X marks the spot

Not that I want to tempt fate, but we have reached the TV sitcom cliff hanger, perfect for that tear jerk ending, all it needs is just a short note saying thanks for everything but Elvis has now left the building. Now that would get my daughter on the Oprah show who would console her by letting her have a free run around at ToysRus.

Although I am not a head in the sand sort, I have to admit I have avoided returning to this writing lark. I did have a big hole in my head for a start, my visual and emotional focusing was all messed up, and lets be honest, there is no deadline now and fingers crossed for the foreseeable future. I can come up with a hundred and one excuses but I know deep down, I just did not want to return to an area of seriously bad karma.

I assume this mental watertight door came about to preserve our early ancestors. Limited by grunt vocabulary they could not debate the whole meaning of the cycles of life, in fact millenniums later we still cant. After witnessing their club wielding neighbours become some Godzilla afternoon trail mix, they leg it and warn others through camp fire charades. No one wants return to see huge dung piles infused with their chums loin cloths.

My feeling of invincibility has taken a serious battering we are so fragile. Not that I want to come over all new age and lentil soup, I can appreciate why old folks get up early to see the start of a new day. Ten o'clock in the morning feels pretty much the same as midday, but at dawn, you really can smell, see, and be part of the day coming alive.

Its this same self preservation make up that gives us goose bumps when spending a night in a room of a recent gruesome murder, putting down my thoughts again is returning to those subconscious steaming piles of dung.

Having said that, this coffee covered sticky keyboard in front of me served well as an emotional and therapeutic crutch through the post OP period, so as a sign of respect to my lord Logitech I return for some sort of "closure", I say closure with a bit of trepidation, as its only been a few months since my day under the angle grinder and not out of the woods yet. I stayed in touch with a number of people who had the same operation, and lets just say some of the outcomes are not so good. You often hear disasters victims wonder why they escaped unscathed while all their chums perished, instead of being happy they are alive they get depressed they survived.

I am really pushing my luck here, this is tempt fate number 2, sort of Russian roulette with a with two bullets in the cylinder, I cant help feeling that it was almost, dare I say it.. Lots of wood touching later...an anticlimax. I know these things have a tendency of coming back and biting you when you least expect it, bacterial or viral meningitis microbes are lurking around every corner, brain fluid leaks is just only a cough away and re-growth is a very real issue requiring scans every year.

Think of the millennium bug, everyone was stock piling cash and food, expecting civilization to collapse at midnight 31 December 1999, orphanages would be wiped out by planes and satellites plummeting from the sky. Mile long bulk oil tankers would careen out of control and ram into Krakatoa. When the clock tick past midnight nothing happened, maybe in the morning the odd vending machine spat out a latte instead of an espresso. Most people saw the anticlimax as a confirmation that the whole thing was fabricated by the big hardware firms to offload new software and computers on a panic global population. The geeks views was nothing happened because they were prepared, silently beavered away in bunkers sorting it all out.

While people who have been permanently disfigured or disabled by this operation must read my anticlimax statement with utter contempt. Let me redeem myself, it shows that all the preparation, teamwork, research and surgeons quietly practicing on previous guinea pigs has paid off. Like the millennium bug, no body noticed it, anticlimax to brain surgery is the ideal result.

If you have never been faced with your own dark cave, you need imagine a Captain Hiroshima of the newly formed kamikaze squad, after weeks of practicing flying into giant inflatable spongy targets, he is there standing bolt upright under an awe inspiring sunrise, his bandanna tails dramatically flutter behind his no nonsense shaved head. One way ticket in his pocket, swords drawn and sake held high, lots of Banzai later, he climbs aboard his brand new zero mileage Mitsubishi zero, the engine is just run in, and the next oil service will not be required.
After lots of guttural grunts, that only hardcore Japanese men seem excel at, he squats Asian style on the cockpit floor, seats and cushion is a luxury that is not required, he is now focused on his ultimate goal of being a lump of metal fused to an American flight deck. Captain "mushroom" Hiroshima then takes off with his fellow steely eyed chums.

The night before, our squatting chum put in to play a plan, to guarantee he will be the one to give the enemies of Nippon Inc. the most spectacular of firework display. He packed his plane and wallet with so much explosives, the aircraft became a solid block of bad news from the sky.

You now fast forward a few hours after the big send off and we see the locked gates of the deserted airstrip, the gates rusty wire mesh prevents the jiggling tumble weeds from doing their manic cart wheeling journeys. A dejected and exhausted Hiroshima gets off a dusty number 74 bus and shuffles to the gate. The petrol attendant Private Yo-Sushi was so caught up in the Banzai moment hours earlier, he failed to notice although the plane tanks were full, due to the excess Roman candle baggage it would only reach the paddy fields at the end of the island. With a crusty stain in his pants from landing a volatile brick between some shoji screens, Captain Hiroshima hesitates a moment before pressing the door bell, he doesn't even hear the Ding Dong his mind is churning over and over why me?

We all arrived in L A a few days before the big day. When asked by the custom officer whats the purpose of our visit, I told him its for my brain tumour surgery, he looked at my young family behind me and didn't have to say anything, his now sad eyes and faint smile said it all, a small nod in the direction to the exit was all that was needed. Our neighbour in Singapore kindly offer the use of his car and driver in LA, even his father turn up with a bunch of flowers. They under estimated the gypsy nature of our clan, luggage and bodies could not fit the large SUV. I had to take the bus to Hertz for my first task, to get the biggest set of wheel they had, wife was going to be driving for the first time in the US so when in Rome do as the Romans do. The following days was manic, we had to organize the apartment, collect the nanny from the airport, this nanny had the correct passport but the customs department singled her out because of her terrorist like name, she was reprimanded and penalized with demerit points, for non declaration of a few packets of hot chocolate powder for my toddler.

I slept surprising well the night before, wife didn't, I read a story of some poor bugger who had the same tumour, his fiancée just legged it never to be seen again. Its a tough and often underestimated commitment. My wife would be faced with the daunting task of looking after a toddler and possibly a bitter wheel chair bound cabbage, not just in a new and unfamiliar place but potentially for the rest of her life. In Her line of work makes she is normally tough and as hard as nails, but that night while she thought I was asleep I heard her silently crying, and it was heart breaking.

I had the last pre-op meeting with the Doc the day before the operation. He said I should only be worried if he was worried, and asked me if I thought he looked concerned? The cheery cheeky smile was there, the huge Hollywood white teeth stood out because of his California tan, if he had any doubt he certainly didn't show it. I was not to bothered myself, I had more heart burns and emergency trips to the WC from college examination stress. Unlike my academic days this time I did all my homework and was actually prepared for this big test.

No drink or solids for 12 hours before the surgery which was not a problem, knowing you are going for brain surgery the next day is a pretty good appetite suppressant.

Got up all bright eyed and bushy tailed and headed off to hospital at 8.30am. At the admittance reception there was a big queue, I felt like putting my hand up and saying that I should be allowed to bypass the line as I am the one having brain surgery today, but then one look around at all the sad and grey faces, I realise no one is here for a holiday, for some folks this could be the first of a dozen check-ins for others it may be the last. Check in went smoothly and they gave me this wrist bangle with a name and number, I asked if I get one for my toe like the movies, they did not find this funny.

