So what was I so fussed about? It was an understandable assessment from my friend

So what was I so fussed about?

It was an understandable assessment from my friend. Hypochondria has long been virulent in my family, not least in me. Every headache, every twinge has been the precursor of something horrible – and then turned out to be nothing. My notes at the doctor’s spill from three of those brown envelopes. So what was I so fussed about?
Have you ever been swimming with trousers on? I once had to as part of a life-saving course at school. It’s no fun – trousers are nigh impossible to swim in, and when you get out of the pool, having rescued your drowning brick/plastic dummy/ fellow pupil, they’re pretty hard to walk in too. So it was rather a surprise to wake up one morning in September to discover that I was wearing soaking trousers.

It was an even greater surprise – bleary-eyed as I was at that time of the morning – to learn that I wasn’t.You see, I could feel the dripping garments with all their tightness and heaviness weighing me down, but I just couldn’t see them I hopped out of bed As usual, just a T-shirt on When I padded around, I could hardly feel my feet. Aled Jones may enjoy walking in the air, but I didn’t.Perhaps a doctor could help – but since we were on holiday in Spain, I wasn’t going to rush to a clinic there and then. My Spanish isn’t good enough: I can just about manage “nail”, but “pins and needles” is well beyond me. Best to wait for a week until we got home – the trousers would surely have gone by then. Anyway, the sensation wasn’t entirely unwelcome: one of the results was that I could now sleep with my feet touching each other, something I’ve always hated. I invariably keep Lucy awake as I thrash around in bed, trying to get comfortable Now, none of that It was into bed and straight to sleep So, let it go, I thought It’ll pass before we get home.It didn’t, of course It got worse.

Now I had a big purple bruise on my foot where I’d stepped on one of my daughters’ plastic fishing rods But I couldn’t even feel that.So, the doctor’s surgery. With autumn approaching, the waiting room was heaving with coughers and snifflers Being new to the area, I hadn’t met my GP before. After a series of pricks and brushes, straight-line walking and reflex tests, he tut-tutted and referred me on to a neurologist, Giles, in Colchester. Despite sporting that compulsory doctor’s neckwear, the bow tie (which one might have hoped had gone out of fashion after Harold Shipman), Giles was a friendly bloke – but seemed to agree with my friend’s diagnosis “Go away for a month A viral inflammation of the brain It’ll probably disappear. Come back in four weeks if it hasn’t.”So I went away, rather shamefaced, and waited for the symptoms to pass And, hey presto, they did But new ones came instead. The wet trousers were off, but now I kept bumping into things Walls, bollards, cars, lift doors.