Diary: Pain. It's All Relative

(Diary entry 12th June 2007) To King’s College Hospital where Isobella was born just a few days ago. This time on very different business. An endoscopy. “So called,” laughs Godfather John, “because it goes up your end.” He apologises for such a lame “crack” and for making me the “butt” of his jokes. These three merely the tip of the iceberg of bum gags. I wonder to myself at my choice of Godfather and role model for my child.

“We’re going to insert a camera,” I am informed by the doctor, “about the size of an index finger.” I wonder if I get to choose whose index finger we are using as a yardstick. Isobella’s index finger is tiny and would be perfect for my purpose. Unfortunately, it seems that one size fits all. And it would seem to be the Incredible Hulk’s index finger. With a bad case of swollen joints and arthritis. Perhaps a bit of water retention, too. And without having removed his rings.

Reflect, as I watch my innards in glorious technicolor on a screen that, a) I have indeed finally disappeared up my own arse as so many before had predicted and, most importantly, b) that I wont be able to complain to Karen about my discomfort given that she is still walking like a giraffe taking a drink and sitting on a rubber ring. “You would be, too,” she growls, “if you’d just passed a ping-pong ball through the hole in the end of our knob.”