The Tinder message sweeps, orange, across my screen. It’s Lemur Boy!
Lemur Boy: I would love to meet your lemurs, how about one evening next week.
Me: How about Wednesday?
LB: Wednesday it is. Perfect.
Despite the pain that I’m in – why? I’ve been taking the antibiotics for very nearly 48 hours now – I’m much cheered by this. We will have something to talk about: he might even know more about lemurs than I do. Actually, he probably won’t, but he’ll be able to tell me about daily life in Madagascar. That’s where we were going to go for our big family trip, after my operation, only things haven’t really worked out that way.
“Oh look, this must be your appointments, for the scans,” Dad says, waving an envelope at me.
“You open it,” I say.
Dad opens it and a blood form falls out and appointment letters for 2 CT scans and a bone scan and – of course – they’re on Wednesday. The day of my date with Lemur Boy. It’s also my kitten’s first birthday. I was planning to spend the day here with my kitten and then go to meet the chap. And now the whole day will be spent at the hospital.
So, I have to message Lemur Boy to move the date. It’s difficult though because my plastic surgeon may well need to see me on Thursday, and those are my two date nights gone. The office is Monday and Tuesday and I won’t have the energy to see him on those nights. What will I say anyway:
“Sorry, I can’t meet on Wednesday because I’ve got to spend the day finding out if my bones are riddled with cancer.”
The bone scan happens in the “nuclear medicine department”, which sounds exciting. In fact the bone scan was quite fun, I remember: a radioactive isotope is injected to make the bones glow a while beforehand. Once the huge machine has closed over you – the disconcerting bit – it moves down your body to look at all the bones. The CT scan is OK. I think it’s the one where you lie down and move through a white-polo-shaped machine. Or that could be the PET scan. Anyway: will be able to familiarise myself with all the different scans and their apparatus on Wednesday.
Hopefully I will be allowed back to my flat tonight or tomorrow: I’m seeing my trainer and I don’t want to miss my appointment. Watching Inspector Morse all the time isn’t making me very lithe and toned…
Scars, Tears and Training Bras 