This ritual of removing all my knick knacks is a surprisingly powerful one, especially if you are the sort that never removes watches, bangles, hair extension, make up, and contact lenses. Even in a shower you are not actually naked, festooned like a Christmas tree you are still carrying lifes baggage. The fact that you manage to track down and purchase rare Rolex, your credit card is black instead of green is all quite meaningless now. I smiled at the irony of it all, should it all go horribly wrong, I exit this world in the same suit that I arrived in. Now my only personal belongs are the good memories in my my head and a nice green disposable cremation friendly paper suit, It is like a space suit all thats missing is the NASA logo and some moon dust. I am attached via an umbilical cord to a hair dryer pumping warm air around your body, a very pleasant Zen like start to the day. If you are tight fisted or a tree hugging greenie its an underestimated efficient way of keeping the family warm without heating the house up.

Then the call came, its show time, my previous experience of being wheel chair bound in a busy lift was bad enough, try being flat out in a tube sprouting space suit on a hospital gurney. The lift was full and all playing the avoiding eye contact game. I was tempted to say Good Morning to the people getting on and revel in the awkwardness, but I bit my tongue and just played the retard role, looking up to the ceiling and occasionally twitching for added effect.
I may as well get used to this ceiling view as the next one month it will be pretty much all I will see. Ever noticed anyone cleaning a ceiling? you do get the odd disconcerting splatter of what looks like dried blood up there but on the whole its amazing how spot less and terminally dull they are. If ever there's an opportunity to design a hospital or dental surgery for that matter, I will pay a lot more attention to the ceiling design, Michelangelo was way ahead of his time.

When the lift door open my wife was told that is as far as she can go, I was on my own from then on. In many ways it was was a good we were not prepared for the sudden T-junction separation, all we could say was just "see ya later" I went right to the pre-op, and she went to the waiting room on the left. To be honest she had the short straw, having to wait on your own for surgery updates for the next 5-12 hours, can't be much fun in a room full stressed out relatives of other patients and bad coffee. It turns out she could return home and the surgeon just kept her updated with text messaging, she in turn updated our relatives and friends with emails. Marvels of modern technology there was chip by chip, slice by slice, suture by suture information beaming around the globe at the speed of light , and I was just a slab of meat on a stainless steel table oblivious to it all.

In the preparation room I was parked between two other bodies, I say bodies because they did not move or say anything, there are times when a wise crack in a difficult situation would normally break the ice, I realise this was not that time to crack ice, I just lay there like a bit-part actor in some coma movie. All three of us lying there in our space suits in silence thinking "OK this is it", must have been like Armstrong and his Apollo crew perched on top of a black and white giant stick of dynamite, my one small step for man.. is now out of my hands, admittedly it was probably never in my hands, its all down to the mission control egg heads and associated technology.

I over heard a porter outside complaining about how busy it was today and there's a bit of backlog, great of all days to have a grid lock, stressed out staff will start to cut corners. The internist came in to shave my head, I already had a number zero crew cut to save him the effort, plus I wanted to make sure there was no mistakes with hair obscuring the surgeons view. There is no procedure for marking surgery incision points, I heard of cases where they cut open the wrong side, apparently the nursed stuck a big X in the side of this blokes head, the doc assumed X marks the spot. The nurses X meant "not this side". Urban myth or not I was not taking any chances they wrote THIS SIDE on my head, and confirmed it a number of times with documentation.

The anesthetist came in, a lovely chubby English lady. She was fiddling with tubes and stuff in my arm, it turns out her brother is an Architect and amazingly I knew him, we went to a mutual chums stag night in Brighton 15 years ago. I can remember saying her brother is a lousy dancer. Then the infamous white light appeared before me, a glow at the end of a tunnel gradually getting brighter, I started hearing voices and felt a strange deep down chill, a cold that I have never felt before. The ethereal light turns out to be a 4 dollar K-Mart penlight being waved in front of my eyes. When are they going to start? was my first thought, I tried to look around and that's when it hit me, the disorientating spinning world, instantly I vomited. The vomiting convulsion moved my head which exasperated the disorientation, resulting in a permanent feedback loop of barf, movement, spin, barf, movement, spin.

I vaguely heard my wife saying the operation was a success and they got all the tumour while preserving my facial nerves, but as expected my balance and hearing nerves had to be sacrificed to remove the tumour. You would have thought I would be confused that it was all over in a split second, I can tell you the way I felt, I knew there was no grey area, I just been through something that has seriously messed me up. The operation took 8 hours, 2 and 1/2 hours was spent just opening my nut up.

My head felt like it was in a vice, with a handle shape and coloured like a giant banana, the vice operator was a pissed off and hungry gorilla. I was frozen stiff no amount of heating, and blankets could warm me up. I was expecting the "Hit by a freight train full of bowling balls", but nothing prepared me for the Mother of all hang over, and being strapped naked to a roller coaster in an arctic blizzard. I found Anne Franks Diary in the hospital waiting room a few days earlier, we all know what happens in the end, but the biggest nightmare for her and me, was not living in a cupboard, which surprisingly was actually bigger than an average modern two bedroom London flat, it was not knowing how or when this would all end.

I knew I was going to have a bit of a reaction to the knockout cocktail, alcohol free beer even gives me a hang over. This one really took the biscuit, they kept pumping me full of medication but my head was like a sausage on a BBQ just about ready to split open. This was all occurring over my eyes and forehead and nothing to do with the the incision area which was surprisingly pain free. I thought I was going to be cool hand cucumber coming out of surgery, saluting the surgeon with a fag in my mouth, but out of the three people in ICU (Intensive Care Unit) that night, I was the only one flailing around like a lobster in a hot pan. What actually did the trick was good old fashion ice pack on my forehead and eyes.


Ice chips now have a whole new meaning, to avoid vomiting I was not allowed to drink. There was already 12 hours pre-op fasting then another 8-10 hours operation, then add the side effects of all the drugs, and my mouth ended up as dry as a camels butt, in fact the my vomit was like a refreshing mouth wash. The only thing they would give is a couple of ice chips. Just as well I didn't have my wallet and a cash point was no where to be seen, I would have sold my soul for a few extra ice chips during my time in ICU.

My eyes were shut for pretty much two days in ICU not just due to the heavy drugs cocktail, but also every time I tried opening them a crack the world would spin, setting off my barf feedback loop. There was very nice lady who job was to stop me covering the walls and staff with diced carrots, she has a mini vacuum cleaner that deals with the bile before it even leaves my mouth. My bed felt like it was bolted to a fairground carousel that was tilted at 45 degrees, always spinning in a clockwise direction.

I know my own right hand side balance mechanism is now pickled in a bottle of formaldehyde, and resides on some medical school shelf, and yet curiously my brain doesn't know it. It still hasn't come to terms with the equivalent of having the starboard wing being totally ripped off. It is frantically trying to figure out why the body it has been piloting all these years is not responding and is now out of control in a clockwise spiral dive. What causes this lack of neuron communication in my bonce is a mystery, it just goes to show the complex nature of the mind. If it was my leg that was amputated I can see that, I can feel that.

