Pros, cons and dyscalculia

People of a certain age may remember a brain teaser that Primary School teachers loved to catch kids out with. It goes something like this:

A frog is at the bottom of a well which is 30ft deep and has slippery walls. Every time it jumps, it goes up 3ft and slides back 2ft. How many times does it have to jump to get out of the well? (The answer is at the bottom of the page for those who do not get it or think the answer is 30).

Welcome to a world where the frog starts half way up, then jumps up 3ft and slides back 4ft each time!

Before the meat of the post, a little more light relief...........

I am now getting used to the fact that, whenever I meet any health professional, they ask me what my date of birth is despite having it written in front of them. Often it is contained within a letter that I have handed to them. I offer two possible explanations for this:

1. That they suspect I may have stolen the letter and sneaked in off the street pretending to have cancer
2. It is some form of subtle test to see whether I have dementia

There was a new twist to this one today. I was asked (by the same person) what my date of birth was which I confirmed having learnt that it is easier than trying to be smart about it. This question was followed with, and I kid you not, "how old does that make you?" I had always thought that 114-58 was a fairly basic calculation; evidently not for everyone. The person concerned is very unlikely to be reading this, but just in case, here is something which might help:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Calculator-credit-sized-Slimline-travel/dp/B002JUD3V2/ref=sr_1_2?s=officeproduct&ie=UTF8&qid=1412007301&sr=1-2


Now the "meat"...........
Finally met The Great Man. Will not go into the details of the meeting other than to say that he was a pleasant enough chap, although we did have a few points of friction which I think were really about who was in charge of the meeting (those who know me will understand that one!). The important bit is that he has an excellent reputation and runs one of only 5 specialist prostate cancer centres in the country. He is a pioneering surgeon and seems to be gathering a lot of "bright bunnies" around him.

If you have read this blog so far, you may recall that today was the day I hoped to be able to agree a treatment plan and start to take my life off "hold". No chance! Turns out there are a couple of worrying things that have shown up in the scans and The Great Man will not go any further until they have been checked out. Next steps are a CT scan to make sure that the blip on my pelvis really was the result of falling off a horse and (not so much fun) an endoscopy from what might be termed the "wrong end" of things. No treatment plan, or discussion about the options until:

Blood test (they will not do the CT scan without one)
CT scan
Referral to what the Americans call a Procologist
Endoscopy
?another biopsy
Report on the biopsy to the proctology people
Decision made by proctology on whether there is a problem and what to do if there is
Doubtless several clinical meetings and lots of scratching of heads
Report back to The Great Man

After all this, someone might be in a position to consult me about what could happen next. Based on the experience so far, this will probably be somewhere around Christmas by my reckoning

Bearing in mind that the National Standard is 2 months (62 days) between referral and commencement of treatment...................

The good bit is that they are being thorough. Full marks for that.

Had the blood test on the spot (well, a walk across to the Phlebotomy department and 40 minute wait), so no bar to CT scan being booked. Will contact them tomorrow afternoon if they have not been in touch.

As for the Proctologist, I have his name but will probably not pursue him until Wednesday.

This evening's song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-fSZRYeBWk

The answer is 27. On the 27th jump, the frog is out of the well so cannot slide back down.