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"Have you got a diagnosis for me, then?" I asked as I sat down in the Registrar's office.

"Yes, we have. You have a toxic multinodular goitre," the Registrar said triumphantly.

Six months earlier, I had been driving back from a business meeting in Devon and, while rubbing my neck, stiff from driving, I had discovered a swelling in my thyroid.

After having visited my GP and having had blood tests with her clinic's phlebotomist, she had arranged for me to see a consultant endocrinologist at our local hospital because the thyroxine levels were normal. This meant it was more than hyper- or hypothyroidism.

"Better check it's not cancerous," she had said as I was leaving the surgery.

Despite having been in Subud for 30 years and knowing that Bapak had said worrying makes you more ill, I still felt a whiff of adrenalin kick into my system. It made me realise that, at 56, I was not yet ready to begin that run-up to my death. I needed more time to learn to surrender.

"And anyway," I dialogued with God, "I'd look terrible with no hair if I were to need chemotherapy ..."

I had to undergo a whole range of tests and scans. The first was ultrasound. They discovered I had a nodule but couldn't see if it was one big one or several smaller ones. Then followed another, more in-depth scan with intravenous, low-level radioactive iodine, an x-ray and finally FNA (Fine Needle Aspiration), which hurt like hell. This whole process took six months and led me to where we started - in the Registrar's office feeling extremely relieved that it wasn't cancer.

The Registrar produced a colour thermograph from the last scan showing three nodules of varying sizes. "They're hot nodules. Cold ones could possibly be cancerous. But, anyway, the cytology tests rule out any form of cancer. All the cells are normal."

Apparently, the hot spots, which showed up like supernovae on the jet-black photographic paper, white at the centre, then yellow then red, were doing all the thyroxine production. The rest of the gland was dormant, thus fooling my pituitary gland - the so-called conductor of the endocrine orchestra - that all was well and in balance.

"What we plan," the Registrar continued, "is for you to take a two-week course of a drug called Carbimazole which will hopefully stop the hot-spot nodules from producing all the thyroxine, thereby kick-starting the pituitary gland into producing more thryoid-stimulating hormone so that the whole gland will start functioning normally. If that doesn't work, we'll get you to drink radioactive iodine which will gather in the thyroid and kill off the nodules. That's the theory," she concluded and made an appointment for me to return in three months.

It occurred to me that the biochemical dangers that accompany this theoretical prognosis are twofold. First, one in a thousand patients react badly to Carbimazole and it creates havoc with their immune system. "If you develop a sore throat while taking this drug, stop taking it immediately and go to your local hospital emergency department ..."  it says on the sheet handed out with my prescription. I really didn't fancy risking giving myself something akin to Aids, especially during a flu epidemic. One in a thousand is not long enough odds for me!

Secondly, if given too much radioactive iodine - and the consultant can only guess the right amount - thereby killing too much thyroid tissue - it's thyroxine tablets for life. Drinking the radioactive stuff would also mean not sleeping in the same bed as my wife for a week, not kissing anyone and not being closer than 15 feet to small children. I'd be a walking Doon Reay! The whole exercise seemed too risky for me.

Time to plan a DIY healing campaign.

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