By Diana Holbourn
Upset, Discussions and a Bit of Fun During Becky's First Year at University
Book Two of the online Becky Bexley series. Chapter 3.
This series accompanies the books about what Becky does at university and afterwards, which you can find out more about on my author website. (The online series is in draft form.)
In March, there was a worrying time for a while when a friend of Becky's from her media studies course called Clare confided in her one day, saying, "I think my little brother might have ADHD. We're thinking of taking him to a therapist to see if we can get a diagnosis. He has really bad tantrums, where sometimes he even breaks things."
Becky said, "Lots of children do that though. What makes you think your brother's got something wrong with him, apart from just being an ordinary boy? ... I mean, apart from having the kind of tantrums that an ordinary boy might have?"
Clare said, "Well, I think his are worse than most. His school have complained because he sometimes throws books and things around the classroom!"
Becky said, "That's not good! What makes you think it's ADHD that's causing it though? I mean, there might be lots of different things that could cause tantrums like that."
Clare said, "Well apart from his tantrums, he seems to find it hard to concentrate on his homework, as if he just can't pay attention to it. He's always wanting to get up and do other things, like play on the computer or with his toys, or just lounge around on his bed."
"There can't be many children who wouldn't prefer to play or do nothing than work!" said Becky.
Clare said, "I know, but you can hardly get him to sit down to do his work for more than a few minutes in one go! And work's not the only thing he doesn't pay attention to. When he's watching something on television, if you call his name, he'll just ignore you."
Becky said, "Aren't there jokes about how males often do that, but it really depends on what you're saying to them? If you ask them to take the rubbish out, they won't hear you, but if you say, 'Would you like me to get you a bag of chips?' they'll hear you and answer right away? Maybe you ought to experiment with doing that kind of thing with your brother!"
Clare smiled, but said, "Maybe, but I still think something's wrong. He makes daft mistakes in his homework that you just wouldn't expect someone of his age to make, as if he just isn't paying attention to what he's doing. And he's really really forgetful. Sometimes I say something to him, and he seems to have forgotten it the next minute, and he's always forgetting where some of his school things are in the morning, so getting him ready for school can be a bit stressful.
"And those aren't the only things. He's always fidgeting and tapping, and gets annoyed if he has to wait for anything, like if he has to queue for anything - he'll always try to push in at the front. We've been told that at school they've told him off for it a lot but he still does it.
"I know most of those things might not seem much on their own, but when you take them all together, there really does seem to be something wrong. I think the reason he has such bad tantrums is because he just gets really frustrated when he's made to sit down and concentrate on schoolwork or wait his turn, or the teacher keeps telling him off for the mistakes he makes and when he can't remember things, and that kind of thing. I've heard all those things are symptoms of ADHD, so I'm pretty sure he's got it."
Becky said, "Can you think of any ADHD symptoms he Hasn't got though? Have you ever read a full list of symptoms that it's common for people with ADHD to have?"
Clare looked slightly embarrassed and said, "Well no, I'm just going by things I've picked up from television programmes."
Becky said, "One common symptom is impulsiveness. Does he do things that could be dangerous sometimes without thinking first?"
Clare thought for several seconds and then said, "Well, when he has a tantrum, there's no knowing what he might do!"
Becky said, "Have you tried thinking of as many other conditions as you can that match the symptoms he's got? The things you describe could be symptoms of a number of things, not just ADHD. Do you think it's possible he could have a learning difficulty? It might be worth your family going to the doctor and seeing what they think. That could explain his memory problems; and you think he makes the mistakes he makes in his homework because he's just not paying attention, but what if he really genuinely can't do the work?"
Clare looked worried. She said, "I hadn't thought of that. Maybe we ought to take him to the doctor and ask about that."
Becky said, "Does he have any other symptoms besides the ones you've told me, maybe things you assume must be unconnected with his attention problems and tantrums so you think they must be to do with something different? I mean, one possible thing he might have, and I don't want to worry you, but I know the symptoms of lead poisoning can include irritability that makes children more likely to have tantrums, and learning difficulties. It can give people stomach aches too and they can sometimes be sick and not have much appetite. Is there anything in your house that could have given your brother lead poisoning that you know of, like pealing old paint, or does he play a lot with toys that might have been made in developing countries? Some of them don't have good regulations to stop manufacturers using harmful substances like lead in things. Does he put toys and things in his mouth a lot?"
Clare said, "That's bad! But it's interesting. Actually, he does complain of tummy aches sometimes. Sometimes we've wondered if he's just been trying to get out of school by pretending not to be very well."
Becky said, "Well, I wouldn't be surprised if it is that with a lot of kids, although sometimes it might be caused by butterflies in the stomach because school makes them nervous, especially if they're being bullied."
