. Dr Anderson and her crack team of vein invaders had finally achieved their mission, and with a last reminder to Enda to keep everyone straight over the next half hour, I was gone. I just about had time to wonder What Ripley Would Do, but figured that she’d be happy as long as nothing burst out of her chest whilst she was in there (watch the film, people!)

An hour later and I’m in the recovery room, snorting oxygen. Enda and a nurse called William are doing The Enda and William Show, designed to make me feel reassured; lots of banter and patter, tales of William’s daring-do in the armed forces, stories of Enda’s epic adventures with the muckspreader … It works. I do feel reassured, and relieved. Enda has missed his lunch for this crucial addition to his clinical training, but insisted on accompanying me back to the ward before heading off for sustenance, with a promise of tea and TWO Bourbon biscuits when he got back.

Ripley was there when I got back, sporting a “See! What was all that fuss about?” expression on her face. I proudly pointed at my Smurf-boob and asked her if she could pee the colour of Harpic Active Toilet Cleaner. I didn’t find out as at that point, Stuart appeared, the most welcome sight of the day. I was so grateful to see him that I offered to share my Cold Ham Salad With Boiled Potatoes with him, and would gladly have done so had not Tracey smuggled an extra one in, murmuring that “It would only go in the bin.” And Enda was as good as his word, even raiding the biscuit tin for extras for Stuart. I’m gonna miss that boy.

Perversely, I always find the night following surgery longer than the one that precedes it. During the wee small hours I blagged a cup of tea off the ward staff and listened as they went about their business, laughing and telling stories, waking up various souls for middle-of-the-night pointy procedures. And I felt so grateful to them all. Brenda, Susie, Morven, Suze, Joji, Nimi, Erica, Tracey, Elizabeth, Julia, Nicole, Enda and William. I felt grateful to the doctors and the theatre staff, and to the radiography team. Beatrix (E and W), Louise, Gregor, Dr Anderson, Inez, Dana, Barbara, Khadija, and Mandy; and to my favourite porter, Ray, who awarded me a couple of brief hours as one of Hollywood’s greatest. Thank you all. May you all be protected from the prowling forces of corporate profiteering, and go on to do your wonderful thing unmolested.

Stuart and I were able to catch an early plane home the next day, once we had been inducted into the mysteries of dressings removal. We retrieved Genghis from chokey whence he had been banished whilst we were both away (he is not to be trusted with our elderly cat for any long period of time – one belly flop from him and she’d expire under his weight). Ripley is taking a vacation whilst we await the results from the path lab, which will inform what happens next. So this blog might be quiet for a while, although I hope to write a chapter on The Importance of Being UYCWSH at some point.

“One more thing, Ma’am,” as Lieutenant Columbo would say. If you or someone you know and love is about to undergo a procedure similar to mine in the coming months, don’t let this blog give you or them the heebie jeebies. Honestly, the drama has been ramped up and exaggerated for what I hope is comic effect, and the whole thing was actually very straightforward and virtually pain-free. I know many individuals who have faced and are facing much more serious adventures with cancer, and they deserve all the love and support you can give. And I honour them.

It’s 5.30am in Room 14 in Ward 309 at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. Tracey has just woken me up with the Condemned Woman’s Last Cup of Tea, the sharp pointy blood sugar test, the blood pressure cuff and the ear-pokey thermometer. Ripley is trying to get to grips with Hospedia, the ARI’s internet service, the screen being suspended above the bed on a long metal arm. I think she is trying to upload data to the mother ship.

“Any luck?”

“Nope. It just keeps wanting to show me something called Elf. Or The Nightmare Before Christmas.”

“This is the nightmare before Christmas, Ripley.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Anyway, you’re on your own for today. There’s stuff I have to do. You’ll just have to woman up.”

“OK.”

But I wasn’t, really. Anyway, I had lots of stuff to do too, starting with meeting my surgeon and for those of you who have been waiting and hoping (yes, I’m talking about YOU, Mary Gair) … NO, I did NOT call her Miss Elk Burger. Beatrix Elsberger is smiling, outgoing, direct and warm, and I took to her straight away. And she had encouraging things to say: that the tumour was very small (hurray) and it had been detected early (again hurray) so I could be hopeful that it had not had the time to do that much damage. I was about to make a thumbs-up to Ripley but she had already gone. The timetable for the day was then laid out.

