At the end of the Christmas school term, I travelled to my mother-in-law’s to recuperate following what I had assumed was a bad bout of flu. I purchased Cormac McCarthy’s new novels with a view to relaxing. I was slightly concerned that my right wrist and left knee were bruised and swollen, but put it down to the after-effects of a few weeks’ bed rest.
Over that first weekend the swelling around my knee spread up my thigh and became so severe that I had to ask my son to put on my sock as I couldn’t bend my leg. On the Monday I limped to the local GP, where I was seen by a young doctor. He admitted he didn’t understand the cause of the swelling and decided he would do a blood test himself there and then.
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