(A few hours later) Oh dear this one really is full of typos. I feel bound to correct a few… just this once

Endoscopy done – phew!! I know I am a pussy but they really scare the shit out of me. I think I know why. There are not that many forms of death we can reliably practice but suffocation, choking and drowning are three we can. Burning at the stake is tougher, falling from a mountain likewise but every time we have a bath we can accurately rehearse drowning – so we know what it’s like, thus through familiarity we fear it more. The gastro endoscopy (I still don’t know what it’s called) combines all three deaths into one compact package. The drowning side is perhaps pushing it, but you do make a lot of spit.

Anyway a big thanks to all those who wished me luck (could it be that all of you have experienced this procedure yourselves – I think so) – there is a sort of endoscopy club much like the “I have had a baby club” where you can swap tales of how much you gagged and retched and crucially on the macho side whether you had sedation or not. NO I DID NOT! Pride pride pride.

My experience today was inspired by Vicd’s advice to “embrace the tube”. More than this I decided to embrace the experience as a whole, slightly hysterically. The effect must have been bewildering for the staff. I positively radiated confidence and good humour. Laughing and joking, asking fun questions, if I could have done a sashay I would have done one (M says I do this when I walk but I don’t know what it is) – good enough for ‘strictly’. Oh we had a ball me and the nice male nurses. During the procedure the humour got to such a height the doctor conducting the procedure joined in – lots of anecdotes about needing his glasses for the last two patients to find his way to the right place – not that funny perhaps but I found myself raising my thumb to indicate ‘what a laugh all this is.’ In case you haven’t figured it laughing per se is not an option.

Anyway do you know it worked. I wasn’t frightened. I found myself able to think to breath calmly and I feel completely unscathed whereas last time I felt like a newly released prisoner of war. I don’t believe in mind over matter at all, but in this case I applied it, and it worked. So more fool me.