The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long...

Late afternoon Tuesday the 17/10/2006, I’m on my back inserted into the MRI at Kingston Hospital. Despite the headphones piping cheesy music it’s still very noisy inside. I’m pulled out of the cylinder after about half an hour. The radiographer assures me that I’ll be called with the results the following day and I leave.
That night I’m calm. I’ve already rationalised that I have a small brain haemorrhage. I know this can be remedied quite easily with either medication or a small operation. After all, it made sense; stress or exertion seemed to bring about my seizures. I reasoned that this was likely caused by blood pressure building up causing the weakened intracranial lesion to swell and ultimately press on the same area in the brain thus eliciting the same sensations of Presque vu, olfactory and auditory hallucinations and eventual disorientation. I thanked God that I took that module of Physiological Psychology at University. I knew that it would pay off one day.

Early afternoon Wednesday the 18/10/2006, the phone in the living room rings. It’s the dashing doc’s secretary. He wants to see me later this afternoon. Feelings of dread and fear well over me.
A couple of hours later I’m ushered into his austere but spacious office. As the doctor offers me a seat I glance to my left to see him put up what appears to be an x-ray of what must be my skull on an illuminated wall mounted x-ray reader. I identify it before he can utter another word. A large white mass, like a clenched fist, sitting behind my right eye. His words fall on me like hammer blows to my body. “I’m afraid you have a large brain tumour” I look again, this can’t be true, this sort of thing happens to other people. “Tumour?” “Yes”, he replies, and then the words start ‘bouncing off me’, words that no amount of training in psychology could prepare you for. Words such as ‘astrocytoma, inoperable, mortality. Nausea wells up in my stomach, I cup my head in my hands and begin to weep like an inconsolable child. “But I was a good cop”. “And you still are”. “How long has this thing been in my head?” “There’s no way of telling”, comes the reply. “Typically, they’re very slow growing. Could be ten, fifteen years, could be longer”. I start to think back on all the things I have done with this ‘time bomb’ in my skull. I bloody climbed the Glyder range in Wales. Negotiated Corno Grande, highest peak in the Apennines. I’ve scuba dived underwater mountains in the Med. Raced solo across Europe on a Kawasaki, and got myself through the tough training at Hendon police academy, all with this crap growing away, festering. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain. It’s now my time to die. “Look, in my experience tumours such as these are largely benign. However, we won’t know until we have a biopsy performed. In the meantime, I’m writing you a prescription for anti-epileptics. We’ll be in touch with a date”.
I float to the hospital dispensary. Hand shaking I pass the prescription across the desk, I’m given a number. Mercifully, I’m alone in the waiting room. I stand with my back to the pharmacists and sob quietly.