I guess I have been fairly lucky, as most of my adult life, I’ve had reasonably good health.

Nearly five years ago, I had been unwell for a few weeks, which I put down to one of those flu like bugs that was doing the rounds.

But it didn’t improve and I felt worse every day.

I’d sort of given up on Doctors, well, I’d go to them if I really felt I needed some form of prescription medicine but that was about it, I only treated them as a means to an end.

But this condition I had was getting worse and by golly, all and sundry knew I wasn’t too good when I started mentioning things like, “I think I might go to the Doctor.”

It was a Thursday night and I really was “crook” but I had to work.

Fortunately, I work from home, so I didn’t have far to travel.

Well, I guess I didn’t need to be “half-smart” to realise that I had Appendicitis and that sooner or later, I’d need to go to the Doctor.

But before that could happen, I had work to do and somehow I managed to get that done.

I was talking to a colleague during the course of the evening and mentioned to him that I thought I had Appendicitis, he was insistent that I get to the hospital “ASAP”.

Trying to sleep Thursday night was a nightmare, the painkillers I’d taken hadn’t done a thing, apart from that, the nausea was the absolute horror icing on the cake.

Friday morning I had things I had to do and managed to get that achieved with a lot of effort.

Living in the country, my Doctor was a fair drive away and apart from anything else, you usually need to know about a week in advance that you’re going to be sick, so you could book a time to see him.

I figured I really didn’t have a week up my sleeve here, so I phoned the Emergency of my local hospital, a good half hour away.

I told my tale of woe to the person on the other end of the line, told them what I thought was wrong, they agreed and suggested I get in there urgently.