Clare said, "Maybe. My brother has been sick sometimes as well, but we wondered if he'd just been scoffing too many sweets at school. And we've wondered that at mealtimes sometimes too because he hasn't wanted to eat anything and has tried to leave the table, and just got agitated and started yelling when my parents have told him to stay there. But maybe he just didn't have any appetite for food.
"And he does suck some of his metal toys, sometimes when he plays with them, and also when he's trying to do his homework. I don't know if he thinks it's some kind of comforting thing or it stops his mind wandering or something."
Becky said, "I think you should take him to a doctor then to see if he could have lead poisoning, or to ask about what else he might have. I think quite a few things might cause the symptoms he's got. And I think there are lots of medical conditions where a lot of people who have them don't have every symptom, and people can have some symptoms that aren't typical so they're not well-known. So it's not always easy to tell what someone's got. So don't just go by what I say. Since we're not qualified to diagnose a disease even if something sounds like a particular one to us, it must be best to get a medical opinion, although doctors can sometimes misdiagnose things too.
"But lead poisoning can be diagnosed with a simple blood test, so it won't be a long complicated process to see if he's got that at least. And if your brother has got lead poisoning, I think there are medications people can take that bind to lead in the body and then come out the opposite end from the one they went in, taking it with them.
"If he has got lead poisoning or something else, they might still give him ADHD medication if they think it's the best thing to control his ADHD-like symptoms while he recovers, I don't know. But hopefully the doctor will know what to do for the best."
Clare told her family what Becky had said and they took her little brother to the doctor's. It turned out that he did have lead poisoning. The doctor gave him treatment for it though, and he completely recovered. They got rid of the toys that had caused it.
Clare told Becky she was really grateful she'd suggested that the problem might be lead poisoning, and really pleased her brother was getting better.
A few weeks after their discussion about the possible causes of Clare's brother's problems, Becky and Clare met up one afternoon and started chatting again. Becky asked how Clare's brother was, and was pleased to hear the doctors thought he was making progress.
They discussed his progress a bit, and then they chatted in a more light-hearted way for a little while.
Clare said, "I read about some funny test mistakes not long ago. I came across a website that gave some examples of mistakes and other funny things it said school pupils had written. I can remember quite a lot of them, like:
"'For a nosebleed: Put the nose much lower than the body until the heart stops.'
'For asphyxiation: Apply artificial respiration until the patient is dead.'
'If conditions are not favourable, bacteria go into a period of adolescence.'
And then there was, 'To collect fumes of sulphur, hold a deacon over a flame in a test tube.'
One was, 'To remove dust from the eye, pull the eye down over the nose.'
One I especially liked was, 'When a singer sings, he stirs up the air and makes it hit any passing eardrums. But if he is good, he knows how to keep it from hurting.' I'm sure I've heard songs that could have been the inspiration for that idea, by singers who hadn't quite mastered the art of keeping it from hurting!
And then one of my favourites was, 'Algebraical symbols are used when you do not know what you are talking about.' It would have been nice to have said that to my maths teacher at school when he told me to do some algebra I found incomprehensible. Maybe if that phrase is to be believed, the most important bit of knowledge that I didn't know was that he didn't understand it either!"
Becky said with a grin, "Well I can agree with what the last two test mistakes say. But I can't understand why anyone would write the first two. I mean, if you're talking about someone recovering from a health problem, why would you say the cure will kill them? I wonder if some of these were really joke test mistakes that someone made up, and other people mistook them for real ones and passed them on as such; the ones who thought they were real and passed them on as such would have been the people really making the mistakes."
Clare said with a dismissive shrug, "Who knows! But then, who can tell what typos and other weird things might come out of people's brains when they're stressed or confused! Or maybe some of the children didn't think they had a good chance of passing their exams, so they thought, 'Stuff it!' and just wrote joke answers."
Becky said, "I could have had a bit of fun if I'd thought to do that during my exams! Mind you, I might have got so carried away I might not have got around to saying anything sensible, and then I wouldn't have been able to come here."
Clare grinned and joked sarcastically, "Yes, because everyone knows people can't come here unless they're sensible!"
Becky chuckled and said, "Oh you know what I meant! I meant I might not have got around to answering the exam questions properly, so I'd have failed."
Clare said, "Yeah, that wouldn't have been nice."
That put them in a more serious mood, and they started talking seriously again.
Clare asked morbidly, "Do you think you'd prefer to die of something that would probably kill you quickly like severe food poisoning, or something that would kill you quite slowly so you'd be in pain for a lot longer, but you'd have more time to say and do the things you'd really like to say and do before you died?"
Becky said thoughtfully, "I don't know. But you wouldn't necessarily be able to get everything you wanted to do done anyway, especially if you were feeling too ill to do much. I suppose it might be nice to get at least a bit of warning while you're still healthy enough to get a few things in order before you go.
"Actually, I came across a website once about the most common regrets that people who were dying told a palliative nurse they had, when she asked them about them.
