No-one said it would be easy...

It's entirely possible I'm about to become what I believe they call a patronising bastard but forgive me my assumptions. I'm also probably going to be guilty of really crowbarring an idea in where a simpler and better explanation almost certainly lies. Again forgive me this but I have a lot of time on my hands.You see I've been thinking a lot about fractal geometry and my condition. They're particularly beautiful mathematical forms, as you can see below, but it's what they represent that I think is most interesting.

You see the thing about fractals is that at no matter what scale you look at them, they contain a repeating pattern. That is to say that if you zoom in on a particular area, you will simply see exactly the same pattern as you seen previously. This is, either depending on your point of view a symbol of increased simplicity or increased complexity. I'm not sure where I stand on that to be honest which is why I worry this analogy is a bit of a stretch. The reason that I mention this is because every single scan I get sent for these days seems to lead to the requirement that I be sent for another one because of what they found in the first one, and with this being the case I got to wondering whether that would actually be true for everybody. That we are all in our own quirky ways, kind of fractal in nature; that if you looked close enough at every human being on the planet with enough detail you'd find something that merits looking at in more detail. Yet when you do that you have to go into more detail again because of what you found and repeat ad infinitum.

Scientifically I also let my mind wander towards the idea that the more we analyse something and find answers, the more questions we invariably raise for future generations to study. We are the giants whose shoulders future generations will stand on and see farther (this is a massive overstatement of my part in the realm of science but I liked the thought behind it). I look at my T-Shirt with the Rutherford model of the atom (like the geek I am) and think what complexity we've unearthed in the relatively short time since he found out that atoms were mostly made up of nothing with a tiny wee solid bit in the middle. We've gone from there to muons and leptons and hadrons and the like and we'll no doubt find even greater complexity the more we look. Maybe that was a better analogy I was looking for now I come to think of it. 

The reason for this bout of navel gazing bollocks is that the relatively straight forward final fecking step in the extensive spectrum of tests that I've endured in the pursuit of a new set of lungs has turned out to be not so simple at all. The CT cardiogram revealed what they call a pericardial effusion which is fancy talk for saying there's a 2 cm long pocket of liquid in my pericardium, the sack that surrounds and protects your heart. Now this might be absolutely nothing and I'm worrying about fuck all but it could just as well be something, and that eats at my brain. I don't like not knowing things. I can only praise the docs involved because as soon as they found out about the effusion I got sent the same day for an echocardiogram which gives an ultrasound image of each part of the heart. I also only have to wait until wednesday to see the cardiologist to hear what they think which is an astonishingly rapid response from a clinic that I know is always packed because it's across from the respiratory clinic I go to. It might only be down to a virus or the chest infection that I'm still carrying about weeks and two courses of antibiotics later, but again I get to thinking it might actually be something and that's what led me to this musing on whether anyone would actually pass completely through the level of scrutiny I've gone through. I honestly think if you look hard and long enough at everyone you'll find a fault and I don't want to be ruled out of transplant because of mine.

I'm tired of being poked and prodded and stabbed with needles. By the end of the week it'll be three years since I walked into the hospital in Liverpool and it all went catastrophically awry for me and I'm feeling rather sorry for myself. I hope you'll pardon me for that but I think I've bloody well earned it.