Thursday: sudden heart issue...
Friday: 4 hours in Accident & Emergency
Who knew '“Scrabble” was such a dangerous game?
I’d just put down ‘truth’ - one double letter score and a double word score, 18 points - then, a minute later, I was coming round bathed in sweat having blacked out. Scroll forward 24-hours and I discover (after two ECGs, an x-ray, multiple blood tests and examinations) that I have a ‘thing’ and that my ‘thing’ has a name…
“He wants to avoid giving it a name as naming something makes it real, allows it to attach itself to you, and, once attached, means it’s even more difficult to shake off. It’s ‘another one of those things’ age bestows on you whether you want it or not: the need for an extra wee in the middle of the night, the slight shortness of breath when reaching the top of the stairs, the inability to snap open a tight jar lid the way you used to. Knowing there is nothing he can do about any of those things doesn’t help. Indeed, birthdays have become less a cause for celebration and more a kind of bodily MOT where you discover that during the previous twelve months something else has worn down, seized up, or fallen off.” - from ‘Downsizing’, a story in my 2023 collection An Irregular Piece of Sky
So for around 60 seconds two days ago the light really did go out…
In the end (or in this end) it’s not as bad as it might have been. Obviously. There are pills, a procedure to ‘look forward to’ in a couple of months, a week off the booze, not driving for a few days… And lots of crossing of fingers, consciously or not.
I mention all this not to garner sympathy or sell books (!), but simply to illustrate how fragile our existence is, and how we need to make the most of it. How “a day lost is a day lost”, a chance to write you’re never going to get again. The last 48-hours should be enough to encourage me to redouble my efforts…
It’s funny. I always thought “Writing until the light goes out” was just a snappy title for a Substack - but now it’s suddenly something else entirely…
I'm glad you came out of it ok Ian, perhaps nature's way of telling you to slow down?
Blimey Ian, how alarming is that. Glad you are here with us and that you are writing xx