'Confession d'un malade imaginaire'

I've been waiting long enough for a diagnosis to the Condition, but now there is one, of sorts, it doesn't make it any the more palatable.
Nor does the fact that it's pretty much what I'd begun to fear it was even before last Thursday's morning on and off the X-ray slab in the most modern hospital I've ever seen in my life.
Much of Monday I spent going from one lab to another in different places, collecting all the outstanding results of September's tests.
Yesterday, I dumped the lot on bloghero Yang's desk.
Then I had to go into AFP and tell the Desk Chief that it looks pretty much as if I've been off work since early May with nothing worse than a psychosomatic case of burnout and no apparent physical explanation for the symptoms.
This is "intellectually highly unsatisfactory", the doctor told me, before adding that "Were it up to me on purely clinical grounds, I'd give you a week to assimilate it. As it is, I suppose we'd better wait on (the specialist)."
Jo was much nicer than many a boss might be in a situation I found very humiliating; more so than I deserved, since given my expression, she remarked, "I thought you were going to say you've got cancer or something."
She even volunteered the information that she wouldn't tell anybody, which I much appreciated and certainly believe. It seems rather pointless, however, given that the Factory is the nearest thing to a sieve I've ever worked in apart from the BBC.

So there you have it, o loyal Four ¾: the Condition has been diagnosed, fairly definitively, as that nebulous thing known as Stress, which is no more or less than a daily part of any decent journalist's life.
No, the "symptoms" haven't done what one colleague thought they might now I know: gone away! So far today, I've paid seven long visits to the loo, two of them at the Canteen, where I really didn't feel like talking for once.

This afternoon, the following letter has gone off to fellow officers in both my trade unions (extract) in two languages:

"(...) I have a final rendez-vous with my specialist on October 16.
It is possible that, after that meeting, I shall resume work at AFP. The good news is that I don't have a serious disease, unless the specialist determines otherwise.
The bad news is that I'm still sick.
As of today, nevertheless, I'm able to take treatment, which was not wise during the tests to avoid falsifying the results.
But, in the light of a discussion yesterday with my general practitioner, our first with all results at last on the table, I've got a few difficult decisions to take regarding my future.
The first of these decisions is also among the hardest.
But I have taken it.
As of today, what has happened in practice -- more or less -- in past months is becoming a fact of life.
With this letter, for health reasons and not wishing to say much more, I am resigning from all my trade union activities on behalf of the National Union of Journalists.
This I do with the greatest respect for you all, dear colleagues, and not without heartache.
We've travelled a long road together for many years (and myself, sometimes elected, sometimes not, as a personnel representative at AFP).
But the day has come for me to pass on the torch. It is also my wish to receive no more correspondence directed to me in an official union capacity, either from the union or from management.
I would also ask you all, my friends, to accept and respect my decision, which is, this time, definitive and 'without appeal'.
I imagine that this announcement, sudden as it might seem to some who know me rather less well than others, will stir up its share of questions.
These I'll answer, but not now.
For the moment, my doctor's given me a couple of weeks to 'digest', in peace, a few results which surprise him as much as they do me. Or perhaps, to be honest, they don't.
Please do the same."

All that said, I'm now going to try to keep a promise my father extracted from me last night. He suggested that I put away the medical dossier for a week and not even think about it.
Easier said than done, but a wise piece of advice.
The Wildcat has also said something uncommonly wise and perceptive, even for her, but there's no place for that here, just a "thank you".