11th June ‘Everything flows and nothing abides, everything gives way and nothing stays fixed." Hiraclitus

11th June ‘Everything flows and nothing abides, everything gives way and nothing stays fixed." Hiraclitus

“Hindsight diagnosis”—I suppose all diagnosis is with the benefit of hindsight informed by the present—perhaps “historical diagnosis” is closer to what I mean, as I reflect on my steroid induced state. 

Looking at my behaviour historically, as a child, it is hard not to imagine that  I would not have had some sort of hyper active attention deficit (dis)order diagnosed. As a very small child, 2 or 3 years old, I was called by my charmless granny, ‘The TLB’. This I later discovered stood for ‘Tiresome Little Bugger’. My behaviour was such that whenever we turned up at her house, her salutation to my mother and father was, “why have you brought him?!”. 

I was thrown out of every birthday party until I was 11 due to unappreciative adults not delighting in my party piece: my mouth impersonating a rocket launcher using cocktail sausages as missiles. 

In the church choir, and later as a server, I constantly felt inner turmoil. All I wanted to do was run and shout, but I was compelled by stifling ecclesiastical mores to behave with sobriety and piety.

Time and middle-age have tempered these feelings, but they still occasionally emerge, and are met by its victims with the phrase, “I see Bouncing Bobby’s here!” 

In these moods Sarah’s bottom is smacked in profound admiration for some task performed or simply for being gorgeous, and silly songs rendered. However, at these times, to the house, I become, quote: “A bloody nuisance”.    

And so from uncontrollable (?) historic behavioural moods to uncontrolled physical mood changers. 

Something that has always struck me as a particularly cruel divine joke has been the physical impact of puberty. One day you wake and are profoundly, and uncontrollably, attracted to two things: the overtures of Eros and reflective surfaces. Hence, at the time when you feel the need to look you best in the eyes of others and self, your face resembles the Oxford Dictionary in Braille, and your head produces enough oil to warrant a visitation from OPEC. The emotional impact of this condition is then exacerbated by the loss of speech and dexterity. 

Both these mood changes have now revisited me with vigour, as my treatment involves five days of post chemo steroids. 

The first cycle was administered and experienced in the solitude of my isolation, the second within a household trying to treat this “bloody nuisance” with compassion. 

The first day I had the steroids a psychiatrist friend warned me that I would experience a heightened state. Heightened state!!! That night as I lay on my hospital bed listening to the movement of the fibres in my pillow, I decided to restructure the BBC, a task I am clearly unqualified to do, but one I felt more than up to performing at 3am. By 4am having satisfied myself that the Director General was in fact a Constitutional Monarch I came up with new Radio and TV Church Programmes - The Pews Quiz, The Gothic Archers, and most bizarrely Ecclesiastical Gladiators. By 4.45am in a brief moment of lucidity I realised I had become Alan Partridge pitching, Monkey Tennis.

That first night no one could hear these ramblings, or the lament at my fattening face over the next few days, COVID had put paid to my much-desired audience. This week all that changed. 

Tuesday at 3.15am I decided—as my legs buzzed—that sleep was for the weak, and unproductive, so I got up to encourage Ben in his legal ruminations, who I knew was doing some late night drafting. My solutions to his impending High Court case, and the clear way to resolve the impasse (which was so plain to me!), were met with a withering, “Can’t Bouncing Bobby, find something else to do?” 

I could, yes, by Jove I could. “Keble!!” The dog stirred, bewildered from her slumbers. “Was it Christmas, the man’s got a ball in his hand?! He never has a ball in his hand at this time.” Unsure quite what was going on she exited the French Windows gingerly, and dutifully squatted for a wee. Her expression on re-entering the house was enough to break the manic spell, and I returned to bed. Woke at 4.45am, did the ironing, three lots of washing, emptied the dishwasher, tidied the scullery, cleaned a hamper, and then, at 6.50am, sat bored. The day continued in a similar vein – I am sorry. 

By this date the second historical mood has become dominant. Gone was the manic activity, now the looking into the mirror. What is reflected back is a steroid fattened face, and patchy beard. Having only yesterday devised several designs for facial topiary, today a fleshy blob with intermittent turfs stares back. 

I am no longer TLB, but 13 years old; I really hope the steroids are doing their job!