the Monday Musings column from that consultant bloke

Well, as noted in my Monday Musing this week, I am still here having avoided another swing of the Reaper’s scythe. This one was an even closer call than that of 2012, albeit that I have been fixed without the need for a longer stay in hospital. Eleven years ago I was in for six and a half weeks, this time just under three.

Both illnesses could have been fatal. In the first the diagnosis was made within thirty six hours and I was told that I had about as long again had I not been admitted. This time it took almost a week as the medics tried to work through what was going on and isolate the problem.

One factor was that I had two things wrong, but, after going down hill rapidly on day five, they worked out where the nastier problem was and fixed it. On waking up from the general anaesthetic I was transformed and am now back home with a plethora of pills.

At almost 71 I have had a decent innings and I accept that the end is coming closer, but I do have the spark of life and am honour bound to the Berkshire Belle to let her go first. She is older than I am, but ladies do tend to last longer, so I have to be able to keep going for a good while yet.

Generally I am pretty fit and it seems that it is these sudden, acute, infections that cause me problems rather than chronic ones. I have no idea why I should have had two now when, apparently, the types of infection that I have had, one Staph, the other Strep, are relatively rare. One was unlucky, two is greedy.

But it shows how fragile life can be. You can be a fit and healthy as you like, but accidents happen and you are gone. As a younger man I felt, as most of do when we are young, that I was invincible. I was in my mid-forties by the time that I accepted that death was inevitable and came to terms with dying. I am an atheist and believe that death will be the end, no heaven or hell, no afterlife. I am content with that, as long as the love of my life wanders off first.

Just an afterthought here. Like me the Hastings Hottie was married once before. news has reached us that her first husband died around the time that I, too, almost kicked the bucket the other week. Life can be strange.