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In the wake of the strike by our national services, I am pleased to be able to report on a healthy and helpful NHS.

To date, I have been blogging recently about me (inevitable I suppose) and the stuff that happens, mainly good.  This week events took a turn in the other direction.  Not big time.  Just ironic, as the link between made a perfect match.

On Wednesday, the shower leaked for the second time.  First time involved massive lake of water on the sitting room carpet, an insurance claim, a builder and a decorater.  Result?  A vow by my husband to clean the outlet pipe more often – something he swears he has done.  Still, on Wednesday there was the tell-tale brown, decorative edging to the ceiling cornice and the suspicion of a new crack in the plasterboard.  Neither the builder not the plumber have responded to our calls for help.  Result?  No more power showers, at least for a few days.

On Thursday I attended an outpatients clinic at Charing Cross Hospital for an ugly and painful lump on the back of my right hand.  I’d had it – or it might be more accurate to say that ‘it’ had been growing – since the end of September, like a bad tempered gremlin: round, red, chubby at the circumference, flat on top but crunchy in the centre and prone to bleeding if the top was knocked off.

I knew really.  I’ve read the literature, seen the medical warning posters.  Still, I went along with my GP’s suggestion and put cream on it for a week.  If only she would prescribe a cream for my face wrinkles, I’d be a happier bunny.  No change to the lump so I was posted to the clinic to see the skin consultant.  Hospitals are amazing places, bright, friendly, efficient, busy.  Being of a certain age, I miss that  ‘pink’ smell which hit me when I entered the old hospitals, the doctors in white coats and the nurses in spotted or striped dresses with crisp, rustly aprons.

Still, as treatment for skin cancer goes, this modern hospital was first rate.  For that was what my gremlin was, cancer, as I guessed all along.  I answered all the questions about being in the sun – I do go in the sun but I do not sunbathe as such.  I was sent for coffee while I waited for the ‘procedure’ and came face to face with the expense of modern hospital facilities in the coffee shop.  I phoned home, the news sounding more dramatic than it really was.

The procedure was quick and painless, if a trifle messy.  I explained to the nurse, who kept asking me if I was all right, that I do seem to bleed a great deal.  The consultant cauterized a few veins, making the room smell like a bad bar-b-que.  Never mind, a heap of swabs later and I was all done, with a long, stitched up seam on the back of my hand.  I will skip over the amusing pause while I watched a small blood lake pool and tiny red rivers trickle over my skin as the consultant took a call on her mobile.  Let’s just say at least the stain will wash out of my sleeve.

I will have a scar.  Maybe I will take to wearing gloves, like a member of the cast of My Fair Lady.

And the perfect match with the two calamaties?  With six stitches in the back of my hand, no showers for a week.

PS.  The only thing about this blog and its connection with writing is that it is writing.  A notebook and a pen will always fill half an hour, wherever you are, whatever you are doing.

PPS  The stitches are on my right hand but I can still hold a pen and type.