First, mammography, for the insertion of the guide wire (uh oh). Then nuclear medicine for the injection of a radioactive isotope into the troublesome boob (UH OH). Then surgery, thankfully, very quickly after that. I should be stitched up and back on the ward by the beginning of the afternoon, my tumour and accompanying lymph nodes on their way to the path lab for closer inspection.

But first you have to grapple with the anti DVT hospital stockings and the bane of my life – the hospital theatre gown. I don’t think I’ve ever put one one and tied it up the same way twice. There’s a secret for doing this that I’ve never learned, but after a debate with the nurses, we come to an arrangement that keeps me legal, decent, honest and, crucially, accessible. Then it’s into the trundly wheelchair and me and the porter, whose name I never caught (might have been Ray) are off on a tour of the hospital.

Mammography is a long way from where we are, and involves being pushed down the main corridor, waving like the queen at passers-by. Ray tells me that the budget restrictions means that they (the porters) are not getting replaced when they retire and that they are under a lot of pressure. He reckons he does about nine or ten miles a day, and I can’t help feeling sorry that, with every other challenge he faces, he gets the short straw of pushing me around. I am no lightweight, and there are inclines in the long corridor. He has to take a run at the ones that go upwards; for the ones that go back downwards I suggest that he jumps on the back and we sort of dogsled downhill, but he is too professional to go with that.

I’ve been to mammography so often now that I recognise most of the staff. There was some initial confusion as Ray had announced me as Katharine Hepburn, which had caused brief panic at reception, as the leading lady of The African Queen did not appear on the computerised list. He carried on doing that wherever we went, and I didn’t have the heart to correct him.

The mammography room is overseen by the redoubtable Barbara. She tut-tutted at the state of my theatre gown and re-arranged it in a more pleasing and acceptable manner (“breathe in, Kathy”). Then, to my delight, in walked Khadija, a senior healthcare assistant whom I’d met before, and Mandy the radiographer, also known to me from previous visits. Best of all, the doctor who was going to insert the guide wire was the impossibly glamorous and devastatingly efficient Dana, who had taken my last lot of biopsies a few weeks earlier, firing with the precision of a sniper. One-Shot Dana! I was so relieved.

A word about guide wires. The sneaky tumour is hidden deep in the breast and the surgeon needs a line on where to insert that scalpel. the wire is inserted to signpost its location. I already had a tiny bit of metal bumping around somewhere in the approximate region, but that wasn’t good enough for my girl. She trusts only herself. I’d had this done before and I wasn’t very brave then; kindly Irish nurses had applied NHS tissues to my face whilst telling me – kindly, but untruthfully – how brave I was being. Five years ago I’d had to have two inserted. When they were in, the ends waved about like antennae before the nurses taped them down. My Brother (you will meet The Brother again in this blog) suggested to me that at that moment I should have raced down the corridor, flashing at anyone I met and declaring “I come in peace, earthmen!” His advice is always entertaining, if not actually helpful. This time I only had to have the one wire inserted, and I was shuggled into position on the narrow couch, on my side with my arm curled above my head, like the model for a Reubens nude.

Dana did her thing, Barbara and Khadija did theirs, Khadija gently distracting me by telling me the history of her lovely name (it belonged to the first wife of The Prophet Mohammed). And then the wire was in, and Barbara was taping it down before I could twiddle it to find BBC Radio 4.

You then have to have another mammogram, so that everyone can be sure this wire is where it should be. For those of you who have never had one, it’s hard to describe the ludicrous figure you cut; bum stuck out, boob wedged in a vice, one arm stretched out one way, the other one doing something else, your jaw twisted against the perspex. You half expect a hidden camera crew to burst in and shout “Surprise! Wave to your friends!” But everyone was happy with the result and we all complimented Dana on a job well done. She practically blew the smoke from the end of her revolver. I had only asked myself once during the procedure What Ripley Would Do and the answer was obvious. She’d have grabbed the wire off Dana and inserted it into her own boob herself without even flinching. I thought about that for a while and decided I wouldn’t need the NHS tissues this time.

So Ray and I trundled on fearlessly to Nuclear Medicine, where once more I was announced as the talented, feisty lead from The Philadelphia Story. More brief head scratching ensued, but the barcodes do not lie, and I was soon laid out on another couch where a nurse called Joji was explaining the purpose of the radioactive injection. A blue dye is added later, the idea being that the theatre team can identify the location of the lymph nodes so that they can harvest a couple, see if the sneaky cancer cells have started to explore your innards.

