My head has been a bit all over the place these last few days. I took a call from the Living Donor team. They had assessed my MRI scan results since my recent hospitalisation and concluded that they’re not willing to proceed with the transplant.

So having passed all the tests, a tiny blood vessel in my neck burst, restricting blood flow to my head, dramatically increasing the risk of a stroke or worse if I am placed under general anaesthetic. It would be pushing things too far. In some ways, I knew this was a possibility. In other’s, I had denied that this would be the outcome. I was hedging and hoping, the power of positive thinking, to get the right outcome. Sadly that wasn’t the result. I didn’t tell my sister straight away. I needed an evening to wrap my head around it.

She is in shock I think right now. She had already missed her dialysis prep appointments, I think she was trying to avoid that particular reality as we were both focusing on the transplant. Now she really does need to focus on the dialysis. When I was last there, we took a walk, her boyfriend and I got ahead of everyone, he said that if the donor centre found that I wasn’t a match, then he would put himself forward. Time to step up laddie.

Mum was in shock too I think. I had played down my illness a little as I didn’t want to worry anyone. She was at my sister’s and wasn’t seeing it first hand. Dad was supportive and on his way home from his big summer trip.

I took the bike out yesterday. I needed it. Really needed it. Probably gave it a bit more than I would normally. Pushing it closer to the edge. Sometimes, you just have to get these things out of your system. Riding a motorbike is many things. Dangerous. Exposed. But also somehow it frees you. It is just you, the bike and the elements. Everyone and everywhere there are constant threats. And yet, it is compelling to step down a gear and pop the throttle open and skim past the traffic, easing between them and the oncoming traffic.

I came upon an artic – articulated lorry – on the approach to a roundabout. Easing off, I skimmed the roundabout and prepared to slip by on the outside. Just before I wound open the throttle, I noticed movement of the rear door. I backed off a touch and it swung in a slow pendulum to pretty much where my head would have been if I hadn’t spotted it opening.

Oops.

I hung back, it swung wide open, then bounced on it’s hinges and began a slow journey back to where it belonged as the driver straightened up out of the roundabout. I dropped a gear and swung past, gesticulating with my left hand as I went past the cab of the truck. I think the driver was still oblivious. He probably thought I was just (another?) belligerent biker.

Sometimes, I need these things. Not the swinging artic door close to my head. But the feeling of being on the edge, of being alive. Maybe that’s the pull of riding.