2002-02-25 - 9:57 p.m.

I�ve never been what you�d call a huge fan of being faced with my own frail mortality. I inadvertently took part in a fairly mundane car crash in my late teens, when a drunken off-duty policeman sideswiped my friends VW Beetle � and though there were a few seconds of abject, potentially maker-meeting terror and, of course, I was the only one hurt; in the end, the physical damage sustained was no worse than you�d get from, say, asking a group of squaddies where the nearest gay bar is. The other guy did a runner, but my solicitor told me it was obvious it was an off duty copper because the police refused to release the name of the driver. It certainly affirmed my faith in the integrity of our law-enforcers. I mean, I wouldn�t know WHAT to think if they suddenly developed some.

So it�s with, and you�ll forgive me a solitary brazenly indulgent entry on this subject, some trepidation that I stumble through the next few days. You know it�s going to be a bad week when the word �oncology� involves itself, with little regard for etiquette or impeccable grammar, in your day to day affairs. Oncology is what posh people, and med students who actually went to lectures instead of sitting around working out the maximum amount of MDMA they could safely take, call cancer.

Wait, wait, wait. I haven�t GOT cancer, obviously. Hahahahahaha. That would be preposterous, and you�d be a fool and a communist to think otherwise. We�re just at the clinic to �rule it out�. And you�ve got to like the sound of that. Hell, I might even get them to rule out a lot of other nasty shit, just whilst we�re in the ruling out business, like MS, rabies and this foreseeable stretch of enforced celibacy. Rule out what you like Doc! Go hog wild! Just as long as we don�t forget the main thrust of the visit, to rule out the possibility of a huge, malignant, inoperable and frankly grubby tumour on my throat, because it would be a real arsing ball (and throat, natch) ache if we forgot to do that, �K? �K!

I haven�t really told many people. I don�t want to go on about it. Everyone has shit to deal with and you should, as the man says, deal with your shit. It seems a bit much when all it is is a glorified check-up. Very dear friends have offered to come, but it�s going to be boring, unless they get out that cool endoscopic camera, or are suddenly out of all medical supplies due to some freak unexplained occurrence and have to perform an emergency tracheotomy with some scissors and a plastic pen case (I saw it once on a film). And besides, there�s really only an outside chance they�d glimpse me in my underwear. And I�m not all, �Oh, I really hate hospitals,� because of course everyone hates hospitals because that�s where you go to have the bits of you removed that eventually end up as props in government TV ads warning you against having an enjoyable lifestyle. It�s death, pain, and suffering. Not to mention the overpriced flowers in the lobby. I�ve just never had much to do with them, and besides the car crash, the last time I was in one I was seven years old, having my infected wing-wang pulled hither and thither by a heavy-handed doctor who was treating my foreskin like one of those balloons that clowns use to make giraffes and asking �Does that hurt?� in between snide implications that I played with myself with dirty hands. So, I hate hospitals in as much as it�s completely logical to do so, not because I think it makes me a more interesting person.

Of course, there are people that I know who are genuinely ill right now. With proper scary diseases that demand degrees of bare-faced braveness I can only guess at, and who take life by the scruff of the neck anyway because fuck you if you think they�re going to let some virus define them. And I feel about this high (holds fingers really close together denoting lack of stature) compared to them. It�s just going to be hard to be alone over the next few days and nights. Hard not being able to lie next to someone and hold them and think everything�s OK because they�re here beside me and I can hear them breath and hold their hand and there�s just�nothing else, you know?