A woman with one shoe and a swollen ankle, whose partner had gone off to hit up the vending machine, looked over at our little group. “From what I’ve seen,” she said, “I’d fuck her”—she indicated Andi—“marry her”—that was Priya—“and—”
“I know.” I flung my hands in the air. “I know.”
* * *
So, having a baby, it turned out, took a while. And since we’d brought Bridge to hospital, it would have looked some kind of way to drop her and bog off like we were delivering a HelloFresh box. On the other hand, it also felt a bit weird to be bunging up the hospital waiting room for literal hours for an event that didn’t typically have spectators. I mean, unless you counted partners and medical professionals. Or, assuming the history I’d learned from TV was accurate, an entire medieval court.
To make matters worse, not only had I fucked up by starting a sequence of events that had inevitably led to my heavilypregnant friend going into labour on the Millennium Bridge at three in the morning, but I’d fucked further up by trapping myself in a waiting room with two-thirds of a throuple I wasn’t part of. So while I was stewing internally about six different things at once, Priya was resting with her head on her girlfriend’s shoulder looking tired and comfortable and—I tried not to take this personally—contented.
Normally I could at least have distracted myself with my phone, but about an hour ago I’d texted Oliver—my very amazing partner who I lived with and was getting a dog with some time in what was now very definitely this afternoon—the wordsBridge in labourandAt st thomases, with no further explanation. So now I was terrified to even look at the damned thing.
So I went to the vending machine and bought nothing. Then having barely got back to my seat, I went to the vending machine again in the vain hope that the selection had magically changed. Then I walked over to the window. Then another window. Then I began to realise quite how surrounded by cheerful NHS posters I was.
Just ask: Could it be sepsis?
I went back to the vending machine. I was pretty sure it wasn’t sepsis, and I thought asking now would probably be a bad call.
1 in 8 men will get prostate cancer: Early diagnosis saves lives.
Maybe it was what Oliver would call a cognitive bias, but I felt like I was seeing prostate cancer stuff alotlately. And that wasn’t the context in which I usually liked to think about my prostate.
I glanced across the room and saw a group of serious-looking sportsmen who I hoped might offer me some advice about, say, general fitness.
Prostate cancer: It’s not a game.
Okay, not that one then.
Lads, get in early…for prostate cancer testing.
I knew I had a lot of personality flaws. Like, a lot of personality flaws. But I’d never, really never, thought hypochondria was one of them. Except I was pretty sure there was a hard limit to the number of times you could be told about prostate cancer without coming to at leastsuspectthat you have prostate cancer.
I went to the loo. While I was there, I tried very, very hard not to read too much into the flow of my urine. I did try to ask if it could be sepsis, but I wasn’t really sure what theitwas. And at least if it was sepsis, it wasn’t prostate cancer.
Fuck, was I turning into my dad? My dad who definitely did not have prostate cancer. Who had in fact probably left me with a genetic predisposition towardsnotgetting prostate cancer. Although also with one towards thinking I had it.
While I was washing my hands, a picture of an uncomfortable-looking baby urged me toKeep your child safe from rickets, which was a whole different can of worms because I didn’t have a child but Iwasplanning to get a dog, and while I didn’tthinkdogs could get rickets, I wasn’t really sure. What if my future dog got rickets? What if it was my fault my future dog got rickets?
Don’t face dementia alone, I was warned on the way back to my seat. And I hadn’t been planning to. Although to be fair, I’d also not been planning toBoost your immunity this winter, and I maybe should have been because, like, herd immunity was still really important and stuff.
OUCH! Could it be chlamydia?
It could, I thought. It could also be sepsis.
I sat down at last, picked up the rapidly cooling cup of coffee I’d bought on vending machine trip number two, and found myself staring right down the barrel of:
A man dies every hour of prostate cancer in the UK.
In desperation, I picked up my phone, because at this stage Oliver’s inevitable string of decreasingly confused and increasinglydisappointed messages was going to mess with my head a lot worse than the NHS trying to convince me that I had a small but highly specific range of medical conditions.
Lucien where are you?
Having reread your message I assume you are at St. Thomas’s Hospital with Bridget.
Why are you at St. Thomas’s Hospital with Bridget?
Having thought about it I assume it’s because you were with her when she went into labour.
Why were you with Bridget when she went into labour which seems to have happened some time before 4:30 this morning?
