The changing mole.

My mother has been the most awful hypochondriac from most of her life. She fairly rattles with the tablets she takes daily. Blood pressure, water retention, mood stabilizers, you name it she swallows it. She fears she has cancer, (the big C, she won't even say the word) she fears she will have a stroke, she claims panic attacks, heart palpitations, night terrors, arm spasams, rapid migraines, sensitive teeth, blurred vision, dead arm, hernias, heartburn, black death, polio and the dreaded lurgy.
Despite all these ailments, she is robustly healthy and if she ceased eating a pound of jellybabies a day I suspect a lot of her symptoms would vanish.
As a result us Fatcat siblings regard going to the doctor with the utmost contempt. We suffer through colds, sprains, flus, vomiting, ear aches, cracked ribs, strange rashes and just about anything we can rather than head down the same well worn road as our mother. We are all like this, without exception.
Apart from the odd bout of childbirth and concussion, we are a hardy lot. We don't for example take antibiotics, we rarely get colds, we keep out weight down, we eat fresh food, we exercise, we don't smoke and we try to give our livers a break as often as possible.
We avoid the germ riddled waiting rooms of doctors.
But this morning this fatcat finds shs has no bloomin' choice but to darken the door of a doctor's surgery. The mole I have been fretting about is going to be checked out and I have discovered inner streams of my mother coursing through my veins.
'What if it's cancer?' I said to Etheline this morning.
'Don't be stupid, it's not cancer.'
'Well, don't they always say moles that change shape are the ones to watch for?'
'I don't...look I'm sure it's nothing. How does it look this morning?'
'Moley.'
'Well then. Like I say, it's probably nothing.'
But she doesn't sound convincing to me and I realise that she has the same hypochondriac molecules running through her veins, lying dormant, waiting to fight their way to the surface. Christ, isn't it bad enough that we have our mother's nose.
'What time is your appointment?'
'Ten after ten.'
'Call me the minute you get home.'
'I will.'
I hang up and pet puddy who is sprawled across my lap making my leg go dead (see, see!). I'm trying to think of the advert for cancer research. Didn't they say one in three of us will suffer cancer in our life times? Puddy has cancer, it doesn't seem to be bothering her much.
Perhaps I should calm down and wait to see what the Doctor actually says.
At least I won't have to wear a funnel on my head.