And, no I'm afraid that isn't one of my attention grabbing headlines.
I just came the closest to dying I've ever been.
This afternoon, a porter arrived to take me down to the endoscopy suite. They were going to insert a nasal-jejunum tube to make the MRI easier. The tube by-passes the stomach and feeds straight into the small bowel. It would mean I wouldn't have to drink litres of horrible contrast tomorrow and they would get a better image.
Today, I am weary, and I feel unwell. I shuffled down for my last cigarette, but the unremitting nausea that I've had all day mocked me by finally turning to vomit just inside the door to the secret garden. As I started to gag, the NJ tube started to shift - something I've never had happen before).
Suddenly, the tube is looped back in my mouth, the new kink pressing against the back of my throat. I can't breath. Shiny brown-red clots are streaming from my mouth, and all I can do is catch them. I look around wildly for an emergency cord. I am kneeling on the cool ceramic floor and slip on the clots as I realise there is no cord.
I am dying. This is it, I am going to die. After all I've survived, the workaday end would be a toilet floor of a hospital, all alone. I am choking, I can't draw a breath. The choking shuts down all my other strength, it is all there is. I must have started to crawl towards the door, but the toilet is at the end of a corridor to nowhere and I am going to die before anyone sees me.
I shout a gurgling, deep cry for help. The word contains my very last hope.
A sister is by me. She is taking my wrist and her other arm is round my waist. I manage to rake a long gravelly breath into my lungs but then choke again. She is telling me to breath and walking me down the corridor. I look at her and open my mouth to show her where the loop of tube was blocking my windpipe, but she marches me on. I try to beg her with my eyes not to move me, I need her to grab the loop and pull it clear of my windpipe, but relentlessly, she marches me on.
I manage to beg her to stop, but she keeps repeating "Keep, walking. Keep walking."
We speed down the ward, clotted brown jelly leaving a trail behind us and falling through my fingers. I drag another laboured breath in and suddenly I am gone.
I watch myself, with cool detachment rush along the hall. I stop gagging, I stop choking. I feel calm and just march. The lift is not there and I see her push the button to summon it down. I am dying and she is making we wait for a lift. Somewhere deep, deep inside me, I think I even find that funny.
We are back on my ward, and Alison, heroine of Friday night, takes one look at me and pulls the tube straight out. She supports me back to my bed and puts an arm around me.
I don't cry, but my head plonks on her shoulder and we sit on my bed and stare for a while, her arm tight around me. Each of us is thinking
"Shit, that was close".
Post Script, 2.51am
Half an hour or so passed, and the nurse popped back to see how I am. I was shocked, detached and unimaginably tired. She said she thought she ought to get a doctor to give me something "fluffy" (her word) and check me over.
He declined to come.
So, just as I always do, I will get through it myself. Just like I always do, I will "Pull myself together." Just like I always do, I won't make a fuss. Just like I always do, I will lay here awake, my mind replaying horrors until I fall into exhaustion.
On top of all that, something so fundamental has been overlooked, that I can't even tell you about it here. I like tonight's nurses and they've been kind to me. If I told you the final part of my story, they would lose their jobs and the NHS would just lose two good souls.
I don't want that.
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
Monday, 29 November 2010
Free cannabis for Students!!!
OK, the title's a complete lie, but it got you to open the link, didn't it?
If you could only achieve my levels of geeky nerd-hood, you would have known much of what the coalition planned to do well before the election. I was under no illusions, I knew VAT would rise, I knew culture and sport would be clobbered, I knew IDS planned to totally reform welfare and I knew that Nick Clegg wanted a deal with Cameron and would have not tolerated one with Labour even if they had won more seats.
I remember the last Conservative government in all it's nasty-party glory. Education neglected, health crippled, culture invisible, crime soaring, society denied, unemployment raging. My only glimmer of hope was the assurance they'd changed. That "Dave" really had dragged them into the 21st Century and that Conservatism was now Compassionate.
Watching the CSR settled that question pretty conclusively. I watched open mouthed as Osborne went further than even I ever imagined he might. Often, the policies he was announcing sounded fairly reasonable, but it seemed no-one had considered the impact of them 2 or 3 years down the line.
There were serious risks attached - not just to one or two policies, but to all of them. I had the impression that Dave had stood at the head of the cabinet table in front of a whiteboard, urging all departments to "Think outside of the box," encouraging policy formation through "Blue Sky Thinking." The PR man could inspire his team to dream, but like most good marketing men, felt little need to concern himself with the finished product. Details were something mere mortals would work out when the time came.