"The regret that was mentioned most often by people was doing what other people expected and wanted them to in life, instead of having the courage to follow their dreams.
"It didn't give any examples of the kinds of dreams people would like to have followed, or the kinds of expectations other people had that stopped them following them. But maybe it was sometimes things like people having dreams to go into the music industry, and their parents saying things like, 'It's likely that only a small minority of people who try to get into that actually succeed; and you could be trying for years without getting anywhere, sponging off us all that time. It'll be far more sensible if you just go out and get a proper job!'
"Or maybe once they'd got married with kids, some of them had dreams of starting their own business or travelling the world or something, but they knew a business might not succeed, or that they might end up with not much money, and that they wouldn't be there for their families if they went travelling; so when they knew that either way they might end up losing money, they might have thought it would be best to do what their families were hoping they'd do and stick to doing a job that gave them a guaranteed income so they wouldn't have any worries about paying bills, and so they'd be there for them.
"I don't know if that's really the kind of thing it meant, because it didn't give examples of the kinds of things it was talking about. But maybe it was sometimes things like that.
"Anyway, it must be sad knowing you'd really like to have done something in life, but knowing it's too late now because you're dying."
Clare said, "Yes. Mind you, since it's impossible to know whether those dreams would have succeeded, it's impossible to know whether those people would really have been better off following them, or whether things would have gone wrong, and they would have ended up regretting following them instead of settling down to a stable way of life with a decent income to provide for their families."
Becky said, "True, I suppose. Mind you, I can see how people would wish they'd followed their dreams, when they might have spent the best part of their days for years doing a job they didn't really like. When they had hardly any more time left to live, I can imagine that they might have started thinking of a lot of that time as wasted time, although at least it would have brought them in an income they could spend on their families.
"Another thing the website says is that most people really regretted having spent so much time at work, missing out on being with their children as they grew up and spending time with their husband or wife."
Clare said, "That's sad. Then again though, if they had spent more time with them instead, I wonder if some of them would have ended up regretting not having made enough money to buy some of the things they wanted to in life."
Becky said, "Who knows! But not having made enough money isn't on the list of the top five regrets I read, anyway.
"Another thing that was was people not telling other people what they really thought of them, or what they thought of some of the things they did, because they wanted to try to keep the peace; but it meant they held anger in, and that was bad for their health. They put up with things they'd rather not have had to put up with, when their quality of life could have been better if they hadn't been willing to."
Clare said, "That's a shame too. Mind you, it's difficult to know how things would have gone if we'd done them differently; sometimes, they might have been better, but sometimes they might have gone worse. I mean, who's to say that if some of the people who had those regrets had criticised close relatives more, it wouldn't have led to more arguments, and possibly even the wrecking of those relationships sometimes; and who's to say that those people wouldn't have ended up regretting that!"
Becky said, "True, I suppose. And there are probably times when you just have to keep what you think to yourself, like if you might lose a job if you tell the boss what you think of him, - although if you manage to find a better job in the end, you might end up glad that happened. But a lot of the time, I reckon I'd rather that some people didn't like me and didn't speak to me, than put up with a lot of things I didn't like having to put up with.
"Anyway, another common regret people had was not keeping in touch with their friends. A lot of people said they'd had some really good friendships over the years that they'd let go of because they were so busy with other things. They wished they'd given their friends more time. Some old friends were impossible to track down by then, so the friendships were lost forever.
"And another regret people had was not spending enough time having fun and doing things that made them laugh. Instead, they'd got settled into the same old routine for years, and they'd thought they were contented, when they weren't really getting the most out of life they could have done. They only fully realised that when it was too late. They'd like to have had more fun, but they'd felt awkward about making changes that would have made them happier, for whatever reason.
"But still, according to this nurse who counselled all those patients, they all came to terms with their regrets before they died, so they weren't upset about them right to the very end.
"Anyway, the article recommends at the end that everyone thinks about whether they're really doing what they want to in life, before it's too late to do it because they're dying."
Clare said, "That's worth thinking about! ... You know, I've got an uncle who worked for a while as a palliative nurse with cancer patients. The other day, he said he reckons there's a mysterious force of nature that drives people to want to survive no matter what, because his patients were in a lot of pain, and there was no chance they were going to get better, but they still wanted treatment for as long as possible; none of them wanted to just give up and die, even though it would have put them out of their misery."
Becky said, "Actually, there's nothing mysterious about that . I reckon I know just why it happens. Imagine you've got cancer, and the doctor says to you, 'We think you've only got a year to live. We could carry on treating you if you like, but it won't cure you; it'll just prolong your life. Do you want treatment, or do you just want to give up and let nature take its course, so you'll die sooner than you would do if you were treated?' You're almost certainly going to say you want treatment, aren't you. You're not just going to want to give up, if you think the only choice you've got is either having treatment that might at least have a small chance of curing you, or giving up and maybe dying in agony.
