Warts and all

More stitches this week, more docetaxel, more herceptin, more laxatives, more anti-naus. and more proof that lego is Danish for love.

Thursday morning, bright and early Mum, P and I pootled over to Burwood Hospital to have the suspicious lesion on my back checked out. Mr Plastic Surgeon was delighted to tell me that it looks totally benign, 'common in elderly people, not usually seen in someone as young as you - we call them senile warts'.

In my old life it was really easy to catalogue the awful things that have been said to me, but these days it takes something truly morbid to even get my attention. When you're having chemo your internal radar gets recalibrated. It's hard to summons the energy to care about anything except that which really matters. Life continues as before but in shades of grey. So being told I had a senile wart? Zero impact. Being confused for Ruth Dyson? Immaterial. Compare me with Ruth Richardson for all I care.

All that has really mattered this weekend is lego. T and I have reorganised the H family lego collection and in the process have rediscovered unique skills that I don't believe get appropriate recognition. No one would think of including them on their CV and yet I think they have what modern career wankers would call 'great cross-over'.

I am the world's undisputed best piece finder. T just has to say 'I need a dark grey 12'er two high with a nobbly jubbly to plug the waga daga into' and bang! I'm there. Surely this is a marketable skill. The ability to see through the mass of plastic and quickly identify the one piece that will do the trick. T is an excellent planner. If the piece we're looking for turns out to have been a casualty of one of the many natural disasters that have befallen us, he can work out whether it's critical or not. 'Don't worry Mum, I've looked ahead, and it won't matter if we use a blue 6er three times with a yellow pole rather than a green 18'. Hire him now.

I've stayed in bed and he has piled the pieces around me and together we've lego'd our way through the weekend. Sorting the pieces into individual colour piles has been strangely calming and provides welcome distraction from the competing internal complaints of chemo.

Next week I'll find out if the other plastics man was right - senile wart or something more sinister? If it's something worse than expected, I'm not afraid. I have three new pirate ships, a Starfighter and two fire-throwing, horse-drawn carriages on my side.