NHS is really, really busy. I didn't even get the chance to show off my 'incredible' walking skills – Susan Morrison

Call from the Royal Infirmary. A cheery nurse tells me that my surgeon wants my lungs tested.

The NHS is going like the clappers (Picture: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Right oh, I say. Can you pop along next Tuesday, she says? Yep, say I. When the NHS calls, I am ready to rumble.

There’s concern about the waiting lists that have built up over the Covid years. It’s understandable, but if anyone thinks that the NHS is just sitting back, breathing a sigh of relief and booking a spa day at Stobo, then forget it. The place is going like the clappers. You can almost feel it.

They sent a letter to make sure I remembered to turn up. There was a whole list of exciting tests. Naturally, I misread it, and thought I was going to get all of them. One of them was the “Incredible Walking Test”.

Well, that got me fair excited. How could it be incredible? Is it up a hill, backwards, in sling backs? Is it resilience in walking? Do I have to prove I can walk through a shopping mall and NOT go into The Body Shop, H&M or John Lewis?

The nurse was tremendous, as ever, and didn’t even blink when I announced that the tumour they’re after in the left lung was “seven metres”. She checked her notes, looked me in the eye, and said “seven MILLImetres”. Good grasp of detail, these folk.

Lung testing involves tubes and breathing in and out, and people looking at computer screens with peaks and troughs on them. Still, I thought, things will liven up with the incredible walking.

We did two tests, and apparently I passed them both. There are two lungs, in the right place, doing what lungs do.

But, I said, what about the “Incredible Walking Test”? Sounds great. I've been practising.

For once, there was a mild disturbance in the imperturbable air around the nurse: “The what?”

I showed her my letter. “Ah,” she said. “It's the ‘incremental walking test'. You aren’t doing that one. We highlighted yours in yellow.”

Don’t mind admitting, felt a bit crushed. Think I’ll get my eyes tested next.

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