Dear Diary, instead of counting sheep, I count worse-case scenarios

Here's one of them

So, today my husband is in hospital today having a kidney biospy, and as anxiety is basically my entire personality, and the only way I know how to process it is by writing thousands of words about it, here I am. If I was Taylor Swift, I’d probably be making an entire double-album about this really quite small thing to happen in my life, but because I am me, and am only up to course # 13 (“The Plucking Technique”) in Simply Guitar, you get my weekly newsletter one day earlier than usual instead.

Hey, I wonder why people on the internet sometimes describe me as “dramatic”?

So, as some of you know, Terry had a kidney transplant almost 20 years ago now — so long ago, in fact, that we spent a good bit of Max’s last birthday party having a ‘spirited’ discussion about whether this year was the 20th anniversary of the operation or only the 19th. I was right, obviously (I’m always right about stuff like this, because I write everything down, just in case one day I’m at a party and someone says, “…and that happened in 2004”, and I can be all, “no, it was 2005, I can prove it”. I am a lot of fun at parties.) — it’ll be 19 years on December 15th, and isn’t it weird to think that one day that thing that was so huge and all-consuming that it was all you thought about for months will be something you’ll have a brief argument about at your kid’s 6th birthday party, because the memories are no longer burned into you?

I think that’s weird.

But anyway.

Photo by Rémi Bertogliati on Unsplash

When Terry’s kidneys first failed, the doctors told us they didn’t know why it had happened. They knew he’d developed a condition I’m not even going to bother trying to spell right now, but they had no idea WHY this had happened, and they ultimately concluded that it was “just one of those things”. Of all the kidneys in all the world, bad luck had decided to target Terry’s, and we would, most likely, never know why.

Now, if this was a plotline in Neighbours (Which, actually, it has been, more than once, if I recall correctly…) that line alone would’ve been more than enough foreshadowing to tell us that one day the mystery would, in fact, be solved, and it would appear that ‘one day’ is ‘today’. (Well, probably at some point in the next couple of weeks, when the results come back, but you get what I mean…)

A few months ago, Terry’s doctor (who he sees every few months, to check on the health of the transplanted kidney) told him that medical research had moved on to the point where she reckoned that it might be possible to biopsy his kidneys, and find out what had caused them to so catastrophically fail, all those years before. So a bit like when a historic murder is finally solved using DNA, or some other fancy-pants modern technology, then.

“But what would be the point?” I asked, when Terry told me this. “How will it benefit you to know why it happened? Other than finally being able to tell everyone once and for all that it WASN’T that lads trip to Ibiza, I mean?”¹

I’ll be honest: I’m still not TOTALLY clear what the benefits are to Terry himself in knowing whodunnit, as it were. Because it’s not like he can go back in time and change it, can he? Science hasn’t advanced THAT far. But doing this biopsy will also hopefully tell us whether or not whatever happened could be hereditary — and therefore whether Max could potentially be at risk of it, too.

And, I mean, there’s nothing to suggest that this will be the case. The fact that Terry comes from a very large family and no one else in it has ever had issues with their kidneys would tend to suggest the opposite in fact — I’m no doctor, but surely a hereditary condition wouldn’t just pop up to attack one single person in several generations? So I will stress here that this is something that’s deemed to be pretty unlikely. But, of course, health anxiety doesn’t pay attention to logic — and not always to doctors, either — and, as someone said on Instagram the other day, instead of counting sheep, I count worse-case scenarios. This particular worse-case scenario is the one that’s been playing on my mind ever since I found out this biopsy will be happening, and it will continue to loop there endlessly until we know the results. So that’s a fun thing to look forward to, then.

But that’s a worry for next week. This week’s worry revolves simply around the procedure itself, which is obviously not going to be much fun for poor Terry (he’s had one before, when he was first diagnosed, and still winces at the memory…), who had to leave the house before Max was even awake this morning, and will likely not be back until after his bedtime. I, meanwhile, took Max to school, then came home and cleaned the house… because I might not be able to control what happens next in terms of the biopsy and its results, but I CAN control the state of my floors, and, let me tell you guys, as of right now, they have never been cleaner…

Until next week,

P.S. You can get a free ebook copy of my book, The Accidental Impostor — and others — this weekend only by clicking here. Enjoy!

1. For many years, certain people maintained the belief that Terry got kidney failure because he went to Ibiza with his friends when he was 20, and they drank a lot. Spoiler: it wasn’t that.