Fishing.

Fishing? What fishing? I haven't been fishing since April of this year and I'm like a drug addict who hasn't had hi "fix". School closed last Friday for a short 10 day holiday, end of our third term. I had it all planned, days on small streams in the Drakensberg, lots of photos of mountains, rushing streams and all the trout I caught. Only problem is while you are making plans life happens.

Since my bout of septicaemia and four days in hospital I have been as fit as fiddle and into a very strenuous training/fitness programme, shedding kilogrammes in the process. On the inside of my left thigh I have always had a small discoloured patch of skin hardly noticeable, somehow this patch became infected, (insect bite maybe?) all my efforts to clear up the infection proved ineffectual. Eventually I decided to see my doctor about it, he had a good look at it and decided the infection was caused by a tick bite. Medication was prescribed and he told me to come back in ten days, after the infection had cleared, and he would use nitrogen gas to burn off the lesion which had changed to a very dark colour.

Ten days later I was back in his surgery, infection gone, to have the lesion removed, the doctor had one look and said in a horrified tone, "I'm not touching that thing, you have to see a specialist surgeon" and phoned to make an appointment for me. Four days later I was in the specialists surgery who looked at it and said, "no problem, I'll cut it out right now under local anaesthetic, but first I want you to strip and get on my examination table so I can check the rest of you for similar lesions."

Well he was very thorough, he checked for other lesions, found none, checked me for hernias, found none and told me that the family jewels were still where they were suppose to be, which was a great relief, imagine if they were missing! It's the only part of the family fortune I have left.  Then he told me to lie on my left side and pull my knees up to my chest, then I heard the unmistakable snap of a rubber glove being pulled on, horror of horrors.

Without further ado he stuck his finger where no real man likes having fingers stuck! "I always check patients over 50 for colon cancer" he said. While he was working down there he muttered, "mm haemorrhoid's, been there a long time too,'' "Yes" I said "and a pain in the arse they are,".  "Then they must go, he said, do them next Monday morning along with the lesion under general anaesthetic".

A while later sitting at his desk he started asking all the usual medical question and family medical history. When he heard that my father had died while still recovering from the anaesthetic after a colon operation for cancer he looked at me and said, "so Monday it will be lesion removal, haemorrhoidectomy and colonoscopy, get it all over and done with."

So next post more on this exciting period of my life, first will be last Sunday, any one ever hear of Colo-Pred, the laxative from Hell. (works like a bomb though!)