Kissing Disease and other distractions - Tony Cunnane's Life and Times

Halfway through the year-long Russian course I had three important distractions in quick succession which made it even more difficult to concentrate on learning Russian. First of all, I got engaged to be married and that's enough to distract anyone. Then I developed a persistent sore throat and swollen glands in my neck. I felt permanently mentally tired, physically drained, and unable to concentrate on anything much. I endured it for several weeks, to the detriment of my Russian lessons, before I decided to go and see the RAF doctor. She almost instantly diagnosed what was wrong and confirmed it with a blood test: I had glandular fever, an insidious complaint apparently correctly called infectious mononucleosis but sometimes referred to as 'the kissing disease'. The trouble was, she told me, that there is no real cure, just complete rest to help reduce the symptoms - not easy to do on an intensive language course whilst preparing to get married. I didn't tell anyone else that I had glandular fever because it seemed such a silly complaint. When I started to lag behind and day dream in lessons, the staff and my fellow students presumably thought that I was getting lazy or losing interest.

A few weeks later there was a third distraction when I had to see the same lady doctor again, this time with a suspicious lump in my right groin. Could this be another manifestation of glandular fever, I wondered. But no, it was instantly diagnosed as a hernia, large enough to require immediate repair. She sent me to the excellent RAF Hospital at Nocton Hall near Lincoln where the surgeon decided that there was also a lesser hernia in my left groin. He concurred that an early operation was required to fix both.

While I was awaiting my turn to be wheeled into the Operating Theatre the Ward Sister, who vaguely resembled the wonderful Hattie Jacques who played the fearsome Matron in the film 'Doctor in the House', came to me and said sternly, "Squadron Leader Cunnane, what is your operation for?"

I thought this might be a test to see if I was compos mentis. "You know what I’m in for – a BIH – bilateral inguinal hernia repair," I said, repeating the surgeon’s description of what he was going to do.

"Then why, four weeks before your wedding, have you signed for a vasectomy?", asked the Sister triumphantly, waving a sheaf of paper in my face. She turned to the young man in the adjacent bed, "And why have you, sergeant, signed for a double hernia operation?"

Of course it was quite possible that the nurse had given the two of us the wrong consent forms to sign shortly after she’d administered the pre-med injections, but I was too sleepy by then to suggest that.

Whether there was any connection between the three ‘distractions’ I have no idea. When I came round in the hospital recovery room I was a little put out to be told by the senior surgeon I'd dealt with earlier that the two grinning flight lieutenants with him, who looked to be still teenagers, had carried out my operation. Working at the same time, theyy had done a side each to give them some practice. I need not have worried about their skill because the repairs they made lasted until 2005 when repeat surgery was needed - although the NHS made me wait for nine months after diagnosis.

The glandular fever still recurs from time to time, even 30 years after the first attack, but it is less troublesome.

The wedding was cancelled, but that's a story I will not be telling.

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