Let's share...or maybe not...

I know how old I am by the landmarks that my former students reach.

Last week, one had me - no, not chortling but guffawing at her description of what I call the 'jobby test'. You know the one: once you reach the age of 50 in Scotland, you're sent a wee bit of cardboard and some sticks and you're asked to put in each window of the wee bit of cardboard a specimen of your - well - jobbies. You send them to a lab which tests them and, all being well, boab's your uncle: nae bowel cancer.

It's a great idea, this test. It could have saved the lives of a few of my friends - and did in fact save the life of two of them. But the reality is kinda gross.

It's also scary for me that some of my former students are so OLD.

I write that with a fair amount of feeling, since on Monday I have an audiology test at the RAH (tinnitus caused by impacted wax in my left ear) and I then come home to preparations for a colonoscopy at Gartnavel the next  morning. I could have called off the colonoscopy but, having waited so long for an appointment and made such a fuss at having to wait 5 months, I think I'd better just get on with it. I will, of course, swallow the 4 sachets of revolting emetic. Avoid solid food. And look forward to being told (as I was last time I went through this): You have a lovely appendix!

I'm alarmed, though, to be told to bring a dressing gown and slippers, not to mention having to sign a consent form for a 'procedure.' I'm not staying in. Oh, no! My driver on Tuesday is the least patient man in the world, and he'll have me out of there as soon as I can walk.

I take it as a good sign that waiting lists in Scotland are getting longer for tests like these. I have one friend who was so repulsed by the idea of the jobby test that he binned the bits of cardboard, only to be told 8 months later that what he thought appendicitis was in fact bowel cancer. Lucky for him the NHS in Scotland didn't give up but pursued him till he delivered a sample.

But, oh, I'm dreaming of Port Ellen, which is where I'll be on the following Monday...