A belated scare

Oops – a bit of a scare.

I needed a urine test last week when I thought I’d picked up an infection in the waterworks; it showed no infection – but traces of blood.

Minute traces. I hadn’t noticed anything, but I had been a bit sore in the pipework, possibly connected to unusually (for me these days) prolonged…how can I put this delicately…relations.

I was sure that’s all it was, but my GP ordered another test of the urine, for red blood corpuscles. RBC in doctor’s shorthand.

Coupled with the fact we’d neglected to include PSA in my annual bloodtests last November, this news certainly sent a shiver down the spine.

Here I am nearly seven years down the track from a prostatectomy and so far clear of prostate cancer, and thinking nothing can go wrong now. Surely.

That’s foolish, of course. When I last checked, the medical authorities were saying you need to be clear at least a decade.

I peed in the polystyrene cup on Monday morning, the GP’s nurse decanted a sample into a phial, wrote the paperwork, and sent me off to the lab to hand it in.

Then, the wait. How long before they ring with the result?

Nothing by Thursday. So I rang. The GP’s nurse told me to hang on while she checked. It took forever, it seemed, but was only a couple of minutes.

Then: “You’re clear. Nothing was found.”

Big phew. Gigantic phew.

Why hadn’t they called? My wife says GPs don’t these days, if the news is good. Only if it’s bad.

How considerate.