The Immigration Cap might well lead to a skills shortage, the VAT rise would only take money out of the recovering economy, the housing benefit cap could dispossess thousands of families. Scrapping cancer guarantees and NHS targets would cost lives, whilst cutting local authority budgets would squeeze schools. Unemployment would rise and therefore the benefit bill would rise with it. Crime would soar, (as it always does when unemployment is high) but the police would be short staffed, and unable to react. Even if they did catch the criminals, courts would have closed and prison places would have been cut. Reducing care budgets would only put extra pressure on the NHS, as elderly patients block more beds with nowhere to go home to.
My biggest fear was that by the time people fully realised the impact of so many jumbled policies, so much damage would have been done, it would be hard to ever reverse. I had faced such a wall of apathy during the election, I feared no-one would ever care about anything again. I remembered all to well how much we had put up with under the last Conservative government before we finally put our foot down over the Poll Tax. We would have to pass the compulsory three years tutting, then a year or so tutting and shrugging before we moved on to a good few years of writing very stern letters to the Times. Only when every very British form of protest had been exhausted would we take to the streets a la France - us Brits seem to find resistance uncouth.
But hang on, what's this? A sea of beanie hats, dreads and pink hair has risen up! (A little after midday, but better late than never.) There are tens of thousands and more join every day. They tweet and they digg and they poke and they meme. Against all the odds, they are achieving formidable!! Their flower-power parents couldn't be more surprised to find their grunting hulks of lethargy painting banners and planning marches.
Students have declared the rise in tuition fees unacceptable and they have done it just 6 months into the coalition. They have blazed the trail. Nurses and doctors and teachers and the disabled have watched the footage of rallies and demonstrations and realised that they can say no too.
I'm firmly convinced that we ain't seen nothing yet. In two or three years, I fear that we, the people, will need to remove our support for the coalition. I couldn't be more delighted that it is young people that are showing us the way. By not waiting until it was too late, they've shown the rest of us that we don't have to either.
If you could only achieve my levels of geeky nerd-hood, you would have known much of what the coalition planned to do well before the election. I was under no illusions, I knew VAT would rise, I knew culture and sport would be clobbered, I knew IDS planned to totally reform welfare and I knew that Nick Clegg wanted a deal with Cameron and would have not tolerated one with Labour even if they had won more seats.
I remember the last Conservative government in all it's nasty-party glory. Education neglected, health crippled, culture invisible, crime soaring, society denied, unemployment raging. My only glimmer of hope was the assurance they'd changed. That "Dave" really had dragged them into the 21st Century and that Conservatism was now Compassionate.
Watching the CSR settled that question pretty conclusively. I watched open mouthed as Osborne went further than even I ever imagined he might. Often, the policies he was announcing sounded fairly reasonable, but it seemed no-one had considered the impact of them 2 or 3 years down the line.
There were serious risks attached - not just to one or two policies, but to all of them. I had the impression that Dave had stood at the head of the cabinet table in front of a whiteboard, urging all departments to "Think outside of the box," encouraging policy formation through "Blue Sky Thinking." The PR man could inspire his team to dream, but like most good marketing men, felt little need to concern himself with the finished product. Details were something mere mortals would work out when the time came.
The Immigration Cap might well lead to a skills shortage, the VAT rise would only take money out of the recovering economy, the housing benefit cap could dispossess thousands of families. Scrapping cancer guarantees and NHS targets would cost lives, whilst cutting local authority budgets would squeeze schools. Unemployment would rise and therefore the benefit bill would rise with it. Crime would soar, (as it always does when unemployment is high) but the police would be short staffed, and unable to react. Even if they did catch the criminals, courts would have closed and prison places would have been cut. Reducing care budgets would only put extra pressure on the NHS, as elderly patients block more beds with nowhere to go home to.
My biggest fear was that by the time people fully realised the impact of so many jumbled policies, so much damage would have been done, it would be hard to ever reverse. I had faced such a wall of apathy during the election, I feared no-one would ever care about anything again. I remembered all to well how much we had put up with under the last Conservative government before we finally put our foot down over the Poll Tax. We would have to pass the compulsory three years tutting, then a year or so tutting and shrugging before we moved on to a good few years of writing very stern letters to the Times. Only when every very British form of protest had been exhausted would we take to the streets a la France - us Brits seem to find resistance uncouth.