"But if instead, the doctor said, 'We think you've only got about a year to live, and with treatment, we could prolong your life, but it might make you feel really ill for all that time and it won't cure you; so tell me, what would you really like to get done in life before you go, while you're at least not so ill you couldn't enjoy it? Would you like to concentrate on having as much quality of life as you can before you go, even though it'll mean not living as long, or is it most important to you that you live the longest you can, even though you might be in much worse pain than you're in now by the end because the treatment won't be able to stop the cancer growing altogether, and it in itself will make you feel ill?'
"Then imagine he said, 'How about discussing it with your family and coming up with a list of things that would make you happier if you could do them before you go, and then plan how you can get as many of them done as possible in the time you've got before you get too ill to do them, and then tell me whether you'd like to devote the rest of the time you've got to doing as many of them as you can, or whether you'd like to devote it to treatment that'll prolong your life, but make you iller in the process than you'd feel otherwise for a while, because the only treatment we could give you kills healthy cells along with killing the cancer cells', then most people might choose to not have any treatment that'll let them live longer, but to try to devote their life to just doing what they can in the time they've got before they're in too much pain to enjoy it.
"So just the way the doctor put things to them might have a huge influence on the decision they made.
"Mind you, sometimes treatment that can't cure the person of cancer is still given, just because it stops the pain the person would suffer if the cancer grew any more."
Clare said, "Oh, that's interesting; I understand it better now. Maybe more doctors should say that kind of thing to patients then."
Becky agreed.
Then Clare said, "Actually, my mum got the most dangerous form of skin cancer on her arm last year. ... Well actually, she got it the year before, but she only went to the doctor about it last year. They think they managed to cut it out before it could spread to other parts of her body. But it turns out that she waited a dangerously long time before she went to the doctor's. She'd noticed the lump there the year before, but she just assumed it was probably just some harmless kind of mole or other that had just popped up for some reason. My dad said he wondered if it could be skin cancer, but she'd had another form of skin cancer before and it didn't look like that lump had looked, so she thought it probably wasn't that.
"Then later someone else told her they thought it might be that, because her husband had had it and it did look like that, but she told my mum that that kind of cancer wasn't a very aggressive kind of cancer, so it didn't spread to other parts of the body, but it could do damage in the area where it was.
"My mum had looked up some information about the kind of skin cancer she'd had before, and she knew it wasn't quite true that it wouldn't spread to other parts of the body; it didn't usually, but there was still a risk that it would, mostly in people with weakened immune systems.
"But what the woman told my mum about the lump she had on her arm looking like the skin cancer her husband had had that hadn't spread very far still made my mum feel reassured that there wasn't any urgency about going to the doctor's.
"But eventually she did go, and they gave her a hospital appointment, where they cut this lump out of her arm - under anaesthetic of course - and they sent it to a lab to be examined, and the results came back saying it was the most dangerous kind of skin cancer there is! So she said she'd learned her lesson about putting off going to the doctor!
"The doctor said it looked as if they'd caught it early enough that it hadn't spread, but they couldn't be entirely sure, so we thought we'd just have to hope for the best. Then they cut a bit more skin out of her arm where the cancer was, to try and make sure they had the roots of the cancer so it won't grow again, and so they could send that bit to the lab, just to check to see if it had any cancer cells in it. It didn't, thankfully. So now they're pretty sure things are going to be allright, although they're monitoring my mum for a few years by giving her an appointment every so often, just to check it isn't coming back anywhere.
"My mum's eating more healthily now and doing more exercise, hoping that'll help her body kill any cancer cells that might be still floating around her system."
"I hope it works!" said Becky.
Clare said, "Thanks! My mum says she's realised now that diagnosing yourself can be a bad idea! She said she'd learned that lesson once before, but then forgot it, so she's learned it again now, and she's hoping to remember it this time!
"She said a few years ago, one of her back teeth broke in half and half fell out. It was one she'd had since her first teeth came through - it had never fallen out when most of her first teeth fell out. She thought she knew why it must have fallen out:
"A horrible dentist put this really big filling in her mouth when she was eleven that she's sure she didn't need, especially because she'd been to a different school dentist when she was at the school she'd just left, only about ten weeks before, and he'd said nothing needed doing at all. But this big filling the next school dentist put in caused some problems, because sometimes when she bit something hard, that tooth really hurt. So when it fell out, she thought it must have hurt because it had been more and more damaged for all that time till it had finally broken.
"So she went to this new dentist, and he got a tooth made for her and put it in. But for a while after that, her gum hurt sometimes where it was. She thought maybe it was doing it because it was infected. But then the artificial tooth fell out, and a new bit of tooth started growing. She thought it was strange, because she'd never heard of such a thing happening to someone at her age. But she thought it must have been trying to get through before, and that must have been the real reason why her old tooth broke, and why she'd had a bit of pain in that area after she'd had the new tooth fitted.
