For some months I’ve been getting more and more breathless.

Various possible causes of this were put forward.

About 6 weeks ago, the medical oncologist decided to find out once and for all.

I had a CTPA scan that showed pulmonary embolisms. “That’s the cause”, they said, and I started the dreaded Clexane, an anti-coagulant.

With Clexane it should, I gather, have stabilized, or got a little better.

But it’s getting worse by the day. Today is worse than yesterday. Yesterday was worse than the day before.

“Perhaps there are pleural effusions”, they say. Is there fluid around the lungs, preventing them from doing their thing? Yesterday I had a chest x-ray to see. Answer: no.

So we still don’t know what’s causing this. Today I can’t walk from one room to the next without (puff) running (gasp) out of (puff) breath.

I suspect they’re at straw-clutching phase. “Maybe it’s the ascites”, they say. The dreaded ascites has returned, though is not (yet) serious. Perhaps it’s pushing up against the diaphragm preventing me from breathing properly. So on Monday I’m going to have that drained, to see if that helps.

This isn’t (puff) fun any more.