Letter From America: Watch The Birdie!
"In a few days I will add another consultant specialist to the lengthening list of physicians and surgeons who keep my soul housed in my body, and I am quite confidant that I will be having more photographs taken. These will be either MRIs or CT Scans. Then, probably a CT Scan guided biopsy, or, perhaps, more invasive surgery...'' Ronnie Bray writes a bright and bold column about a situation that would stifle the creative urge of all but the brave.
Read also Ronnie's vividly-told autobiography. Click on A Shout From Tthe Attic in the menu on this page.
There was a time when walking along the promenade at Blackpool, or the Esplanade at Scarborough without having someone appear and take your photograph was nigh on impossible. I was even photographed with two of my Army pals on the approach to the West Cliff in Bournemouth.
We had gone there for a thirty-six hour weekend pass that allowed us limited freedom within the law from noon on Saturday until one minute to midnight on Sunday. It is not a long time, especially when we had to travel by train and bus, but when you only have a short time it is amazing what can be fitted into it.
We had managed to find a night's bed and breakfast at an ancient house in Old Christchurch Road. The landlady had a head for business, and packed three squaddies into a three-quarter bed. All I can remember about our sleeping arrangements is lots of giggling, lots of aches and pains next day, and having very little sleep.
Breakfast was adequate which, considering that we were young and hungry, I was still in my seventeenth year, and we ate with as much enthusiasm as the landlady had when she packed us all in to maximise her profits, but we were grateful enough.
Our gratitude was augmented by the fruit that we selected from the fruit bowl on the sideboard as we left, and with pockets bulging set off to sample Sunday in Bournemouth before we had to catch our train back to wherever it was that we were stationed.
Meeting the photographer was lucky for him, because he sold three prints from the same negative. There was a culture of taking photographs among soldiers although few of us had cameras. A photographer came into the barracks when I was in basic training at Blandford, and I had a series of pictures taken by him, only one of which has survived.
Having one’s "picture took" was always an event. The earliest one of me that I know of was when I was about five with my Dad, Tommy Scott, and big sister René on the sands at Blackpool with the Tower as a background. I had another of me as a jerseyed schoolboy of six years taken in the playground at Spring Grove School. Some years ago, like many other treasures, it seems to have evaporated.
This past six months, I have had a lot of pictures taken. Most of them are X-ray or CT (Cat) Scan pictures to do with the nodule in my lungs, and, more recently, with the tumour on my kidney. But, there was one picture that I didn’t know was being taken that came as a surprise in the post.
My first thought was about the quality of the picture. It was very grainy, printed on poor quality paper, and the focus left much to be desired. My second thought was, "By gum! The cost of being snapped has gone up!" The invoice read "One hundred and ninety-five dollars."
The ‘invoice’ said that the City of Mesa had taken my picture with its robotic cameras that go off automatically when someone runs a red light. Naturally, being a law-abiding alien, I had no recollection of turning the corner against a red light. I had been in the area at the time the photograph was made, it was clearly me driving, and it was my rig, so I will have to pay.
In a few days I will add another consultant specialist to the lengthening list of physicians and surgeons who keep my soul housed in my body, and I am quite confidant that I will be having more photographs taken. These will be either MRIs or CT Scans. Then, probably a CT Scan guided biopsy, or, perhaps, more invasive surgery.
The remarkable thing is that right now I feel better and more alive and alert than I have in a couple of years. The Valley fever is on the run, my arthritis is fairly quiet if I do not abuse my body, and I am sleeping better. I have always maintained that there is nothing like being sick when you are well. Being sick when you are poorly is no fun at all.
In a week or so I should know whether I have kidney cancer or not, but my feeling from the site, size, etc and the diagnostician’s concern for hypernephroma means that if it is cancer, I will not be surprised.
If the tumour is a ‘single spy’ and not part of a ‘battalion,’ then I might escape with a partial nephrectomy. If it has spread inside the kidney or elsewhere, I might have to sacrifice the whole kidney. The survival rate for men my age after nephrectomy is in the order of about five years. I’ll take them!
Gay and I talk openly about our health, our concerns, and the possibility that one of us will get something that will carry one of us off. We haven’t arranged our funeral services, but we have the main blocks laid out. I have Gay’s instruction that in the event she is unconscious, or in need of an operation, and she has my instruction that in the event I predecease her that she will direct the driver of my hearse to run a red light!
Copyright © Ronnie Bray 2006
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Read more Ronnie's stories at:
http://www.2theheart.com/author_ronnie_bray
http://www.meridianmagazine.com/voices/011024summer.html