"But she thought the tooth that came through must have spent so long trying to get through, pushing against the artificial tooth, that it had been weakened, because part of it crumbled when she ate something hard. But she wonders whether the dentist would have found out it was coming and not put the new tooth in if she hadn't said what she thought the problem was, but had just left it to him to work out. And she wonders if then the tooth that came through would have been stronger, because it wouldn't have spent all that time trying to get through but failing."
Becky said, "Maybe. Maybe not though. It's possible it could have been weak anyway. And the dentist still might not have realised what the real problem was. After all, some doctors and dentists do diagnose things wrongly sometimes.
"Actually I've heard a few horrible stories about doctors diagnosing things wrongly; I think it's important that people get a second opinion if things a doctor prescribes for them keep on not working but the doctor doesn't look into whether they've got something different wrong with them than he thinks they've got, or if they get new symptoms that their doctor doesn't seem to be taking notice of, in case it means they've got something different from what the doctor thinks they've got. Sometimes, it might be best to get a third opinion, and even a fourth!
"I've actually got a relative who had problems with a tooth when he was younger. They started when he was a child, when he got pain on one side of his mouth, and the part of his gum there swelled up with infection. He started feeling sure it was to do with one particular tooth, but the dentist he always went to X-rayed it and said there wasn't a problem with it. He had problems with it right until he was grown up. Then it got so bad, and he got so fed up with it, he went to hospital and complained about it. They decided to take part of his jaw out, because they thought that would stop the infections. I don't know if they'd do that nowadays; it was some time ago.
"Anyway, when he woke up from the operation, they said they'd taken two of his teeth out with the part of his jaw, but that they'd left one tooth there so he could still chew food on that side of his mouth. Guess what! The tooth they'd left there was the very one he thought he'd been having all the problems with!
"Sure enough, it turned out that the problem wasn't solved, when he got yet another infection there. He was so fed up with it, he went to the dentist, and demanded he take the tooth out right then. The dentist said it was risky to take a tooth out while it was infected, because it could release the bacteria that were causing the infection into other parts of the body. But my relative still insisted that he take it out then and there, saying that if he didn't, he'd tie a string to his tooth and tie the other end to the door handle, so when someone shut the door, it would yank the string hard, and that would pull the tooth out.
"The dentist gave in and took the tooth out. And my relative never had an infection in that part of his mouth again.
"It seems that the reason the dentist he went to while he was growing up couldn't detect the problem with the X-rays he gave him was because it was further down than the X-rays could show.
"But it just shows you that sometimes a patient can be right while a doctor or dentist is wrong. Mind you, I'm sure it's usually a lot safer to go to them than to just make up your own mind about what to do, if you've got a problem that might be serious.
"And I think it's at least better to go to a doctor than to someone who isn't even medically qualified, but just knows how to sound as if they know what they're talking about, by using language that sounds scientific so people assume they must have studied medical things and they must know what they're talking about, when they don't really know as much as they think they do; I've heard there's a lot of quackery out there.
"So I agree with you about how it's important to get a medical opinion on things and not to assume you know what a problem is, but to let doctors diagnose it with tests and things."
Clare nodded.
Then she said, "Shall we go in a cafe and get something to eat, and talk about this there?"
Becky liked the idea. So they did.
While they were queuing up to get some food and drink, they met one of their friends, who smiled and said, "You know, yesterday evening, I cooked some carrots mixed with sardines in the microwave as part of my tea, thinking of mixing them with soup to make them taste nicer, and for some reason, while they were cooking, I got whiffs of crispy bacon! Maybe someone had cooked bacon in the microwave before, and the smell was still in there from that, or maybe it was just wafting into the room from somewhere else where someone was cooking some, or something. But it made me think of how weird it would be if it was possible to put something on to cook, and while it was cooking, it could mysteriously transform into something else. It could be fun, if you put something quite boring on to cook, and it suddenly transformed into something you really liked!
"Imagine if it only happened to certain people though, so a lot of people would have never heard about it, so some people might not believe you if you told them it had happened. Imagine what it would be like if you told someone, 'I was cooking carrots the other day in the microwave, and when I went to get them out, I realised they'd turned into this really nice crispy bacon sandwich!'"
Clare and Becky chuckled, and Clare said, "Or imagine if you put some broccoli on to cook, and it mysteriously turned into a really nice sponge cake! Or imagine if you told someone, 'I put a baked potato on to cook for tea the other night, and it suddenly turned into a big chicken pie!' They'd think you'd gone nuts, wouldn't they!"
They all grinned, and Becky said, "Imagine what it would be like if other things would suddenly turn into food in front of you, so you could be at the seaside, and a fish would crawl out of the water and suddenly turn into a hot pile of fish cakes; or you'd be looking at a cow in a field, and it would suddenly turn into this massive hot beef and onion pie; or you'd be walking past some cabbage growing in a field, and suddenly one would turn into a plate of roast dinner with cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, stuffing, chicken, and roast potatoes on it!"
