ON NOT DYING
A thing that happened
About a year ago I went to see a doctor who stuck a camera tube up my nose and down my throat, then made a funny face.
‘That,’ he said. He pointed to the monitor, where there was a high definition image of my vocal cords. On one of them there was a sort of messy white lump. We both peered at the white lump and I pretended to understand his concern.
He pulled the camera out of my throat but the image stayed frozen on the screen. ‘No,’ said the doctor. ‘I don’t like the look of that.’
About a month later, I was sitting up in bed in a little hospital in Buckinghamshire, with compression stockings and a gown on, writing a podcast script on my iPhone and chatting up the nurse.
It was a Monday morning. I had told my daughters the night before that I was going to have an operation, but that it was nothing serious. Which was true. Probably.
‘Why do you have to have it done?’ asked the younger one.
‘Because I’ve been losing my voice,’ I reminded her. I’d just been on book tour. Every night by the time I came off stage, I could barely speak above a whisper.
‘Oh yeah,’ she said.
‘Yeah. So they’re just going to take the stuff that’s been making me lose my voice away and find out what it is.’
‘What is it?’
‘Well, that’s what we’re going to find out.’
‘Will you have to go to sleep?’
‘Yes, I’ll have to go to sleep. But then I’ll wake up. Now, it’s time for bed for you. Go on. Lights out.’
‘I love you dad.’
‘I love you too.’
*
Now it was time for me to go to sleep. The anaesthetist was coming up the corridor. ‘You’ll have to put your script away now,’ said the nurse.
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘just give me a second.
‘One more sentence and I’ll be at the end of this part.’
*
‘He’s waking up.’
