Stephacockaliticus and me – updated.

With some trepidation, I answered my mobile phone, knowing it was Duncan (not real name).

You see Duncan has been suffering with Stephacockaliticus B the terrible viral condition that affects the calf muscles and the gene that controls your ability to speak at socially audible volumes in public.

Today was the day he got the results from the radical gene therapy he had recently been engaged in.

We’d first become aware that something was wrong with Duncan when he continually shouted at a small luncheon we had organised for another friend Suze, who was about to move to Africa to work with Médecins Sans Frontières.

At first, it was just rather embarrassing, especially the time we were almost ejected from Waitrose following Duncan booming, “Mate, where’s the fucking lemon grass?” Honest, he pitched his voice at such a volume he almost gave an elderly customer a heart attack; after all the poor old dear had only ever heard someone shout that loud once before, and that was during a Pathé film about the air raids in London circa 1942.

The most damning sign that Stephacockaliticus was taking hold was Duncan’s increased calf muscles mass. Dunc swore blind that he wasn’t working out and that the tone the lower part of his leg had developed had occurred over an incredible short period of time; in fact he’d added an inch in circumference during a Sunday evening screening of Paul Thomas Andersons tour de force ‘Magnolia’ (Mind you, it is a very very long flick).

It was at this point that Dunc got himself checked out by a quack. Turned out he did indeed have Stephacockaliticus B.

As my faithful readers will already know, I myself suffer with Stephacockaliticus A (the much more serious and headline grabbing version)

Coincidentally I developed the condition at the same time as my blog took a downward turn in hits. Ever since my visitor numbers recovered, I have documented my brave battle with this dreadful illness.

Obviously when I heard about Dunc’s condition I was devastated; everyone’s attention and sympathy and up to that point had been solely focused on me; now I was going to have to share it with Duncan! Even though to be quite frank his dose of Monks was far less serious (Monks is the slang name for Stephacockaliticus).

Dunc never let his condition get him down; he faced the illness with the same inherent middle class grit that you would expect from any ex-rugger bugger and former public school boy. In fact, during the initial months he positively prospered and my courageous, annoyingly handsome, vaguely amusing in a ‘calls everyone and everything gay all the time’ way chum just got on with things in precisely the same way as I hadn’t.

Where I moaned and complained he was philosophical and positive.

In May this year a Doctor from St Lego’s University Hospital of Malvern suggested Dunc take part in a trail using an experimental drug. This drug would blend with his ‘privileged’ gene thus giving his immune system an extra shot of arrogant superiority, hopefully enough to combat the Stephacockaliticus B bug.

Today is the day Duncan got the results of from this clinical trial.

Sadly the news is not good. Dunc has the all clear.

I writing this knowing my fate is far less certain. And if the truth be known, I wish it were me that was free and clear and not Duncan.

Does that make me a bad person?