My in-house neurological homing pigeon is sending signals from the front line back to HQ. The urgent message is asking the Captain to do something instantly I am falling to my right, and lets be honest I cant blame the pigeon, the sensation really does feel like I am slowly falling in downward clockwise spiral. If someone told me at the time I was a blindfolded passenger in a glider, that was carrying out a steep right hand banking maneuver, I would believe them. My eyes on the other hand was sending its own set of pigeon messengers telling the brain another story. The internal working of my head would be on overdrive trying to decipher the flurry of conflicting signals, my brains messaging department would look like a scene from Alfred Hitchcocks The Birds. The external hint of this fog of war going on in my head is the disorientating barf feedback loop, I could not even sit up let alone walk, and my eyes, the Docs use it as a guide on how the conflict is going, the eyes was involuntarily zipping around my eye sockets like a pinball on speed.

I was transferred out of ICU on my second day to a private room, I cant remember much of it, all I can recall is while being transferred to a CT Scan machines they nearly dropped me, and of all places to grab me was my head. Being in my own room now meant I did not have a nurse sitting at the end of my bed so if I needed anyone I had to yell or press a button. Pressing the button does not guarantee someone coming in, but what I discovered is if I disconnect one on the leads attached to me, it sets off an alarm that seem to get their attention. Though only to be used in real shit my pants emergency, the boy who cried wolf story still traumatises me to this day.

The hospital must have a comedian in the F&B department, there I am barfing away and they come in with a couple of real greasy spoon meal option, even the plastic smell of the menu made me feel green.

I was allowed water now, and drinking gallons of the stuff, I hate medication so I was doing everything to flush it out, I wanted to know if the overripe melon head, my tongue glued to the side of my mouth and the just licked a Newcastle city center pub astray taste, was the result of surgery or side effects of the medication.

Its now the long road to recovery and from where I am lying this is no road, its more like a ragged, avalanche prone, ice encrusted, Tibetan mountain goat trail to recovery.

Rubber Tipped Chopsticks

After hours of witnessing guard huts, roof tiles, and cats cartwheeling past your window. The aural battering, by the sort of noises only God can make, suddenly stops and the sun starts to shines though. The eye of the storm has arrived, I was mentally prepared for the debris strewn impact site, but what threw me was the deathly silence, it was on such a biblical scale no birds, no cars, no background rumble, it was like the sound of the earth before anything that breathed arrived. After a few minutes the sun gets blotted out again, and the tumbling, howling wall of the storm returns to finish off what it left behind.

Christmas was the eye of my own storm but the calm was also short lived, the storm front on the horizon is fast approaching. The sensation of time passing is quite fluid, I only just arrived back in Singapore, and now my travel teddy is back out again. For death row customers waiting years for the big day on the hot seat, the time locked up must have felt nothing more than a long weekend.

I am battening down the hatches, flights booked, latex clad physio therapist booked, new undies purchased, and the zimmer frame dug out. The exercise regime, needs to be cranked up. During Xmas, looking at the photos of hotel facilities was the closest I came to the seeing the gym. Yesterday I adjusted the cross training machine to a level known as, Wearing a Sandwich Board in Pool Full of Honey. After 30 minutes the mechanical tormentor started to follow my own death throes noises. Today a note greeted me "Out of Order, " there is something deeply satisfying breaking a machine design to test and push human endurance.

The 2 weeks before T-day, restrictions starts to apply no Chinese herbal remedies or Aspirin type medication. While buying some headache medication in the glamorous sounding Beverly Hills Pharmacy the paperwork generated would make a forest morn, I had to sign pages and pages of grey small print accepting that I was aware of the list of potential side effects which read like the yellow pages. Having brain surgery in a litigious society is a good thing, though you are reminded of all this daftness, "cars are closer than they appear" is etched in the side mirror. Coffee cups have "warning this liquid is hot" soon pavements will have "warning this surface is hard".

The hospital cannot deal directly with an non US based insurance firm. The surgery will be billed as having no insurance coverage, the invoice will be reduced from US$ 150k to 40k, which means the hospitals have been taking the piss with insurance based fees all these years, and I will now get the windowless operating theatre next to the dust bins, the night watch man and janitor will double up as operating staff, and the microscopes are on loan from ToysRus.

Our helper is not allowed into the US, she has the wrong coloured passport and and lets be honest wrong coloured skin. For certain passport holders the world is still not your oyster. She is considered a "flight risk" they assume the moment we land in the US she will be whisked away by her covert 3rd world connections, to then fulfill her life long dream of being a cleaner in some midwest motel. Whats sort of arrogance is that? the higher you go the bigger the fall, mind you I would have to say, you really have reached the wobbly top rung, when you and your pith helmet wearing chums, thinks it is a perfectly reasonable idea to stick the word "Great" before a country's name. What ever happened to humility.

There is talk on the grape vine of another form of treatment, all the works is carried out via a fibre optic video camera known as an endoscope inserted through a coin sized opening. Recovery time is very much reduced, but like everything in life there is a down side, should banana fingers nick a major artery then they have to rush in with chainsaws to cut a bigger hole so bits of wood, and newspapers can go in to stem the flow. So no change in plan and no going back, full steam ahead with the quarry like hole in my head option.

In a warped way I am looking forward to my big day, it is a huge experiment with controlled drugs. We all been through it at University, with stuff that been couriered around the world up someone bum. I have the, By Invitation Only, access to the cream of the cream Opium Dens from the grainy old sepia prints. The only thing missing is the red lanterns, a Fu Man Chu mustached Chinaman filling my bamboo pipe, and a silk smoking jacket. There is talk of out of body experiences during long operations, these tumour removal have been known to take 18 hours. The only way I can relate to this time travel is when I just jumped off the bungee platform, time momentarily froze, there was an unnerving feeling of utter loneliness and detachment. The silence is quickly replaced by the rapidly increasing and deafening wind roar on the way down.

Quite literally, if push came to shove, its the catheter that gives me the willys, I can deal with pain in a Abu Ghraib prison kind of way, I have not one but two cigarette burns on my arm, a result of a bet, after the burnt bacon smell wafted away and a raw blister appeared, I doubled the bet so a second cigarette was slowly stubbed out on the blister. Typing about it, brings on no reaction apart from eye rolling acceptance of the stupidity of youth.

When I ripped my whole thumb nail off in a freak accident, I remember seeing where my nail used to be, slowly turn from marshmallow textured pink mushy flesh to pulpy bloody red. The body must have a trip switch somewhere designed to shuts off the major trauma signal to my head, it took 5 seconds, before the crippling pain just tsunami through me, I gagged trying to hold back the adrenalin induced vomit. There is a reason nail ripping is used as a form of torture, I still get a bit of a involuntary fist clench just recalling it. But mention catheters my eyes, teeth and sphincter are already clamped shut.