But hang on, what's this? A sea of beanie hats, dreads and pink hair has risen up! (A little after midday, but better late than never.) There are tens of thousands and more join every day. They tweet and they digg and they poke and they meme. Against all the odds, they are achieving formidable!! Their flower-power parents couldn't be more surprised to find their grunting hulks of lethargy painting banners and planning marches.
Students have declared the rise in tuition fees unacceptable and they have done it just 6 months into the coalition. They have blazed the trail. Nurses and doctors and teachers and the disabled have watched the footage of rallies and demonstrations and realised that they can say no too.
I'm firmly convinced that we ain't seen nothing yet. In two or three years, I fear that we, the people, will need to remove our support for the coalition. I couldn't be more delighted that it is young people that are showing us the way. By not waiting until it was too late, they've shown the rest of us that we don't have to either.
Sunday, 28 November 2010
Ladybird
Sitting in my hossie bed, contemplating pyjamas, a ladybird just landed on my head and then flew down to settle on my stomach.
It's minus three outside and inside is one of the most sterile, bug free environments possible!!!
WTF?
A quick Google tells me they are a very good omen in every culture.
Little sparks of magic often happen when I'm in hospital.
I like them very much.
It's minus three outside and inside is one of the most sterile, bug free environments possible!!!
WTF?
A quick Google tells me they are a very good omen in every culture.
Little sparks of magic often happen when I'm in hospital.
I like them very much.
Weekend
I had a lovely weekend.
Dave bought the boys up and they got here after lunch on Saturday.
What joy, to see the boy's delighted faces when they first saw me, to cuddle their little bodies and breathe in their baby smell.
Saturday evening, we went for dinner together. We found a cosy, dimly lit pub with a nook lined with sofas. Christmas trees were shining silver, gold and red and fairy lights painted rainbows on our skin.
We ate together and it felt like home. I savoured a glass of wine as though It were Cristal and we ordered the boys enormous cookie and ice cream desserts, gooey with cream and sprinkled sweeties.
Today, we took them to the cinema and while they watched the screen, I watched their engrossed faces and tried to store away enough of their giggles and kisses to see me through the week ahead.
It never fails to amaze me how wonderful tiny pleasures seem when you've been in hospital for more than a week or two. Colours seem brightly vivid after the drab, institutional wards. Wine tastes of freedom after weeks of denial and shines like gold in the glass. A kiss feels more precious, a laugh more of a privilege and the cinnamon, citrus and pine scent of Christmas chases away the last stench of antiseptic and sickness.
The days I've left hospital have been some of the best of my life. Nothing on earth feels as good as getting the chance to experience and appreciate afresh the simple wonders and comforts and pleasures of your life. They are moments of pure happiness and satisfaction.
Dave bought the boys up and they got here after lunch on Saturday.
What joy, to see the boy's delighted faces when they first saw me, to cuddle their little bodies and breathe in their baby smell.
Saturday evening, we went for dinner together. We found a cosy, dimly lit pub with a nook lined with sofas. Christmas trees were shining silver, gold and red and fairy lights painted rainbows on our skin.
We ate together and it felt like home. I savoured a glass of wine as though It were Cristal and we ordered the boys enormous cookie and ice cream desserts, gooey with cream and sprinkled sweeties.
Today, we took them to the cinema and while they watched the screen, I watched their engrossed faces and tried to store away enough of their giggles and kisses to see me through the week ahead.
It never fails to amaze me how wonderful tiny pleasures seem when you've been in hospital for more than a week or two. Colours seem brightly vivid after the drab, institutional wards. Wine tastes of freedom after weeks of denial and shines like gold in the glass. A kiss feels more precious, a laugh more of a privilege and the cinnamon, citrus and pine scent of Christmas chases away the last stench of antiseptic and sickness.
The days I've left hospital have been some of the best of my life. Nothing on earth feels as good as getting the chance to experience and appreciate afresh the simple wonders and comforts and pleasures of your life. They are moments of pure happiness and satisfaction.
Saturday, 27 November 2010
You mean people do this for pleasure??
I absolutely DETEST taking pethidine.
It makes me feel what Dave and I have come to describe as "jangly."
I can't bear anyone touching me or even talking to me.
Every small tap or slurp is magnified a thousand times, so I jump out of my skin at nothing and feel like I want to strangle anyone who dares even to breathe in my presence.
It makes my muscles twitch, so that, out of the blue a cup of tea I'm holding might shoot across the room. I don't even carry my baby down the stairs as I'm frightened I'll drop him.
