New fear flavour - born of 'negative'

Here's a correa in my front yard this afternoon, a delightful little local - one here long before we Anglos shipped in the cats, rabbits, foxes, pinus radiata and the daffodil bulbs (shooting to its left).

Being in its company under the canopy of my grand old friends the messmates and peppermint gums - there was a comfort of sorts (... things don't make as much sense to me in the garden as by the sea, but I know I'm torturing the ocean voyage metaphor. So now why not mix metaphors too, gardens and ice cream stores ...)

I'm starting to think fear has 32 flavours.
I've tasted possibly six these past weeks.
Yesterday afternoon a new, intriguing one. It's neither bitter nor sweet and, bizarre, born of the word "negative".
I wouldn't have thought at the start of all this that any negative result could be a scare.

... except that this one means they're clearly now out of ideas of what to test for.

So, I don't have Whipples disease according to Sydney's Westmead hospital. Sure, I'm happy about that - and still very happy about the negative result to tumours of any flavour.

BUT WHAT THE FUCK IS IT STOPPING ME FROM SWIMMING, DRIVING, GOING UP ON A FUCKING LADDER TO CLEAN MY FUCKING GUTTERS!?

They'll do another MRI in six weeks to see if it's grown, shrunk or stayed content.

And in the meantime, whatever colony of beasties it is still resides in my brain quite happily wrapped up a sleeping bag of my own foam cells, minus the 15 per cent gob extracted during surgery.

"So, the thing that made you drop, pass out completely and go blueish for four minutes, look stoned out of your mind and talk shit for another 10 minutes before ending up in the emergency unit ... ummmm, we don't know. And see you in six weeks. (And in the meantime sit on the couch - safely- because our lawyers advise us to advise you to do fuck all)."

Fear's something of what's going on (and that's been more Aperol and soda than straight Campari since we've been talking infection not tumour, more star-anise infused than fistful of fennel).

Not sure what flavour this fear is. Haven't worked it out. I think it's got a tang about it - an anger.

Correas in close to solstice afternoon light help.

Given that quite a few of these postings so far have been ventings/explorations of fear, this quote strikes a chord lately, and the correa sings it in chorus:

"It has been said that our anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, but only empties today of its strength."
-- Charles Haddon Spurgeon