The others grinned, and Clare said, "Imagine if all the cabbages in the field turned into roast dinners. Imagine what it would be like to have roast dinners growing on plants! You know how parents often tell their children not to waste food. Imagine going past a field of roast dinners with your parents, and you all decided to pick them and start eating them, and they told you to eat all the ones in the field because it would be a shame to waste them!"
The other two giggled, and Becky and Clare's friend said, "Imagine if that kind of thing happened a lot! Imagine how fat everyone would be!"
Becky said, "But imagine if the roast dinners would just turn back into cabbages again if they were just left alone."
Clare said, "That would be good. But just imagine if you could be eating a roast dinner at home, and it could suddenly turn into a cabbage! Or you could be eating a nice meringue and cream for pudding or something, and it could suddenly turn into a pile of pasta and broccoli!"
Becky said, "It would be worse if it could suddenly change into a mixture of sweet and savoury things, so you might suddenly get meringue covered in vegetable soup instead of cream, or apple pie covered in gravy instead of custard, or sponge cake covered in tomato sauce instead of icing!"
They laughed.
Then Becky said, "You know plums can have this horrible sharp taste? Well, I don't like it, anyway. But I discovered that it's just the skin that tastes like that, and if you peel them, they taste nice and sweet. At least, the ones I had did. I think the skin must have that horrible sharp taste to put birds off eating them on the trees before they even get a chance to get ripe.
"I found out that it's easy and quick to peel plums if you dunk them in really hot water for about twenty seconds maybe, and then fish them out with a spoon, maybe putting them in cold water for some seconds afterwards to cool them down before you touch them. But then you can just pull the skin off easily with your hands! I've tried it, and it really works! It's good!
"But anyway, I was thinking about that the other day, and I thought, 'What if you had this plum, and you muttered to yourself, 'I don't like the fact that the skin has got this horrible sharp taste', and it suddenly spoke, and said, 'Well what do you expect! My skin tastes horrible to protect me from being eaten by birds while I'm still growing on the tree!'"
The others laughed, and Clare said, "It would be a shock to hear it say that, wouldn't it! Imagine if you were holding it at the time! You'd probably drop it in shock!"
They giggled, and Becky said, "And imagine that when you did that, it shouted, 'Ouch! Now look what you've gone and done!'"
They giggled again.
Their conversation ended there, since it was time for them to be served, and their friend was just getting a cake to take away. She said goodbye, and Clare and Becky went and sat at a table by themselves and got back to talking about what they'd started talking about before.
Clare said, "You were talking about doctors misdiagnosing people or something, weren't you?"
Becky said, "Well I said something about that. Yes. I was starting to think about how misdiagnosing a problem isn't always just to do with something a doctor does wrong or doesn't do, or whatever. I think one reason it can happen is because when it comes to some conditions, diagnosis can be teamwork between doctors and patients, and patients might sometimes accidentally give doctors a wrong impression of things.
"I think doctors often rely on ordinary people to help them diagnose problems. I mean, one way is just by asking them about their symptoms, of course. But with some conditions, they have to ask people to report on what's been happening to them over time, especially with mental health conditions, and sometimes I think people can think things that happen are happening because of what they already think is wrong with them, so they think there's more significance in some things than there really is, and talk about them as if they're important, when they really happened for other reasons. But the more they think they're happening for the reason they think they're happening, the more they get convinced that what they think is wrong with them really is. I'll give you an example of what I mean:
"I've heard that medical students and students on psychology courses can read things about symptoms of certain conditions in textbooks, and then become convinced they've got what they're reading about, when they haven't really. I mean, it might happen because a medical student reads about certain aches and pains that people with the condition he's studying get, and then he might feel as if he's got those very aches and pains; but they might be caused by just muscle tension in the areas he's worried about having aches and pains in or something."
Clare said, "Yes, I suppose I can see how that could happen. I wonder if it happens often. Mind you, I can understand people being worried, especially if they've had serious illnesses before, and they wonder if they might be coming back. When my mum had melanoma, after the doctor cut the tumour out of her arm and the lab results came back saying it was the worst kind of skin cancer, I think I told you before, didn't I, they gave her another appointment to have the bit of skin around where it had been growing cut out as well, so they could see if any cancer cells had spread there, and to try and make sure they'd got all the roots of it. While she was waiting, she got a few aches and pains and things, and wondered if it could be the cancer spreading. It wasn't, but she did wonder.
