Just for the hell of it, I called into the Med Centre on the way to work this morning. Today's excuse being that AM wanted some stuff collecting and I thought I may as well get my usual repeat ahead of the trip to the UK for (Ugh!) Christmas. No problem you'd think, except that it looked suspiciously like they were waiting for me...

Medical type person: "Ah, I'm glad you called in, I need to speak to you"

Me: "Have the results have come back then?"

MTP: "Yes, and we're not happy about this figure here"

He points at a circled figure two hours into my OGTT

MTP: "Normally at this point we'd expect to see your blood sugar levels coming down rather further than they have"

He calls the Doctor over who's sat at the back of the office shuffling paper

Doctor: "Well we've looked at this and there's no doubt that this confirms the diagnosis of diabetes, so you won't need to do an OGTT again"

I think they call that last bit a crumb of comfort. Bugger! Not what I had in mind, it seems that the body is disintegrating still further. The almost religious attempt at starvation last week before the test didn't help much then.

Doc: "Do you consume a lot of soft drinks and sugary foodstuff?"

Me: "No. I've known for a while that 'full fat' softies make me feel odd"

Doc: "Well it's not like you're overweight or have any of the other high risk contributing factors [he means I don't smoke], so given these readings, I'm not going to wait another three months to assess whether your blood sugar levels can be bought under control just by changing your diet. I'll start you on the tablets straight away."

Oh good, more fucking tablets!

Doc: "MTP, would you get a couple of packs of unpronouncible patented diabetes remedy? Now, I'd like you to start these with your largest meal of the day. They can have some side effects when you start them, nausia, light headedness, that sort of thing..."

Sounds just perfect, the very thing almost

Doc: "So start with one a day for a few days, then gradually build up to three a day. They help promote the production of insulin. As we get older, we all start to lose the ability to control our own sugar levels"

Thanks for the reminder. MTP returns with two large boxes.

Me: "Can I get my repeat too?"

Doc: "What do you have?"

I reel off the usual array

Doc: Ah well, we don't really like giving that one to people over 40 unless they've had this medical procedure done.

He mentions something involving a camera...

Doc: "I'll get a referral made up. There are much better things to take than those ones anyway"

That will be more tablets then will it? I suspect it might.

10 minutes later, I'm out of there, with a letter, a copy of my OGTT result and a bag containing five different types of drug counted out in hundreds. What a way to start the week! It's a good job nothing is going wrong any further down, they'd have me on the little blue pills in a heartbeat.

As you'd expect, AM is not happy about all of this. It seems that every time she flies out of the Magic Kingdom (like she will this evening), I end up finding out something 'interesting' about myself, like this. It would be fair to say, that I don't choose the timing, but I know what she means.

'Life's a piece of shit, when you look at it', or at least that's the way the song goes. I wonder when the next health turd is going to get lobbed in my general direction? Funny thing is, I don't remember standing near any fans...

Lets get the hard part out of the way first - yes, I'm 48 years old tomorrow and there's nothing I can do about it...

Face it, given a choice there are not that many of us who would willingly get older if it wasn't actually required by the laws of nature. Who wants to suffer indignity of slowly but surely disintegrating and watching as younger folk do things that you once thought easy, when you know that to try it once more would almost certainly end with a trip to casualty or at the very least a chiropractor. Not too much to be done on that score though, so I'll pretend it isn't happening until something tears.

Looking back on the life I've had to date, I find myself wondering whether it was as much of a life as it could have been. Did I try hard enough along the way, were there mistakes I could have avoided, were there opportunities missed; 20/20 hindsight would probably point out a few choice moments where in true Sliding Doors fashion an alternative reality could have had its chance.

In many senses, my life has been relatively easy and free from some of the trials other people are faced with. Born in the UK, no broken home to escape from, well educated but not at a university, never unemployed, happily married and competent, if not outstandingly so, at most things I choose to take an interest in. A steady if unremarkable life, riding over the waves if not at their very crest; head above water. Were you not to know me, it's unlikely you would notice me in the street or any other place for that matter.

None of the above meant to suggest that some how my life has been a breeze, there is much too much evidence to suggest otherwise. No one can go through the pain of divorce or the terror of being forced to confront your own impending mortality to think otherwise. The human animal is remarkably resilient though and it's amazing how soon such challenges are, if not forgotten, then at least parked far enough back in the memory that you can reflect on them in a semi-detached manner. I clearly can and will survive for a while longer yet.

Or at least until I stop...