The result from the Google search is quite literally an eye opener. There are groups of people who feel Friday night is not complete, unless the boys pop over to the YMCA, for a late night session of musical catheter. You can even buy a nice little boxed set of what at first looks like knitting needles, ranging in size from a very tight tweed knit to the ones used for super size chunky sweater, but trust me you don't want to be giving these stainless steel implements to Granny for Xmas.

I hope no one can figure out where I live, as the gym will know where to send the cross trainer repair bill, and if a couple of gang bangers kidnapped me and need to know where my millions are buried, they just have twirl a catheter tube around their fingers, and I would be on my knees offering to help them dig it up.

I will be floating past the MIR space station so not to bothered about the surgery. I have heard of Stephen King like horror stories being half awake during surgery, but partial paralysis prevents me telling the laughing gas bloke, who is too busy reading the papers. Its not the flying that people fear its the impact into ground where the problem starts. I feel nauseous in a revolving restaurant, if you get a pestle and mortar and chuck in a dose of motion sickness, add some altitude sickness, and sprinkle a good hand full of delirium causing head flu, grind it all up and add a touch of Dengue fever for flavour, that is what will hit me post op.

Fairground rides last for 3 minutes, imagine a roller coaster with tracks that twists, loops and snakes off into the horizon, no end in sight, you don't know if it will stop in a few days or months. Post op people are found hanging for dear life to the rails of the bed, fearing they will slide off, your head does not know half your balance mechanism is on the way to the incinerator in a green bio-hazard garbage bag. The damaged and conflicting signals makes you see and feel the room is tilted at 45 degrees.

There is little point in predicting the outcome of the surgery, there are so many variable and details that I cant even comprehend. The Titanic passengers would never have predicted they will end up as a watch 100 years later. There something very wrong with using parts of the salvaged hull to make the watch case, the face is created from ground down organic matter collected off the seabed around the wreck. Why stop there, how about hardwood chopstick from dug up coffins, or better yet, a new set of soup bowls hand crafted from skulls found in the killing fields of Cambodia. What ever happened to respect?

Many gave Gawd credit for the safe landing of the recent Qantas flight with the suicidal fire extinguisher. I would give all the credit to the pilot and the structural designers of the aircraft, if you think about it then, was Gawd a tad bored that day and wanted a bit of a laugh with his chums, so put a gash in the fuselage in the first place? To say a ship is unsinkable is really tempting fate, Qantas has never advertised the fact their jet fleet is fatality free, we all know exactly what would happen the moment they do plaster up some catchy slogan, its all fate.

Some people need a tangible explanation, a way of being able to control destiny and most are quite happy to accept that lighting a candle or joss stick might make a difference. Reminds me of a time when I had hair and working as a lacky in an architectural firm, the big cheese always wore black suits, with two annoying bollox hanging on his left shoulders pad. His philosopher chum comes up with the glossy coffee book explanation of the intangible. According to his book, Mr. Shoulder Pad architecture represents the urban virginity being pierced by a sword of modernity. He knew we knew it was total crap, when pushed why he thought the urban environment was a virgin, he curtly pointed out in an appropriate German accent, we were not being paid to question, and left in a flurry of blackness the door nearly decapitated his two little shoulder tassels.

For those that need one, here is a good explanation on what will determine the out come of my surgery. Its known as the Butterfly Theory developed by some bloke in the late 19th Century with either way too much time on his hands, or he is the one wearing the silk smoking jacket in the sepia prints. It will all boil down to a small blue butterfly in a forest, who two years ago took off to the left side because of a bad landing the night before sprained her right ankle, on the way up she clipped a dead leaf which fell onto a log that spanned a river. Moss grew under the shade of the leaf, and the moisture it held eventually rotted the trunk, causing it to collapse into the water. Downstream it blocked the hydroelectric dams intake, creating a disruption to the electrical supply. In a blacked out city far from the forest a man went for a walk as his apartment had no power. On the way out he bumped into a Neurosurgeon neighbour who had to transfer his shopping, to the other hand in order to hold the stair well door open, in doing so he pulled a small muscle in his elbow. That neurosurgeon in two weeks time will be working in the head of a 45 year old male from a small country in Asia.

I know you know its all a load of crap, its all down to chance. There is no higher power, no bearded old man on a gilded seat in the clouds. Its a roll of the dice, the result of the throw is determined by the bloke who painted that dice in some Turkish sweatshop, did he applied too much paint on one, side when a blue butterfly flew past and distracted him ?

This will be my last post before the big day, so better start practicing typing with my mouth and a rubber tipped chopstick. Igor at the back of the boat needs to tighten his loin cloth. The target is in sight, I have assumed my Spirit of Ecstasy pose on the bow, from now on Igor drum beat will be at full ramming speed.

That's it then, bugger this for a game of soldiers, I will see everyone on the other side, butterfly willing.

Calm Before the Storm

I did the covert recon around the surgeons room, personally signed photos from past Presidents and Kings, Check. Lots of official certificates covered with signatories, Check. Nice God fearing family photos, Check. No expensive toys, which show hes not on the take from medical equipment suppliers, Check.

I traveled 9000 miles to be here, and the plane seemed to be permanently climbing, was the Captain a real Ah Beng type with a string vest and he had one flip flop shod foot up on the dash, that accidentally knocked the trim wheel? Not the sort of hardship Marco Polo faced, but it meant I had to keep walking uphill to the loo.

I heard Dr. Greenman talking outside the door, so near and yet so far. Being in Tinseltown, was it choreographed? work the audience into a foaming frenzy before the fireworks accompanied big entrance. I was straining to hear, did he just mention the morgue? being sued?

When he did make his entrance, without the feather topped show girls, he looked just like the wise old turtle from Kung Fu Panda, minus the shell.
Dr. Greenman was a lovely guy, I checked his hands for potential nerve severing twitches, nothing. Though he did have a small cut on his knuckles, playing with his dog last night or an Alzheimer slip of the scalpel? and do I really want to be operated on by someone, whose white lab coat looked like it was made from polyester rather than Egyptian cotton?

A call came through from an Israeli hospital they needed some advice. It was straight back to the calculations he was doing prior to the choreographed phone call. Even I would come back and scratch my head and ask where was I?

He told me everything I already knew, I was the potential employer interviewing three surgeons. They were selling themselves and I had to figure out, not if my potential new employee will get on with Mary in HR, but if he will save my life as I know it.

I went to checked out the spa, pool and dining facilities in the hospital next door. The private underground link was a bit grim, not dirty grim but more in the institutional sense of the word. Being deep in the basement it rumbled, the air handling units pumped filtered conditioned air to all the sick people in the rooms above me. The bright florescent strip lights revealed tracks worn into the grey marble effect linoleum floor tiles, lot of trips to and from the freezer, and we are not talking the chicken nuggets and Ben and Jerry's type of freezers.

I held my breath while walking past anonymous rooms with yellow BIOHAZARD signs. The low paid 3rd world technician could have been distracted by the new rash on his hands, and forgot to seal the lid on the anthrax Tupperware box. I sensed the thicker Ebola and bird flu virus laden air around me. In front of me the glass door parted and I felt like a U-Boat crewman the moment the hatch cracks opens, I was hit with cool outside air.

