Introduction, Preamble, Apologia Why? As a Dyslexic Extrovert when faced with whatever life throws at me, my first instinct is to bend someone's ear, and not put pen to paper (or keyboard!). News is there to be shared over food, wine and, in my case, the family and church. I have never felt a Pepys-like desire to keep a diary, or Clarke-like desire to use the pen to expose a political friend, foe or hubris. However, over the past couple of weeks, the world in which I find myself has driven me into the arms of the Journal, and, prompted by friends, it is these musing I now offer. On the 14th of April I found myself being examined, prodded and poked. I had tubes inserted, the tentative questions doctors asked, the caring administrations nurses bestowed; and for the first time in my life since my birth I spent a night in a hospital.  I had now entered a realm unwanted and uncharted, and what a tea-soaked Madeleine did for Proust , a cannula in the back of my hand did for me. I w