Two hernias were not on my dance card for 2026.
They were discovered during my abdominal CT scan last week.
The scan also revealed why I need to pee three times overnight: Freddie the Fibroid is using my bladder as a water bed.
The results of my gastroscopy and colonoscopy were also unpacked during yesterday’s hour-long appointment with my GP.
I have reflux and focal active colitis, which could be serious or could be nothing.
Oh, and I’m being sent for another CT scan to look into the ground-glass opacity in my right lung. Plus I need another blood test to check whether my cholesterol levels have improved.
And my GP wants me to go to an immunologist and test whether I’m really, truly allergic to Penicillin. How dare he doubt Cessnock Hospital’s early 1970s evaluation!
All these tests and specialists mean I’m getting soooooo close to cracking the Medicare Safety Net threshold. Exciting!
I also got my GP’s opinion on whether I have an age spot or deadly mole on my hairline (verdict: age spot) and ran him through my self-diagnosed TMJ dysfunction.
What’s TMJ dysfunction? I’m so glad you asked. The temporomandibular joint (TMJ) is the joint on either side of your jaw, connecting it to your skull. It allows you to speak, eat, swallow and make facial expressions.
Mine is playing up. It hurts to open my mouth wide enough to insert my toothbrush and biting into a ham and cheese baguette is a pain.
(While walking with a school mum recently – and talking a mile a minute – I informed her that I was having trouble opening my mouth. She said something along the lines of “you could have fooled me”. Rude!)
There’s no time to go to a dentist to get the TMJ checked out before I go away, so my GP has given me some anti-inflammatories to tide me over. Although I have to be careful because they can counter-intuitively increase the inflammation in my colon.
It’s a balancing act.
And don’t get me started on my GP’s request that I lose weight and join a gym.
After my holiday, mate. I need a break.
Song of the day: REM “Everybody hurts”
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