"One thing that happened was that she'd started getting leg cramps every night. Sometimes they would wake her up. She told someone, and They wondered if it might be something to do with the cancer. But it was interesting what the cause turned out to be! At least, it seems it was what we now think it was:
"She'd bought this salty yeast extract-type spread that you eat on bread. She would eat it for breakfast on toast. She enjoyed it, but now she's decided to ban herself from having it, since when the jar ran out, the leg cramps stopped, so she realised it might well be the salt in it that was causing them, since if the body gets too much salt, and I think it can also happen if it gets less than it's used to, people can get leg cramps. I think there are other reasons why people get leg cramps too, but I think a salt imbalance is a pretty common one. It was a shame my mum had to give up that spread, because I think it had some good nutrients in it, and she liked it. Mind you, maybe if she just had little bits every day, she'd be allright. She might have just been having more than you're supposed to have.
"But another thing that happened was that she got this weird symptom she'd never had before. She said it felt like a kind of mild pressure on the front of her neck at the bottom, that got worse when she turned her head or tilted it forward. The back of her neck was aching a bit too. She wondered if the cancer had spread and it was growing in her throat and the back of her neck. She hoped not! She thought that maybe it was just that she'd been sleeping in an awkward position, but she wondered if it could be something worse, so she decided that if it hadn't cleared up by the time she went to the hospital to have more of her skin removed in case cancer had spread there, she'd tell the doctors about it.
"She looked on the Internet to try to find out information about whether skin cancer can spread to the throat. Well she didn't find much about cancer, but she found something that surprised her.
"She found quite a bit about thyroid problems. She's had a bit of an underactive thyroid for years. She found out that some foods, if you eat a lot of them and eat them raw, somehow do something to the thyroid gland that stops it absorbing iodine from elsewhere in the system, and it really needs iodine, so the thyroid gland swells up a bit so there's more surface area on it to absorb more iodine from the body. But the swelling puts a bit of pressure on the inside of the throat, because the thyroid gland's in the neck.
"The foods that can do that in people who've already got thyroid problems are broccoli, strawberries, Brussels sprouts, and several other things - all things that are very good for you otherwise, but unfortunately have these problems, although they're allright if they're cooked a bit, because cooking them destroys whatever causes the problems.
"But anyway, my mum had just eaten loads of strawberries; it was the summer-time, and she thought it would be nice. But just afterwards she got that weird symptom. She stopped eating strawberries as soon as she read about the effects they can have on people with thyroid problems on the Internet, and her weird symptom faded away over the next few days."
Becky said, "That's interesting! I suppose if it had happened before people had the Internet, she might have been left worrying till she saw the doctor. It's good that we've got the Internet! I wouldn't like to have lived before it was invented!
"Mind you, I think when some people look on there to try and find out what their symptoms might mean, they find illnesses that are much worse than what they've really got, so they start worrying more. But then, there are websites that look good, that give you lots of possible causes of the symptoms you've got, and you can work out what seems to fit best. Mind you, it's probably best to ask a doctor even if you do do that."
Clare agreed. Then she said, "A few other things happened that made my mum wonder if the cancer had spread too.
"I think the ache she had in the back of her neck when she had the weird feeling in the front of it might have been to do with her sleeping position. She was sleeping in a different position from normal, because she wanted to protect the arm she'd just had the surgery on from being squashed a bit if she lay on it. She got a bit of back ache too, and she wondered if it could be the cancer spreading there, but she thought it might be most likely to be her sleeping in an uncomfortable position or her bed not being quite right for her, or being a bit saggy in parts so it wasn't supporting her back that well or something, so she put the pillows at the other end, and her and my dad slept with their heads at the opposite end from usual for a while. At first my mum's back ache was still there, so she thought it might not be her sleeping position causing it after all; but a couple of days later, it went away. So she thought it probably had been after all.
"Then she got a sore throat, and she wondered if the cancer had spread there after all; but it turned out to be just a cold.
"I suppose it was lucky really that it was that way around, rather than her getting something and thinking it was minor, and the doctors thinking it was only a minor thing, only for it to turn out to be cancer. I've heard about that happening to people. I think there are quite a few symptoms that normally mean only a minor thing's wrong, such as indigestion, but in, say, just a few cases out of a hundred, or a few in every five hundred even, it's something deadly. But because the chances of it being that thing seem small, some doctors often won't think it's worth testing a patient for it. At least, that's what I've heard anyway.
"But anyway, thankfully, the things my mum was a bit concerned about because she wondered if they could be the cancer all cleared up by themselves soon. So even though the symptoms bothered her a bit, it was at least good that they turned out to be only caused by minor problems.
"She didn't worry much about any of the symptoms she got; she's not the kind of person who worries a lot. But you can't blame her for wondering about them; and you can't blame other people for worrying about that kind of thing."
Becky said, "Oh I know. I'd never blame anyone for worrying about that kind of thing. I was thinking about people doing something different, people feeling sure they've got a certain problem, when it could really be one of lots of other things."
Just then, a friend of Clare and Becky's called Dawn, who'd just come in from the cold, walked past them and stopped to say hello. She said disgustedly, "It's raining again! And I'm sure it's colder now than it was this morning! It's like spring popped its head out for a little while, decided it was far too cold for it, and died of exposure, or ran away back to wherever it came from!"
