9.20am. Puzzle solved! My old mobile rings and it is the same number as Thursday’s missed call. This time I take the call. Intriguingly it is from the Genomic Research Group unit at Coventry Hospital. A non-clinical department, which is presumably why they don’t share numbers with the rest of the hospital. Biomedical Assistant Rebecca is calling to see whether I am willing to take part in a study (called the 100,000 project) into malignant DNA.
I vaguely recall receiving something about it a few weeks ago among the ton of other literature I was given. I am more than willing to give consent for them to use tissue samples. Another positive thing, albeit in a tiny way which will hopefully help future generations. I agree to meet Rebecca on Wednesday afternoon when I am visiting the consultant.
Being a humanist I have no God to answer prayers, in fact no praying at all!. Instead I have an unshakable belief in the ingenuity of man to make life better. In this I trust – and being a Green I include climate change in the scope of solvable problems. So no scam after all. Just as well since the technology required to pull off such a stunt would be very advanced indeed!
We pack up the car and set off for home. My mother in law persists in trying to get us to say when she can expect a visit. She finds it difficult to reconcile this with her earlier advice of ‘take each day as it comes’. Lao Tzu would recognise the discomfort! I stick with Lao’s advice and refuse to make any predictions, difficult though that is for her to accept.
Forget the Rules 