Why are doctors blaming my birth for my mother’s tumour?

A curious letter has been sent to my mother blaming the tumour in her neck on my birth.

An NHS consultant has come to this conclusion after briefly looking into this very rare neoplasm on her left bulbar nerve, called a hypoglossal schwannoma. It was discovered during a routine head scan monitoring her dementia, which started suddenly last year. Of course, at 82, these things happen.

And although this tumour has only a one in 500,000 chance of developing, I’m prepared to say it’s all to be expected in old age, because what do I know? The medical profession knows best, one would presume.

In any case, this tumour was so rare that it had to be assessed by the Centre for Rare Diseases because it so baffled all the doctors at the local hospital.

After she attended this place with my father (I waited outside), a letter from the consultant arrived. The crux of his theory is that a neoplasm has been in her neck by the skull base for 52 years undetected, since and possibly even because of something that went wrong during my birth.

I intercepted his letter because my parents are both so poorly that I have to help them with everything. I opened it and sat my mother down and went through it with her.

‘Thank you for coming to see me today,’ the consultant began, and then without further ado: ‘You told me that you had a general anaesthetic around 50 years ago prior to the birth of your daughter following which you were found to have a left vocal cord palsy.’ Wait, what?