At 4.30 in the morning, I woke with a tongue bigger than my mouth. I couldn’t swallow anything, not even water. But I could breathe, and the last time something like this happened, it went away by itself. So, although I felt as if I were swallowing a pillow, I decided not to bother anybody until a decent hour.
By 7.30, it felt as if I were swallowing two pillows and a duvet, so I phoned my daughter, who lives next door. “Dough neeb do banigh,” I explained, “bud I migh neeb do go do hothbidal.” She helped me pack a shoulder-bag in case I needed to stay in.
At the Addenbrooke’s A&E unit, I was glad to have her with me as a translator when I told the doctors on duty that one of the drugs in my bag was vital and that I hadn’t been able to take my morning dose yet. Try saying that with two pillows and a duvet in your mouth, plus a soft sofa. But eventually the intravenous drugs worked my tongue loose, and after about nine hours we were going back the other way. The whole family, including my granddaughter’s dog, was waiting at home to tell me in turn that if it happened again, I should yell for help straight off.
The next day I spent resting up for, guess what, a trip to Addenbrooke’s, where I was due to be examined by the dermatologists prior to the removal of a carcinoma that was starting to look like that creature in the first Alien movie that suddenly erupts from John Hurt’s chest. Like many Australians my age, I am prone to this kind of trouble: when we were kids in quest of a tan, we would lie around forever being cooked by ultra-violet rays, and the results show up around now in the form of skin cancers.
Fondly, I thought that after this examination, the actual operation would be at least a fortnight in the future, but no: owing to extreme good luck – this was emphasised in unison by two doctors and a nurse – there was a slot open right now.
So there I was, lying flat again for the second time in three days. But this time there was a lot more happening. With the aid of liquid nitrogen, an uncannily effective local anaesthetic and a whole bunch of weirdly humming electronic tools, they cut out not only the principal alien but two satellites, one in each shoulder. With three sets of stitches, I was soon on my way home again, arriving in time to watch Andy Murray, after a couple of days of acute discomfort, finally nail Radek Stepanek in the French Open. Stepanek, who is half my age, was referred to as the wily veteran.
