The nurse will see you now . . .

Last month I was sprightly, sporty, in my thirties and completed a half-marathon after minimal running training.

This month I turned 40 and my physical collapse has been spectacular! And I blame BUPA.

Being keen on living a relatively healthy lifestyle, I took up the option of a comprehensive healthcheck offered by my employers and for two hours I was quizzed, poked, prodded, hooked up to all manner of contraptions and drained of differing fluids.

Bursting with rude health, I had no worries or concerns about what the sawbones and lab rats might find. But then doubts were placed in my mind.

First, my ECG report was sent off to a cardiologist for investigation into an irregular rhythm.
"Do you ever feel faint, out of breath, dizzy? Has your heart ever exploded/imploded in your chest cavity or housed a colony of blood-sucking artery-devouring space spiders?" Crikey! Not that I'm aware of . . . I get breathless because I'm fit, I work out a lot. "I see, hmmmm" What? What do you see?! "Probably nothing, we'll let you know . . ."

A week is a long time when you are suddenly conscious of every heartbeat, every extra breath or feeling of tiredness. All of a sudden I could only lift half the weights I was able to just days earlier. I was positive that if I added any extra kilos to the bar the exertion would force my heart out of my nose where it would beat limply and messily for a few seconds and my gym membership would be withdrawn for upsetting the other patrons.

But a crisp, white, healthy-looking letter dropped on to the mat - and a cheery all-clear was delivered. Almost.

Irregular-but-safe heart rhythm notwithstanding and with - officially - the lung function of an athlete and urine so clean and pure I've signed a lucrative deal to supply Evian, another cloud hangs over me. Too much bilirubin in the blood. Or the liver. Somewhere any way.

Until last week I had never even heard of bilirubin and I'd never buy any of their records even if I had! This week I learned I've got double the regular volume of it swilling about my bloodstream. I punched the air and tried to high-five the doc. "Get in! Double you say? How great am I!?" He looked at me with properly trained and practiced disdain. Turns out it's not great.

So I await the results of further tests. A Google search leaves me none the wiser and the quack's explanation was far from illuminating, except that from being utterly and happily ignorant of its existence, now I'm convinced I can feel and hear litres of bilirubin devouring my haemoglobin and turning my pancreas and bile duct into soup.

While I was ignorant and 39, I was fit as a fiddle and believed all life's problems could be worked out while pressing steel weights off one's chest.

Mere days later I'm 40, got a dodgy ticker and a poisoned bloodstream and daren't lift anything more taxing than a cheeseburger. Cheers, BUPA! A little knowledge is a dangerous thing!