There is one rule within the worn leather chesterfields rooms of the old boys network in London, never talk about religion, or race, there is good reason for this, it gets very messy, there are no absolutes, its all about dealing with old concepts developed in a period, when the average guy on his camel actually believed it is possible to walk on water, and mass education as we know it today did not exist. Its a totally abstract outlook on life, and very much dependent on the direction of the wind at that particular moment.

After emerging from the tunnel of death, in front of me was a huge structure that held the hospital together, it was in fact a 5 story high crucifix. If you want to scare the living daylights out of Jesus then a Godzilla size cross will probably do the trick. What would be on the walls of peoples homes, if the Romans decided to use Edward II method of execution? think along the lines Popsicles and red hot pokers.

Recently at a Chinese wedding, I was sitting next to a priest he must have thought I was the Perrier sipping Antichrist, because I was stunned he did not know about Enuma Elish, the 7 tablets that was unearthed, each tablet representing the Babylonian stages of the origins of life, eerily similar to Genesis 7 days. He was like an English teacher with no foundation in Latin.

In the UK, a couple of neighbouring churches, decided to bury the hatchet and other made in China religious paraphernalia, because of the dwindling numbers of punters, they would sell the various plots of prime land, and build a single neutral worshiping hall that can be used on a time sharing basis. Like large cigarette corporations the religious bigwigs are now targeting the vulnerable people of the third world, where the uneducated will still throw their life savings at faith healers, who claim to remove faulty body parts, on stage with their bare hands, leaving the patients tumour and scar free.

What really irks me, is this threat of a lorry load brimstone through your letter box if you don't tow the line. It may have worked 2000 years ago when people actually used brimstone, these days its just not very PC to use fear in the office or places of worship. When I make it home without being trampled by pack of orange robed, drum beat tranced skinheads, there is always some blue rinsed happy clapper camping on my doorstep, with suggestions on ways of stock piling locust repellent in preparation for my Sodom and Gomorrah type end.

To protect their position and income those in robes actively encourage the creation of an xenophobic congregation. I was talking to what appeared to be a perfectly normal person when religion reared its ugly head, he said that people who believe in different deities are misguided and he could not accept them, it goes against every grain of his own faith, by even acknowledging them means he is not true to his own beliefs. So much for love thy neighbour and world peace etc. Take Jesus, anyone would think he was born in Norway, if the real Jesus turned up at any Western immigration point he would get the full Al Queda treatment. Did the people making the effigies for the local churches in the West misplaced the tar and brush? Lets be honest he would look more like Saddam Hussain.

The priest next to me was in between jobs and before he starts looking in the classified section of Choirboy monthly, he should go back to the college where he studied theology and ask for a refund. If I was a Bishop looking to employ a new rent boy for the local parish, one of the first interview questions would be, how he intends to stop the revolting peasant from setting fire to his place of worship, once they get wind that Eve was in fact a plagiarised version, of the Ancient Sumerian civilizations concept of a garden of life called Dilmun, where a lady called Nitini used to hang out, she was known as the lady of the rib, and her partner ate the sacred plants.

Don't get me wrong, everyone needs some form of crutch to get through life people turn to drink, drugs, sex, religion, so long as its done in moderation and it helps that person, then I am all for it, I would much rather be in a pub full of pissed religious folks than national front supporters. All the individuals are actually good eggs, when people say we pray for you, whether it be in a prone position in the floor without shoes, beating on drums, burning of incense, I know what they are offering and I willingly hand over to them a part of me for safe keeping.

Its the pushy sort that gets up my wick. You know, the medallion man in the pub "go on, go on have a drink". The crack head trying to justify her addiction. The leopardskin print, fluffy slipper neighbour "suggesting" a late night coffee, or the white ironed granny pants girl and her top button done up nerd "platonic" boyfriend, saying we should all go to the church to hug while studying the scriptures.

The world has moved on, just around the corner there is the Church of Jesus Christ sitting next to the Church of the True Jesus Christ, whose boundary is shared with a cow and scantily clad multi limbed lady covered Hindu temple, that in turns rubs shoulders with a mosque whose minarets tickles the whiskers of a neighbouring dragon, the smoke from the Chinese dragon temple wafts over the House of Ronald MacDonald, that is busy serving Halal Big Macs.

Take my kid, she has a Shinto grandmother, Church of England grandfather, a Buddhist mother and a Druid father. Her school discourages any form of single religion worshiping. Religious Studies is just what it says it is, a study of religions, all religions, where they come from, how they developed and more importantly how they are actually quite intertwined.

Angel Gabriel who came and had tea and biscuits with Jesus mum Mary. She needed cheering up as she was a bit depressed for standing out like a sore thumb in middle east, having blonde hair, blue eyes, and to top it off, a bun in the oven that need a lot of explaining. I am surprised so few people know it was the very same Angel Gabriel that help Prophet Mohamed cobble the Koran together.

Its not that I am getting all Alaluya on everyone, my point is how a tumour and religion can be seen in the same light. Both were originally set up to help with life, the splitting and creation of cells to produce the road map for life, and religious doctrines laid down to create ground rules so a stable and prosperous civilization can be managed. In both cases they mushroomed and have changed into an uncontrollable mass that is now doing the polar opposite to its original intent. All sounding a bit deep and heavy, better shave my beard and put the soap back in the box.

It turns out this is hospital is partially church funded, which explains the suspiciously large number of images of our Norwegian friend on a cross. The clinic who will be carrying out the operation, has taken over the whole top floor and have their own ICU within this building.

Dr. Schultz is nothing like his name suggested, no jack boots and had a good sense of humour. We were both the same age, It starts to hit home you are getting old when President, Prime ministers, and Neurosurgeons are younger than you.

I was the 5th architect he had seen with the same tumour, does that mean in a few years time, like asbestos, space suit clad men will be removing drafting pens from evacuated architectural offices. Apparently my tumour is cystic, it is not solid meat but contains areas of goo. Good news, it means if you pop the cyst the tumour is not as big. The bad news, if I go down the star wars zap route complications may occur. Imagine a sausage with a small water filled balloon inside. How the sausage reacts in a microwave would be a tad unpredictable, the sausage carnage could be removed from the oven with a tissue, unfortunately the easy clean oven coating, is not an available option inside of my head.

If we go down the cut and paste route, The scalpel crew may leave a slither of tumour cell behind on the thin cyst wall, to preserve the nerves that control the face, tongue, eyes and swallow reflex. The way to picture it, imagine you have to clear a lawn of weeds, but there's a huge sleeping and very hormonal Rottweiler in a corner of the garden, you can pick all the weeds around him. I am willing to bet, you would leave the ones underneath him rather than risk having your face chewed off, hoping they will shrivel and die under the weight of Tyson. There is a risk the tumour may regrow from the leftover cells, and if so, I will have to face this whole thing again in five -ten years time.