“So, I’m just going to give you three injections into your breast …”. Hang on – THREE? What happened to the singular term “injection”. If you haven’t read the late John Diamond’s wonderful book C – Because Cowards get Cancer Too, I would strongly recommend it. It is a frank, funny, insightful and moving account of his own adventures with cancer, and it includes his theory of Incremental Information Giving, whereby clinical staff only tell you sufficient information at any one time to reassure you to turn up for treatment, then when you do, they tell you what they are actually going to do, which is invariably more than they had previously indicated. I guess it works. So now I had three injections to look forward to rather than one. Out loud I asked myself What Ripley Would Do, which drew a curious look from the nursing staff. After some reflection, I realised that she would probably launch herself from the examination table, upend the instrument tray, karate-chop poor Joji and her fellow nurse and race off looking for the exit. That didn’t seem fair or reasonable behaviour towards a lovely pair of lasses who were only trying to help save my life. Time to woman up, and submit to the three injections before someone decided I actually needed four.

I’m going to stop here before you all get bored, and in the time-honoured fashion of the soap opera, pause on a cliff hanger.

We can carry on when we’ve all had a good night’s sleep and a cup of cocoa.

And what an amazing bunch of friends you are! Your response to my first blog was humbling, to say the least. I’m grateful and buoyed up by your support and your good wishes. So I hate to take issue with some of you – but I’m going to. Let’s have no more of this “You’re so brave” stuff. If you could have seen the lower-lip-quivering wreck that was putting off the journey to the airport on Monday morning, ‘brave’ would not have been the word that would have sprung to your mind. The late Christopher Hitchens, writing about his own mortality when facing what was in his case terminal cancer remarked that bravery is a word that should be reserved for the battles that you can actually walk away from. I have my differences with Hitch, but on this we speak as one.

What I was actually demonstrating early Monday were my quite remarkable powers of procrastination. I got up dutifully early. I did some last minute emails; I moved the sheep to the north park. I fed them. I did the washing up. I even bloody hoovered. I checked and rechecked the contents of my suitcase (far too much in it as usual) and my handbag. Purse, phone, charger, patient travel documents, hairbrush. Purse, phone, charger, patient travel documents, hairbrush. But eventually there was no putting off the moment of departure.

Ripley thought I was being ridiculous. This is just a simple lumpectomy, what’s the big deal? I knew she was right but it wasn’t helping. Stuart was driving me to the airport and the journey was mostly silent. Let’s pause for a moment here to talk about spouses, partners etc. Here is another thing that I consider to be an incontrovertible fact – whatever you, as the person with cancer, are going through, it is so much worse for them. You have a plan, however much you don’t like it; they are in a limbo of anguish and concern, because all they feel they can do is watch helplessly. (Obviously, they do far, far more than that). Coping with that sense of impotence takes courage of a very special kind. So whilst it’s wonderful to be carried along on the tide of your love, please look out for Stuart and when you see him, give him a huge dollop of the support you are lavishing on me. He is far braver and more deserving.

We got to Sumburgh Airport and grappled with the new parking meters. In the concourse we had a massive hug and I said, with what I knew was unforgivable theatricality, “If I don’t wake up from the anaesthetic, look after my animals!” I caught sight of Ripley over Stuart’s shoulder; she was giving me That Look – cool, accusing, one eyebrow raised – and was mouthing “You’re so goddam MELODRAMATIC!” at me. I shrugged. It’s true that I am no stranger to melodrama. It’s a fault I try to embrace.

The flight was straightforward and remarkably calm. At Aberdeen I found the guys that used to be the Red Cross Transport and climbed into the minibus with everyone else. We seemed to arrive at Foresterhill far too quickly. The Aberdeen Royal Infirmary is a sprawl of wards, theatres and clinics, the main building boasting a spinal corridor over a quarter of a mile long. I used to fairly scamper down it five years ago when I was receiving daily radiation, the radiation treatment rooms being at the furthest end from the hospital entrance. (By week three, I wasn’t so much scampering as dragging my weary feet, neanderthal-style). Finding Ward 309 at last, I was admitted to a single room, a thing which I at first found alarming; in my previous hospital experience, being placed in a single room was a signifier of Something Very Serious. I mentioned this – as a joke, you understand – to Enda, the young student nurse who admitted me. He cheerfully pointed out that the whole ward was made up of such rooms and I immediately felt like an idiot, something with which Ripley clearly concurred.

