More on Aspiration.

One of the things that was worrying me about last week’s hospital visit was the appointment letter. It told me I was booked in for an ultrasound scan, which I knew about, and also for something called ‘US guided aspiration,’ which I didn’t (or thought I didn’t.) I wondered whether they suspected something and weren’t telling me. I wondered what ‘guided aspiration’ meant. Was it something to do with lungs, breathing, that sort of thing? Surely not; that would be ‘respiration,’ wouldn’t it? So I asked the doctor.

It seems that in the medical world, aspiration doesn’t mean what it means to the rest of us – you know, things we hope to achieve and so on – it means ‘sucking.’ It was all about sticking a needle in, guided by the ultrasound device, to take up some cells for testing. Well, I did know about that, so that was OK. And he decided it wasn’t necessary anyway, so that was OK, too.

Tonight I have my weekly treat of a bottle of London porter. It’s very nice and goes well with buttered toast.