He sat on the fence when it came to Zap or Slice, saying I can swing ether way, which basically means he is terrified of lawsuits. I asked what would he do if he was on the cold steel slab and was faced with the choice, wise old turtle surgeon or a young gun, who has a lot more to loose from a career point of view? Humpty Dumpty should learn a thing or two from Dr. Schultz, like the coconuts in those fair ground stalls he could not be knocked off his perch. Is that why his room was so spartan? could he not decide on the curry house flock or pastel easy wash faux marble wallpapers. Maybe his name was spot on, just no nonsense and practical and high quality work, non of this unreliable Italian exuberance . Though he would probably freeze with indecision if California was hit with a 7.8 earthquake during my operation, but whats the chance of that happening, probably same as getting a brain tumour?

If I read between the lines, he did say the hospital is like any office environment there is a certain pecking order, and you have to respect that. Its thanks to the old boy Doctor they are on the world map, The fancy new architectural designed wing was probably his doing, in fact the sole reason I turned up on the doorstep was because of his reputation.

Each member of the governing committee, who are also golfing chums, all drive to work in nice comfortable cars thanks to Dr. Turtle research and journals. Which Judas on the committee will stand up and say thanks for everything, hand over the cheap quartz clock and wheel him out of the door? I notice the sell by date dilemma was brushed under the carpet with the original Dr. Mansion, he worked well into his 90s.

Next up was Dr. Number 3, a highly recommended Dr. Woodman, the room we sat in belonged to the infamous Dr. Mansion Junior, looks like he was still busy in the photocopy room. Is Dr. Woodman so crap he does not even get a room? was he promoted last year to the broom cupboard?

We heard the Doctor just outside the door, he obviously employs the same choreographer as Dr. Greenman. He was talking about some previous patient who had too high expectations after the surgery and he needed help fending off her calls.

Turns out he has the same first name as me so that was the deal clincher, his teeth was suspiciously straight and white, and made all the more noticeable by his even more suspect tan.
No daft tests this time, he just looked over the scans and confirmed that his partner in crime was Dr. Schultz. His green surgeon shell suit looked well pressed, I liked the guy, turns out a lot of ladies ask for him because he is cute. A little bit too cute and groomed if you ask me, I would say he bats for the other side. Apparently he never lost a person on the operating table, implying that others have? or had a case of total facial paralysis. There again my idea of "total" facial paralysis and surgeons are somewhat different, in the surgeons book, if you stick a burning fag end on the face and there's a slight twitch from a hair on the left buttock then the surgery was a success.

It was a tough call, the old boy with 3000 operations under his belt or cutie with 800 operations to his name. Wife did have a good point if there's a complication in 5 or 10 years time, will the old boy still be around? It boiled down to a flick of a coin. Looks like Orange Tan Ivory wins.

We are then sent off to meet the surgery counseling department. I was expecting some blonde matron with big boobs whose job was to stroke my head saying "there, there, it will all be OK" instead we get a woman who works part time as a prison guard, her job was to deal with all the nitty gritty stuff like money, booking in the surgeons, all the complex paperwork and getting patients to polish her jack boots. In the end she was actually very helpful in a no nonsense kind of way, and the slap across my face with the black calf skin gloves was just what was needed. She didn't beat around the bush when it came to dealing with us parting with large sums of money, and with her frown and pen hovering over the diary no one dared to be wishy washy with the proposed surgery date. We came out a bit stunned, have to admit we were not planning on fixing a date but glad we did.

Everything was signed and sealed, all that was left to do was collect some medicine to be used three days before the surgery. That is it, all done at least for the next 6 weeks there's nothing more to worry about. It was a calm surreal experience after the months of heartache, headaches, soul searching, trauma and tears. We left the hospital with a folder full of paper work and a bottle of antibacterial shampoo, which is a bit odd as I have no hair.

Feathers?

Some people feel body malfunctions should be kept private but its not like I need adult nappies, well at least not at this stage, I am unlikely to embarrass anyone by asking them to help take out the preparation H from the fridge, and give me a hand applying it. Sooner or later it will be obvious that somethings up, if the surgery all goes as planned, I will still be very wobbly if people understand why, then I don't have endure church going folks tutting because they think I have used vodka in my cornflakes.

The combination of the British stiff upper lip and the Japanese inscrutability probably helped my parent be pretty unfazed about the news. Either that or they suspected something was amiss for years but never mentioned it, like my brother said "It explains a lot".

I will probably be in a wheel chair for a while, its great when flying you really get the royal treatment, but once out in the real world its strange how people don't want to look at you, not so much that they are afraid they might catch the same virus that prevents you from using your legs, but more due to the social conditioning that its rude to stare, and being in a wheel chair really puts you out there. The avoiding eye contact game you normally find in a tube train is everywhere, the lack of Kenny G lift music really drives it home. Its great when someone comes up to you and say that's looks a bit painful, it breaks the morgue like atmosphere, you can talk about it.

Years ago a colleague of mine was being introduced to a friend who was wheel chair bound because of a car accident. Seeing the chair my colleague spoke very slowly, and really hammed up the lip motion like some Christmas pantomime. I still cringe just thinking about it.

One school of thought is to pretend people who are obviously not normal are perfectly normal, bit like being told never to mention the war when you meet Germans. When I first met old Gamy legs, he turned up in a car and I just had to ask how he drives, he was more than happy to show me how he controls it with just his hands.

Since my news has slowly done the rounds, even people I don't even know comes up to me and ask how I am feeling. This year my birthday wishes came not just from the credit card and pest control company, but from folks I have not heard from in years. Even the cashier from the toy shop offered to help me get fit for the operation, she is a jogger and asked if I would like join her running group. Anyone would think I just won the lottery, its gives you great faith in humanity again.

We made it to Los Angeles and there was only 4o of us on the jumbo size plane, There is no denying the new 80cm seats are wide, but boy are they stiff and flat which means you slide around like Torvil and Dean. Why don't they just give everyone hammocks?

The US immigration must have attended some sort of courtesy training course, they have figured out not everyone in the world speaks English. Even the walls have official notices stating how government staff should treat visitors. In the past I have seen them yelling at some poor Japanese business man to get behind a yellow line, and when he didn't understand they just yelled louder, and became very aggressive towards him what kind of welcome to a guest of your country is that? Imagine it the other way round a Japanese immigration officers yelling in Japanese to an American holiday maker. They are the front line and its the first impression of a place that makes the biggest impact, this time I have to admit they were pleasant to deal with.

We rented a car, the top of the range Lincoln Navigator, the dashboard had dials that wouldn't look out of place in a Sopworth Camel, and like the local cheese cake it was the size of a house. Just turning the ignition key probably produced enough green house gasses to fill a zeppelin, but when in Rome do as the Romans do. The first port of call after the hotel and toilet was the hospital to meet and pick my surgical team. The waiting room was a good indicator of the stages to be expected. There was the melancholic and newly diagnosed, wobbly old timers with canes and dark glasses, a number of folks with very sore 8 inch crescent scars behind their ears, and young girl in a sorry state, slumped in wheel chair with a bandage that was bigger than her head. Her view of the world was seen though a clear eye patch filled with goo.

