Sorry doctor, there's a man behind me in swimming trunks with a knife..

 ..Is what I should have said. 

But in deference to the professional role and duty of the consultant delivering the confirmation of the myeloma diagnosis, I did not.

You see I was due to meet my consultant on Wednesday 24th July and had in the interim gone on my first ever sailing holiday, joining my friends Eamonn and Catherine on a catamaran up the Irish coast for four days. It was wonderful!

We had anchored on the 16th in a beautiful bay on the Wicklow coast, and that evening the hospital rang to see if I could attend a week early, on the 17th.

I explained my nautical location and they asked if I could have a phone appointment instead where they could discuss the test results and suggested treatment (which I should have pointed out was a bit of a spoiler for the test result part, but I didn't)

So on the 17th, just after I had hauled up the anchor (just before I was warned not to lift heavy weights: "Yo Heave-No!") the phone rang as we were turning and Eamonn found a rope had snagged us. So he had to strip to his trunks and take the vicious-looking rope knife that was always strapped to the cabin wall (no wonder so many pirates have scars) and went in to free us.

But the doctor knew none of this and gave me all the information and plans that I needed.

Nor did she know that it would have been our 14th wedding anniversary.

 The video is of our wonderful sailing later that day. I cannot think of a better place to have confirmation of how you are going to die. But maybe that's what the pirates thought too.