Dear Readers, this morning it rained and rained, after nearly a month of tinder-dry weather and so, as I headed off to Whittington Hospital in North London for a routine thyroid check, I wasn’t surprised to see a whole host of snails enjoying themselves in the damp conditions along by the main hospital wall.  I have always had a soft spot for these molluscs, and I love the way that they glide along.

It’s fair to say that the many, many people walking down from the hospital were a little confused about what I might be doing, but most of them simply glanced and then gave me a very wide berth. After all, there is a wide variety of people in Archway, not all of them 100% benign, and so eccentricity of any kind tends to be a bit of a red flag. One small girl did stop and gaze at me, wide-eyed, before being ushered along by her mother. To think that she could have been another mollusc-fan, and we didn’t get a chance to swap notes! What a shame.

Anyhow, I went up to the imaging department, and was handed a pager (who knew that they still existed?) and told to go to Room 12 when it buzzed, which of course it did as soon as I had my reading glasses on. My appointment was for a thyroid ultrasound – the CT scan that I had a while back to try to find the reason for my cough found all sorts of strange anomalies, one of which was a slightly enlarged thyroid. I wasn’t worried because my thyroid function blood tests had all come back with normal readings, but I do love an interesting (and non-invasive) medical procedure. Fortunately there was also a young medical student in attendance so, as I lay there with my throat exposed like some sacrificial lamb, the doctor talked through everything she was finding – nodules, cysts, colloid and even (get this) some comet-tail artefacts – these happen in an ultrasound when it finds something reflective, usually just some kind of protein. Comet-tails are perfectly normal, and apparently a good sign.

An ultrasound with a comet-tail artefact (Photo from https://www.uptodate.com/contents/image?imageKey=ENDO%2F132420&source=graphics_gallery&topicKey=7859)

I do have a couple of tiny nodules that are too small for the ultrasound to investigate, apparently, so what the doctor is recommending is that I return for another ultrasound in about six months, and if there’s no change (which is what she expects) I’ll be signed off on the thyroid front.

And so I head off home, passing some more snails en route. What calming animals they are (apologies to anyone trying to grow vegetables; you probably take a rather less sanguine view)!

I have a great fondness for the Whittington – I credit it with saving my mother’s life when she came down with sepsis and complications back in 2015, and I have been here for numerous blood tests and X-rays and CT scans over the last six months. I have always found the people who work here to be helpful, kind and knowledgeable, from the volunteers who direct visitors around this maze of a building to the consultants and radiographers and nurses. Strangely enough, the place is starting to feel like home, much as it did when I was visiting Mum during her long stay eight years ago. I would rather not have any health problems (clearly) but as I do, I am so glad that this is my hospital.