It was a day like any other until the trapdoor opened. We all have trapdoors in our lives. Sometimes we hear the hollow sound of our feet treading on the wood and jump off just in time: we defuse the argument with a joke; we swerve to prevent the traffic accident that would have left our car crumpled up like a giant tin can. But sometimes we are unlucky enough to be on the trapdoor when the lever is pulled. We remain frozen in mid-air for a fraction of a second, like Wile E Coyote running off a cliff, and then we plummet.
My own trapdoor was hidden in the consulting room of an Oxford neurologist. Time: an ordinary morning in October 2017. Place: an ordinary room full of anonymous office furniture and the musty smell of old potpourri. Through the window I could glimpse a flat, grey sky and a few dead leaves scurrying for cover. The neurologist had been recommended to me as an expert in her field, which meant that it would be all the more reassuring when she told me I had nothing to worry about. False alarm, glad to set your mind at rest, good luck with your next book, and so on.
Read more at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/body/symptoms-seemed-embarrassingly-trivial-diagnosed-multiple/
