As a rule I avoid researching my illnesses like the plague – indeed if I were to have the plague I would avoid researching that, but I haven’t, thank goodness. Instead I have three conditions two of which are well serious and one is pretty much junior league – so setting aside Jnr. the two big boys are Myeloma and Amyloidosis. On official NHS type documentation they both have surnames and titles and numbers and acronyms none of which I ever taken any notice of, preferring to stay on first name terms, after all we live together.

Anyway my family, are even more avid listeners to Radio 4 than I am and they heard a programme in which a cure for Amyloidosis was mentioned. They very kindly sent me the news. By cure – it is something that alleviates the symptoms and arrests the development of the disease (so yes a cure – I suppose the only thing it can’t do is clean up the mess the disease has already made with those pesky amour plated proteins it sprinkles all over your organs – I guess they persist – but just stay in doors watching telly rather than running around causing trouble. So this cure has been tested on a surgeon whose symptoms (numbness and pain in his hands) were so bad he might have had to give up his job. All this good news springs from the National Amyloidosis Centre – the very centre I go to every year for my running up and down the corridor test and the dreaded reclining tube ride. Being religious in my conviction that googling your illnesses is a recipe for getting iller with illnesses you didn’t know existed and certainly don’t have, I waited until today to utilize my appointment with my wonderful consultant who I have fallen in love with, to find out more.

And I must say it was most worthwhile

1. He has never heard of gene silencing – I am too old, he said – the clever people at the NAC will, so ask them.
2. but he said that I don’t have the hereditary variety of Amyloidosis mentioned by Radio 4
   – Well I must say I am very pleased about that – Family one less worry – whooa!
3. He explained – My amyloidosis is the result of a mutated gene boo-boo that made the myeloma and the myeloma made the amyloidosis. Nobody has any idea why it happens. He said.
   I said, – ‘maybe it just does.’ He put on his science face and left me to hang in an absurdist silence of my own creation .
   A million years down the line the mutation could have led to a new species of supernewell or opposable teeth but no such luck it just made me ill – x 2
4. He assured me the clicky jaw (my jaw sounds like a rusty traction engine when I chew Haribo’s – but only in the evening while watching Strictly) is generally not a symptom of either of my diseases or my new heart pills rather a symptom of getting old.
5. Other than clickyjawitus was I Ok – yes I said
6. Was he Ok – yes he said
7. Anything? –  he said
8. Nope – I said
9. Bloods are fine – he said
10. Number are fine – he said
11. Well there it is – he said
12. See you in 4 months – he said
13. Great – I said
14. Tara – we said

and i was back in my car texting Maria before the scheduled time of my appointment had arrived. I love him!!

So in conclusion who knows whether the new treatment could be used on me – by the sound of it probably not  – but who cares – at the moment the old ones are working just fine and as of this month my numbers have gone down.

…and they may just be down because of this – or rather its essence in concentrated form with a black pepper catalyst costing 56 quid per pot from your favourite global exploiter of the hypochondriacal shopaholic.