The thing about Cancer is its discovery. The earlier the discovery, the better the chances of beating the disease.

At home we had a new boiler fitted as an upgrade to our heating system and during the work it was discovered that some of the floorboards in the bathroom would need replacing; a leaking shower into the garage below had, over time, rotted some of the wood. Strange how my dear wife thought that whilst replacing the floorboards why not replace the entire bathroom?

So the work starts. As the house has only one bathroom, toilet and shower combined within the same room it was clear that some planning for the use of the amenities would be needed. When the fitters went out for a smoke, shopping for materials or stopped for lunch, we (that being my wife and I) made a point of using the facilities.

The reason I mention the construction of the new bathroom is this. One of the indicators of anything being wrong with the bowels is a frequent need to use the toilet. For future reference I shall use the old army term of a number two for evacuating the bowels. Strange as it may seem, this restricted access to the toilet coincided with my increased urgency to use the toilet. The men fitting the bathroom were invited to take more tea breaks than they would normally. So whenever my need became desperate I put on the kettle, made tea and called them down to the kitchen. The words I did not like to hear was “be down in a couple of minutes”. My dear wife on hearing the words “tea’s made!” would always beat me to the bathroom. It was clear that this unusual need of mine was nothing to do with any food I had eaten, my wife being an excellent cook.

I booked a trip to see the doctor. As far as I could work out he was either newly qualified or simply new to the practice, whatever his status he seemed very confident when fitting latex gloves to his hands. “I will just examine you if you would just lay on the couch and lower……etc.” The examination, though not at all painful, went beyond being ticklish. I was relived when nothing was found; I mean nothing out of the ordinary. At one point when lying on the coach I did think back to the time when I was a young boy and swallowed the small rubber tyre off one of my toy cars, a dinky toy that is. I never did find out what happened to that.

I went back to see him about two weeks later for the results of the blood test that he had sent me for. I still needed to go urgently for a number two, the bathroom was not finished and the bathroom fitters were now overdosing on tea and gaining weight with the amount of biscuits and cake we were still feeding them. The result of this consultation was that as the blood test was inconclusive he would book me an appointment for “a little look around with the camera.”

I think it’s important to say that my urgent dash to the bathroom seldom produced any results/ goods/ deposits. You choose or add appropriate words to suit your personality.

There was however one important development, in trying to produce a number two there was often a release of gas and with it a kind of mucus which had a pinkish tinge. I kept thinking in a positive way but now I had some doubts.

Tractor Man