Becky grinned, and said consolingly, "Come on, just be patient; I expect it'll turn up properly soon. ... Well if it doesn't, ... hey imagine if we all decided to go on a Cold strike. Imagine if everyone in the country went on one, telling the government it was far too cold for us to work, and we weren't going to do any more work till they got their act together and warmed the country up!"
Clare and Dawn laughed. Dawn sat down and joined them for a while.
Then Becky said, "Actually, I did hear that there was once some research into how the weather could be changed for the better. I'm not sure what came of it. ... Hey imagine if the government did somehow manage to cancel winter, so it only got as cold as autumn during the winter months. Imagine if they decided to rename the winter months, because they thought it would seem weird having them when the weather wasn't that cold if they had their usual names. But they didn't want to name them anything new and fancy.
"So imagine if they decided that September would be twice as long as normal, so it would go up to about September the 60th. And they decided that then there would be two Octobers, one right after the other, and the first one would have 60 days, and the second would have 61 days. Or maybe just 58 days, since it would end when February normally ends. So we'd have Octobers all winter. And then we'd go straight on to March."
The others grinned, and Clare said, "Wow, that would be confusing! So September would still be going when our normal October would be, and then October would start at the beginning of normal November, and then there would be another October that would start at the beginning of normal January; so we'd have Bonfire Night, Christmas and New Year's Eve during the first October, and New Year's Day at the beginning of the second October!"
They laughed.
Then Dawn said, "Or just imagine if the government named all the months from October to March April, because they thought that would give us all a sense of optimism that spring was on the way so we'd all be more cheerful than usual during the winter - even though it would really be non-winter, so we'd be more cheerful anyway. They might take the credit if we were, thinking it was because they'd named all the months from October to March April to make us think spring was on its way.
"So there would be six Aprils. We'd keep going from April the 30th straight to April the first again! Only I suppose there would have to be some Aprils with 31 days in them, and one with only 28 in it!"
Clare said, "Gosh, wouldn't that be confusing! And it would mean there would be six April Fool's Days! Yikes! Imagine if the government managed to cancel the winter every year for years, so there were six April Fool's Days every year for years!"
The others giggled, and Becky said, "Yikes!"
Dawn said, "Last year on April Fool's Day, I had a look on the Internet, and read about some interesting funny April Fool's tricks that have been played over the years. There was one in 1981 where a newspaper reported that scientists Had actually managed to invent a machine that could change the weather, and they were planning to use it to give Britain long summers with rainfall only at night, but they thought they'd send some countries in Europe all kinds of horrible weather if they felt like it.
"And there was an article in a military magazine one April Fool's Day that said the soldiers guarding Buckingham Palace actually had bear fur growing on their heads - at least when they were wearing their helmets, because the bear skin the helmets they wore were made of were full of fats and hormones that enabled the fur to grow, long after the skin was no longer on the bears, and it grew so much that the soldiers had to keep going to the barbers to have their fur trimmed.
"And there was an April Fool's trick in 1950 where passers-by in part of California must have thought it looked as if all the pine and cedar trees in the area had recently grown oranges. If they'd been in the area the day before too, the trees would have looked the same as usual, just like ordinary pines and cedar trees, so it would have looked as if the oranges had grown overnight. There had been an orange show in the area not long before, so there were loads around, and 50 thousand of them had been tied to the trees secretly the night before by some of the locals, led by a cartoonist.
"And in 1992, an eighty-five foot long banner with twenty-foot high red letters that said, 'Welcome to Chicago' was put in a place where plane passengers would easily see it when their planes were coming down into Los Angeles airport. So some of them must have worried for a minute that the pilot had absent-mindedly taken them to the wrong place, or that they'd got on the wrong plane!"
"And one year, a rich businessman had what he said was an iceberg that had been towed all the way from Antarctica towed by a barge into Sydney Harbour. He'd been promoting it, saying he was going to carve it into small ice cubes that people could buy, and the pure Antarctica ice they were made of would be bound to add a nice flavour to any drink they were put in to cool.
"But everyone realised it was a hoax when it started to rain, and it turned out that the supposed iceberg was really made of shaving cream and fire-fighting foam, which all got washed away by the rain to reveal white plastic sheets underneath."
Becky and Clare laughed.
Becky said to Dawn, "It's nearly April Fool's Day This year. Are you going to do any tricks on anyone?"
Dawn said she wasn't, but that she'd look on the Internet on the day to see if she could find any amusing stories about what other people were doing. She said, "I've read about some tricks that just weren't funny at all and actually caused a lot of problems and upset! But hopefully there aren't too many like that, and I'll find out about more funny ones this year."
Soon after that, Dawn left Becky and Clare, and after they chatted for a bit longer, they got back to what they'd been talking about before.
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