My lovely lung lump

I met my lung lump quite literally by accident as a result of the cracked rib incident.

On my way home from work around 9:00pm on a cold May night, I became a scooter riding statistic as a car cut across my lane to make a left turn. In my tired state, I remember distinctly pondering my fault in the whole affair.  A light tap and I wobbled lazily out of control, embracing the pavement with my right ribcage at 50 km per hour as the car in question rode away into the oblivious distance.  With the breath knocked out of me, I did the funky chicken in the middle of the road as a few people stopped, and a few others drove over the median so as to continue on their way and not disturb my performance.

Thinking I should stop messing around and get home, I promptly thanked my audience and got on my way on my now road-rashed scooter.  Around 3:00am the next morning, I cancelled my Sydney trip for the sole reason that I realised that if I dropped something, I seemed incapable of bending over and picking it up.  That, and I was unsure who I could ask in Sydney to help dress me as I was not that close to the clients I was visiting.

The morning in the hospital confirmed a slight crack in the rib, to which not much can be done apart from enjoying the experience for 4 to 6 weeks.  As a result of my x-rays, the good doctors introduced me to my new friend the lung lump. I was then referred to another hospital via a referral from a GP.  I faxed my referral off and after an efficient 2 weeks later, I followed up and went in to see “the specialist”.

As we sat around pondering the digital image, the receptionist, assistant, doctor, and I all agreed it was a rather nice looking lung lump. But, to be sure, we need a third opinion from “the radiologist”. So the current state of play is I wait to see if they want to stick a needle in me to sample my lung lump or wait and see if it does anything exciting. I am leaning towards the needle out of sheer curiosity, and it is free under Australia’s health care system.

I am for the moment pragmatic about the whole experience. I have no control over the outcome, and I did not contribute to the situation, so my current stress levels are nill.  There is 100% chance it may be benign, and 100% chance it is not.  What the latter option is, I do not know.  No one has said the “C” word, but I can only assume cancer is what lumps hope to achieve when they grow up.

Yet the only thing that has changed for me is an awareness of something that was already there.  It is as if the discovery of our own mortality should come as a surprise.  We create this construct of a life and grasp so firmly to our designs.  When told we must let our intentions go, the propensity is to fight and rail against the unfairness of our temporal condition.  All a bit ridiculous, really.

Watch this space for updates, and I will try to get pics.  It really is a sexy lung lump.  If nothing else, I will likely submit it for the 2010 sexy lung lump edition of the Respiratory Radiologist Illustrated calendar.