Once in the doctor's room which looked disappointingly like any other doctors room from world war 2. Maybe I had too high expectations, visualizing a place with lots of lackeys in white boiler suits and clip boards. The place was supposed to look like a cross between Gods living room and the bridge of the Star Trek Enterprise. At least the building looks like it was designed by an architect with a bit of pride in his work.

With my eyes shut the nurse made me touch my nose, hop on one foot, clap my hands, then she caresses my cheeks with a feather. I am sure Henry VIII cod piece wearing physician would have done the same test. What happened to all the Arthur C. Clarke high tech tests? are there still medical supply stores that stocks feathers? probably on the shelf between the leeches and pointy black hats. During my recent dental check in Singapore I had X-rays carried out by some very impressive robots in a white room. Like a prop from space odyssey 2001 it spun around my head, though alone in the room I was accompanied by a creepy emotionless female voice. The machine probably sits there blinking at night wondering if it should fry the next human. I would feel I was getting better treatment if a moonlighting car welding robot dressed in all white plastic stabbed the feather in my eye.

Goals in Life

To snap out of my " I am now just flotsam on the sea of life with no paddle" mood, I changed my brand of coffee to the sort that would even curl the chest hairs of a Turkish bazaar carpet salesman.

After my cup of liquid tarmac, my paddle appeared , I got up and booked the flights to Los Angeles, turns out Singapore Airlines has scrapped all economy direct flights to LA the whole plane nose to tail is all business class, so much for the global down turn. I even booked the Disney hotel, does seem like a strange choice of accommodation, it would be the last place on earth someone with a brain tumour and associated migraines wants to be, but hanging out in mickey home turf is more too keep our toddler occupied while grown ups deal with men in white coats, sharp scalpels and big invoices.

There is no way I am going to operate on myself with a shaving mirror and a pair of knitting needles, so I accept it is still all out of my hands, but if I am going to go for surgery I can at least get fit, ask yourself this: who has a better chance of surviving major surgery, a 300 pound junk food fueled couch potato or a starving Marvin marathon runner? OK, the Chippendale talent scout will not be knocking on my door in 2 months time, but I have a target and a goal.

Things did not get off to a good start, every meal time I ordered the heart stopping Vindaloos, followed by the local Knickerbocker glory, and a side order of slow death in a bun. Theory being as one of the complication of the surgery is the loss of taste, this will be last time I may ever taste such culinary delights so may as well splurge out .

The surgeons will take a big chunk of bone and meat out from my head and chuck it in the green recycle bin. Just as you would use newspaper to protect your rare china in a box, to stop my grey gel from rattling around my head, the men in matching green shower caps will use a block of lard from my tummy. Being knighted Sir Cumference has its advantages, it really is in my case, you are what you eat. I just assume those six pack folks out there with no spare tire will have to use the fat off their bum cheeks, at least when you call them butt head they will have no choice but to agree with you.

I always thought the men in gyms are all genitalia challenged, they are pedaling furiously on bikes which mock them, mimicking their lives by also going nowhere. Take good look at the word endo"mor"phine, and you will know what I mean.

The wife cottoned onto my "not towing the line" health attitude, and taking a page form our communist cousins up north, she hired a Miss Whiplash to help with my re-education through corrective training.

There I was at the gym today in brand new shoes, and don't get me started on shoes, my last gym outing you only had the choice of Dunlop green stripe or socks and you carried a tube of white paste to make sure they looked clean. Took me three days to find a pair of "cross" trainers, that didn't look like it was designed by some ghetto gangster high on crack. There are shoes for every kind of sport and if you ask me they all look the same and ugly to boot, its all just some marketing ploy to get us to buy hundreds of plimsoles.

I can deal with the sort of training challenges normally thrown at chanting men in muddy polished black boots. Pull a train with my teeth? I will be up for it, lift a barbell with two bunny girls on ether end? bring it on. Shove my head in the loo, bury me alive, done it all before.

Miss. Whiplash is all new age incense burning Yogi type stuff, to me Yogi is brown, furry and has a suspect relationship with Boo Boo. My Lycra clad tormentor with the cattle prod keeps pointing out to me my "inner core" is weak and that does not mean its time to dig out the Viagra. One thwack of my belly and the rippling waves running up to my manboobs and back down again, also means my outer core is not so strong either.

Its quite amazing she twists me into all these positions where I can see my butt without a mirror, then ask me to lift a arm or leg by a few centimeters, no amount of hernia inducing straining can I do it. After 10 minutes I was begging Whiplash to untangle me or I will embarrass myself in my new and very stretched gym shorts.

The SAS should all grow long beards, wear thongs and have a go at this, the next time they go into battle, they just have to assume the position and the enemy will leg it when they see what they are dealing with.

For a long time Yoga to me was for nonces and women with a spandex fetish only there to meet like minded ladies in comfortable sandals. Now putting string in one nostril and pulling it out the other has my new found respect. I have to confess, I was in the yoga section of the local book shop I know its bit like admitting to wearing ladies underwear. I went to the last page of Inner core monthly, and there was a great after dinner party trick to impress the in-laws, the ultimate test of yogimanship, you have to squat on a bowl of warm salty water and suck it up your own bum.

I have found a new goal in life.

Flash floods

Hospitals are a bit like airports, some are architectural or technological wonders of the modern world, they have the compulsory Starbucks, porters dressed like they just stepped off the Flying Scotsman, and in both cases people visiting them are on some sort of journey, but no one actually wants to be there, everyone wants to move on and pass though it as fast as possible.

The difference, in a hospital they stick you in a outfit just long enough to cover your dangly bits, when seated you are like a bespectacled, ironed granny pants school girl, trying to clamp your legs tight for fear of terrifying the goldfish opposite you. In an industrial lit room that stinks of Dettol you are then told you are seriously sick, the indignity of all.

My problem is put into perspective, everyone of those folks behind the glass door of the terminally ill section will gladly swap their gremlins for a Quasimodo smile, a Captain Hook eye patch and a bit of the "just left the pub dizziness/nausea". At least I can go to a stationary shop and buy a 2010 diary knowing the pages will be filled, its an option many of those wandering around in a one size fits all garbage bin bag don't have. Instead of plastic flowers and the oh so 90s marble effect pastel wall paper, why don't hospitals get better gowns? I would feel a bit better being told I have days to live if I was dressed in a more flattering gown designed by some Italian poof.

As I was waiting in hospital for additional copies of my scan, I had a look at the free internet terminal. Its a good sign that while my spud was physically in my mind for the first time in weeks it was not on my mind, instead of Googling "tumour", I typed in "Seven wonders of the world" as it was on my things to do before I die list.

There are seven natural wonders, seven man made wonders, seven modern wonders, seven ancient wonders, some of which only exist as a lump rock in the middle of a busy roundabout that doubles up as a handy dog loo. So who ever choose "Seven" lacked a bit of foresight.