It makes me sweat. I wake up in the night literally drenched, lying in a wet bed that I have to either change or give up on, choosing instead to plod downstairs to the sofa.
It makes me itch. I watch this twitchy, itchy wreck, constantly scratching at herself like an addict and slurring through mangled sentences. I simply stay in my bedroom now, so that I don't have to share that pathetic version of me with those that love me the most. Sometimes it means I spend days on end upstairs vomiting and hiding away.
It keeps me awake, so it's fairly common to see me padding about at 3am. Often I don't actually manage to get to sleep until dawn.
It mashes my brain and makes me forget what I'm writing or whatever I was in the middle of saying. I hate that, it embarrasses me.
I have to take it by injection, giving me sore legs, ugly bruises and the constant risk of abscesses.
When I've taken it, an hour or so later I almost always desperately plead at my husband "What about this did I think was better than being in pain?"
But tomorrow or the next day, the pain will rage and all over again it will seem inconceivable that I just tolerate it. It is not a tolerable pain.
It makes me feel what Dave and I have come to describe as "jangly."
I can't bear anyone touching me or even talking to me.
Every small tap or slurp is magnified a thousand times, so I jump out of my skin at nothing and feel like I want to strangle anyone who dares even to breathe in my presence.
It makes my muscles twitch, so that, out of the blue a cup of tea I'm holding might shoot across the room. I don't even carry my baby down the stairs as I'm frightened I'll drop him.
It makes me sweat. I wake up in the night literally drenched, lying in a wet bed that I have to either change or give up on, choosing instead to plod downstairs to the sofa.
It makes me itch. I watch this twitchy, itchy wreck, constantly scratching at herself like an addict and slurring through mangled sentences. I simply stay in my bedroom now, so that I don't have to share that pathetic version of me with those that love me the most. Sometimes it means I spend days on end upstairs vomiting and hiding away.
It keeps me awake, so it's fairly common to see me padding about at 3am. Often I don't actually manage to get to sleep until dawn.
It mashes my brain and makes me forget what I'm writing or whatever I was in the middle of saying. I hate that, it embarrasses me.
I have to take it by injection, giving me sore legs, ugly bruises and the constant risk of abscesses.
When I've taken it, an hour or so later I almost always desperately plead at my husband "What about this did I think was better than being in pain?"
But tomorrow or the next day, the pain will rage and all over again it will seem inconceivable that I just tolerate it. It is not a tolerable pain.
Friday, 26 November 2010
Freddie Flintoff???
Well fancy that!
I'm sure I just passed Freddie Flintoff in the empty foyer as I came back in from my last illicit ciggie.
He nodded and said hello too, in a way only famous people do when they see someone giving them the "Don't I know you?" look.
Your mission, should you choose to accept, is to find out if it really was him or not. It must be possible to find out where he is treated for his knees? Whether he's in the UK or abroad?
How cool if it was him? I love Freddie.
Night.
I'm sure I just passed Freddie Flintoff in the empty foyer as I came back in from my last illicit ciggie.
He nodded and said hello too, in a way only famous people do when they see someone giving them the "Don't I know you?" look.
Your mission, should you choose to accept, is to find out if it really was him or not. It must be possible to find out where he is treated for his knees? Whether he's in the UK or abroad?
How cool if it was him? I love Freddie.
Night.
Friday's Toast
My gastro team are in the news!
Look, there's Dr Parkes, one of my consultants :
http://www.cuh.org.uk/addenbrookes/news/2010/november/crohns_genetic_breakthrough.html
The team here have been at the very forefront of global genetic research into inflammatory bowel disease. They are looking at medicine in an entirely new way and were one of the first teams to foresee how vital genetic medicine would become.
Tonight, if you will, raise a glass to Miles Parkes, Stephen Middleton, John Hunter, Francesca Bredin and Alison Nightingale. (Yes, really and no, her name isn't Florence)
Look, there's Dr Parkes, one of my consultants :
http://www.cuh.org.uk/addenbrookes/news/2010/november/crohns_genetic_breakthrough.html
The team here have been at the very forefront of global genetic research into inflammatory bowel disease. They are looking at medicine in an entirely new way and were one of the first teams to foresee how vital genetic medicine would become.
Tonight, if you will, raise a glass to Miles Parkes, Stephen Middleton, John Hunter, Francesca Bredin and Alison Nightingale. (Yes, really and no, her name isn't Florence)
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