What will I do with my second chance at life? Play more video games, for a start

Does a near-death experience make you a better person? This is something I’ve been thinking about on and off since my pulmonary embolism. Initially, it hadn’t occurred to me that a PE was a big deal. But the research that I’ve done since suggests that these things aren’t unserious. My seen-it-all ex-army GP, for example, was properly impressed. As too have been the various people I know whose friends and relatives have died of them, one a 23-year-old girl who succumbed after breaking her ankle while walking on the moors. So yes, as my fellow ‘survivors’ keep telling me, I should be grateful for my lucky escape — and perhaps see it as a heaven-sent opportunity to put my life into perspective.

What I can’t work out at this stage, though, is whether the experience has really changed me — or whether I’m just inventing it because I feel it’s what I ought to do and I’m a bit of a drama queen.