To top it off, the wonders that are chosen varies and depends on who you ask. It is like after loosing all your chums in an avalanche, your fingers are still stuck to your ice axe 50m below you, finally you reach the summit of mount Everest. You survey the majestic scenery, then through the corner of your frost bitten eyes you notice you are on the wrong mountain. It could turn out the seven wonders that you managed to visit in your final last ditch effort are the wrong seven, it should have been Borobudur temple instead of Machu Picchu.

The House Ear Institute, started by Mr. House in the 50s specialises in my spud and developed the method of surgery, even the tool used during the operation is called a House Urban Dissector, a fancy name for a microscopic vacuum cleaner.

The main man obviously is Dr. House Snr, but unless there is a radical new approach to surgery by séance he cant help me, he is dead. So main man number two appears to be Dr. Brackman, interesting not Dr. House Jnr. who actually works there but maybe he got in thanks to his Dad pulling a few strings or ears and Junior is just kept busy in photocopy room.

Dr. Brackman even developed a special scale of measuring facial paralysis, doctors being a creative lot, he chose an imaginative title, The Brackman Scale. 1 is normal, 6 you look like Arnold Schwarzeneggar taking bullets in the Terminator.

They say go with your gut feeling, which basically means there is no right answer. This day and age humans can prepare to send men to Mars, create black holes in linear accelerators. Yet for the simple bit of chewy grizzel in my head, there is no real 100% solution.

I woke up in the same frame of mind as Julius Caesar on the banks of the Rubicon, when he shouted to his first mate, "Damn the Greek torpedoes, full steam ahead" . Gut feeling told me to call Brackman up and say, "Let roll and get this bugger out".

Three surprising things happened, first the initial impression that he sounded a bit pissed during our conversion, was now put it down to his Californian laid back drawl.

The second surprise, there should have been a warning sign near me "Do not play in the storm drains sudden flash flooding may occur"just after the I hung up, I balled my eyes out like a right girl. That was totally unexpected, and even now as I write about it sends a shiver down my manlike spine. I have been so busy researching I did not really think about the implication, this was the first step that really confirms it is all real. The hope that I will be getting a call saying there was a mix up with the MRI scans is not going to happen.

You can be a muscle bound meat head that can crush beer cans with your butt cheeks, as smart as Mr. Stephen "quantum physics" Darlick in his wheel chair, rich as some Cambodian drug Lord. It will make zip all difference, that is what really got to me.

The cause, the symptoms, and the eventual treatment is out of my hands. Like a plane crash there is nothing you can do, on a ship or a train at least you can fight your way out and jump off, even in a bus you can dive forward and try and steer the thing, in a plane crash you just have to sit there and finish the inflight movie and wait for the spectacular fireball to come barreling up the now very bent aluminum tube.

The third surprise, I checked Dr. Brackman CV, very impressive he worked in the heads of Heads of States, Royalty, thousand of similar operations under his belt, but his birth date showed he was born when Florence Nightingale was still doing her rounds, he just turned 70, I have seen my dad who is also in his seventies park his car and the number of dents in it made me very worried.

Magic bullet

I can see why those poor desperate folks turn to snake oil peddlers, give me a few months and who knows I too will be chanting Urdu, under a magnetic pyramid while trying to balance a yogi blessed Himalayan kryptonite crystal on my on my head.

I have been hunting for the holy grail of treatments, a blue bubbling tonic in a glass vial, that will suddenly make everything normal again.

Bottom line I have two choices, well three if you include doing nothing which actually seem like a good idea as I have no symptoms, feels odd to effectively give a neurosurgeon a new Aston Martin so I can have a go at Russian roulette with the potential out come of the hammer hitting the handy orange Disable Parking bullet. If I leave it things will get more complicated, a stitch in time and all that.

So the two real options are Zap it with some Buzz Lightyear ray gun or make a big hole in my head and cut it out.

The local surgeon suggested he book me in to his clinic in two week time, stick a special Harold Robins like hat on and zap it for 20 minutes, then I can go home for a salad. Call me an old cynic, but like Gandhi once said if its too good to be true...

I did some more research and our "bit too laid back" Doc failed to mention the hat required a Black and Decker cordless drill and raw plugs, its screwed directly into your skull. The reason it has to be fixed, if I twitch during the Chernobyl like gamma ray firing there will be, as our American cousins say "collateral damage" which can range from slightly crisping the edge of a near by Arab kebab to totally vaporizing a Baghdad convent school for blind children.

It can take months if not years to see if it worked, as it is still flesh and part of me, it tends to expand, gets blistered and really upset when microwaved. This expansion may cause all sorts of complications as it twangs around all the nerves that pass through the tumour. So when your eyeball starts spinning like a jackpot machine and and you are on your knees barfing up from motion sickness, you really don't know if its because you are getting better or worse.

The icing on the cake, it could turn cancerous and if it still keeps growing then separating a now crispy, gnarled, scar covered and very pissed off tumour from hair like nerves will be a challenge of biblical proportions on a microscopic playing field.

If I went down this Dr. No route every time I forget my keys or drool a bit of Wheatabix in the morning it would be a full on Allah Akbar rush to the local ER to check if its just given birth to an even uglier offspring.

Option 2 cut it out, sounds easy enough, but your head is like a modern car, open the bonnet everything is covered and sealed, you would be hard pushed to find the dip stick let alone the spark plugs. Big yellow signs warning "Warranty Void if Opened" are there for a reason, its not designed to be messed with. If GAWD intended us to tweak around with our brains then a handy hatch would have been provided bit like the mouth for maintaining the teeth.

Once my bonce is open the neurosurgeon using microscopes has to try and scrape and cut away the tumour without cutting or bending any of the facial nerves, the surgery means the removal of the balance section of the inner ear, so when you first come out, for the next few days will be like setting up a bed on one of those spinning tea cup rides. Most end up with some form of facial paralysis, bit like that just left the dentist feeling, when you drink it all dribbles out the numb side. There are horror stories of having to stitch shut one eye, as you wont be able to feel when its drying out and turning into a raisin. Another odd one, you may not be able to walk in the dark, your body is now totally reliant on your eyesight to figure out if your are standing perpendicular to mother earth, if its dark you crumple into a heap on the floor. Lets not forget a common and life threatening problem of brain fluids leaking out of your nose and eyes months after.

The outcome of both options are so unpredictable. Here is my best analogy assuming you can get the best surgeons at the best hospitals, then you have the choice of a Mercedes, BMW, Lexus as opposed to Proton, Kia, Cherry.

Then there is the size of the tumor a small one means you get a concrete block about the size of an oil drum, medium size a block the size of a golf cart, and big, we are talking about a car like size lump of concrete.

Mine is medium, so lets stick this golf cart size lump of concrete at the end of a runway. I then have to get into the car of choice and drive at 50 mph straight into the block.

What I will be like after the dust and fires have settled is anyone's guess, some people just open whats left of the door and flick off the broken glass and plastic and walk away, others are crippled and some though only a few these days don't come out at all.

That is my bullet, a leather seated one with a Mark Levinson sound system. Heading down the runway, it has all the ABS, multi airbags, traction control, HUD, but the result of the impact? there is no magic with my bullet.