I have suffered for many years from back acne. I don’t exactly have the healthiest-looking skin elsewhere on my body*, but I am distinctly more comfortable with my t-shirt on in public. Nevertheless, it was never bad enough to prompt me to approach the doctor and get antibiotics. That was until I got a boil.

This was almost exactly six months ago, for I remember going to an after-show party in early December and drinking alcohol-free Becks all night** because I was wary of mixing ethanol and penicillin. My mother, who is allergic to penicillin, has always been nervous about me taking antibiotics, but I reassured her that I had taken penicillin before to no ill effect. The only thing that worried me slightly was some digestive discomfort, but I chalked that down to the death throes of my gut flora. After two weeks of 500mg four times a day the boil went down, leaving a large cyst which my GP assured me he could remove under local. I then started the follow-on course of minocin (a tetracycline derivative) for the back acne, to prevent a relapse.

Within 48 hours I was in bed, shaking like a bad flu case and so depressed I was convinced I wouldn’t see the morning. It also made me so stupid I didn’t realise it was the antibiotic’s fault. It was only three days later (on Christmas Eve, no less) after I’d missed a dose due to travelling that I worked out what was going on. It took me nearly a month to get back up to full speed.

Meanwhile I went back to the GP to get tests done. Everything came back normal apart from elevated blood calcium – not dangerously so, but significant. The usual side-effects of hypercalcaemia are fatigue (check), digestive problems (check), depression (hard to tell, since I have a seasonal depressive disorder, but check), osteoporosis and kidney stones (oh please, no). More tests (including the now infamous “bring your own pee to work day”) and a chest x-ray later, I was diagnosed with primary hyperparathyroidism, which came as something of a relief considering the likely alternatives (e.g. sarcoidosis).

I was referred to a consultant endocrinologist, who arranged some more tests. The most interesting of these was the sestimibi scan: this involved being injected with a large syringe full of radioactive technetium-99 and lying perfectly still with my nose pressed up against a photographic plate for five minutes each time at increasing intervals – this ended up taking most of the day. I didn’t see the moly cow itself, but I did end up with a funny taste in my mouth for a few hours, and I got some reading done.***

Diagnosis: lower right parathyroid adenoma. This is good, as I have four parathyroids and can live quite happily without the broken one. I was therefore referred to a private surgeon for a minimally invasive parathyroidectomy. A month later, having heard nothing and still feeling the depression, I booked a last-minute holiday to Australia to visit my brother and Get Away From It All. Of course, Sod’s Law intervenes and I get my surgical consultation for the week before I’m due to come back. I try to reschedule, but the earliest date I can get is three weeks later, as the surgeon only opens his private clinic on Mondays, and there’s a bank holiday in the way.

I go to Australia anyway, because I Need To. While I’m there the fatigue and depression recede slightly – sunshine really does help.

The surgical consultation (running late, and mercifully brief) consists of the surgeon going through the exact same questionnaire as the endocrinologist, before declaring his agreement with her suggested course of action. He does give me the pleasant news that as it will be keyhole surgery**** they will superglue me back together instead of stitching. I will still have a small scar on my neck – two fingers up from the sternum and about the same wide – but they’ll only keep me in hospital for one night, if even that.

Of course, when I went for the pre-screening on Friday last, they felt legally obliged to tell me all the ways it could go wrong. If they can’t find the offending gland with the endoscope (they’re only 2mm across), they’ll have to give me the “second smile” full thyroid opening (which involves cutting the muscles) and stick the fingers in. Or they could damage the right recurrent laryngeal nerve (an odd beast if ever there was one), which can lead to problems with, you know, speaking, breathing, that sort of thing. Am I worried about that? No. The thing that freaks me out is the general anaesthetic. One of Poe’s little slices of death, like sleep and boredom.

I go under the knife in about 36 hours, subject to OR availability. And I’ve still got that damn cyst…

* I am a typical Irishman: dark hair (going white these days), blue eyes and ginger skin.
** Surprisingly pleasant, although I still prefer the real stuff.
*** I have an ever-increasing stack of novels to get through, but most days I struggle just to stay up to date with the news.
**** Radioisotope-guided endoscopy – that means a funny taste in my mouth again I suspect.

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