Enda was the first of many to ask me the usual roll-call of hospital admission questions that afternoon. I think I told a total of four professionals the exact same information – I hoped I wasn’t boring them by only having cancer and diabetes to report. My party tricks are my allergies – rabbits and foxgloves; they are guaranteed to make the busiest biro pause.

One charming young junior doctor sat across from me, leaned forward and asked me, just a bit too kindly, to tell her what I thought I was in hospital for. She meant it kindly, I know, and I can see the sense in finding out the patient’s level of understanding of the proposed treatment. But I suddenly felt like a very old lady and feared that she was next going to ask me who the current monarch is and what I had had for breakfast that morning. Hours went by. The regime of blood sugar testing, blood pressure taking and the bleepy thing that they poke in your ear that registers your temperature was instigated. I told some more concerned professionals whatI thought I was in for, and appeared to pass the secret test. I got the legend “right breast” written in purple felt tip pen on said right breast. I got a visit from the anaesthetist whom I immediately wanted to venerate – as far as I am concerned they are GODS. I got “high tea” (a free-spirited interpretation of Thai Red Vegetable Curry and some spiced apple) at 4.25pm (the kindly young doctor who I’d seen earlier whispered to me that I didn’t have to eat it). I got the blood-thinning injection into the stomach, which is a nippy little bugger (the injection, not the stomach). I got the slice of cold toast and Last Cup of Tea at 9.00pm, the pre-op starvation regime now being sternly implemented. What I didn’t get was a visit from my actual surgeon – she was due to see me first thing in the morning.

I got my admission letter out and read her name. Beatrix Elsberger. I liked that she was called Beatrix as that is the name of our very own and much-loved surgeon in Lerwick and it felt strangely comforting. But just for a moment I thought I’d read “Elk Burger” and I immediately panicked. What if I called her that when I met her tomorrow? That would be all kinds of wrong, but it was just the sort of flummoxed mistake I would make. This must not happen. Elsberger. ELSBERGER. I appealed to Ripley for support but she was face-palming and I couldn’t see her expression.

And so to my hospital bed for a long night. We’ll do the squeamish, 15 certificate stuff in the next entry.

Make sure you’ve eaten a good breakfast.

“I just walked in and found you here with that bad look upon your face.”

Yes, after five years of absence breast cancer has returned and I am once again rooting through drawers to find hospital-appropriate nighties and underwear.

I’m attempting this blog as a way of keeping friends and family – and the vaguely interested – up to date with the whole business. For all those who are groaning “Oh God, not ANOTHER cancer blog …”, I absolutely empathise and would advise you to navigate somewhere else to something a bit more entertaining and informative. For those who fancy coming along for the ride you can expect a) bad language and plenty of it; b) total digital learned helplessness; c) erratic frequency of posting (and sudden extinction if I get too frustrated with my lack of mastery of WordPress).

To keep me company on this picaresque journey I have summoned an avatar: none other than my all time cinematic heroine Ellen Ripley, warrant officer on the spaceship Nostromo in the film Alien. If you haven’t seen this film an awful lot of this blog is going to make even less sense than if you have seen it. I’d say it’s definitely worth a watch anyway, if only for the fact that you will get to meet Ripley, one of the great female protagonists in cinema.

I love her because she’s smart, sensible, courageous, determined and kickass – all the things I’m not but to which I aspire (this aspiring business is an ongoing process that can take YEARS).  She also has better underwear than I have – she could get a pair of my pants on over her spacesuit – AND she went back to rescue the ship’s cat before escaping the soon-to-be-destroyed Nostromo.  She has a ginger cat, like me, but also like me and Ripley, her cat, Jones, bears little resemblance to my 20lb Genghis.  I like to think he aspires to Jones’ stature too, but I know for sure that if Ripley had gone back to rescue Genghis as the explosive clock was ticking, she’d never have made it to the sequels.

So when the going gets tough, frustrating or just plain bewildering I’ll be asking myself:

“What would Ripley do?” 

And then trying to dodge out of her good advice.

Anyway, the cancer thing. I’m off to the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary tomorrow for an operation (technical term for the aficionados: ‘wide local excision’) on Tuesday, when they are also going to lay claim to some lymph nodes to see if this alien is already on the move. Hoping to be back on Wednesday night so will be updating towards the end of next week.

Meanwhile, I feel that What Ripley Would Do at this moment is to peer with distaste into my smalls drawer and say “You’re not really going to go to hospital with those, are you?”

She has a point.