More trials and tribulations
However, it seemed that I had escaped from one nightmare and entered another. It was the middle of the night and my throat and mouth were raspingly dry. It was the early hours of the morning, and looking around me, it appeared as if I had stepped straight into a horror film. A man in a bed opposite was shouting for a cigarette, but the sound had a sinister tone because his mouth had been sewn up with wire to rescue a shattered jaw bone. The violent shouting continued for some time until finally a nurse put a cigarette between the desperate man's lips and he was quietened by the nicotine entering his bloodstream. Feeling like I was dying of thirst, I managed to call a nurse, and got disheartened when I realised that all I would get would be a thimbleful of water to quench my thirst. I spent a long time quietly watching the horrors which only someone who works regularly on an intensive care ward at night will be aware of. I must have fallen asleep eventually, because at two o'clock the next afternoon I was transferred out of ICU to the Aubrey Bateman post-operative ward. I was back on territory I had seen before.
I ate for the first time four days after the operation but a decent night's sleep was impossible because nurses came every four hours to change my position in the bed (to avoid bed sores - by this stage my weight must have fallen to about three stone - I heard of someone, who after the same operation was given a bath and he floated on top of the water! Once I caught sight of myself in a full length mirror while being helped back towards my hospital bed - I had two nurses supporting me on either arm, and between them was what looked like a tall white advertisement for famine relief in some drought-ridden African state. It looked very like a skeleton covered in skin, but my brain did the decent thing and refused to associate the horrendous figure in the reflection with the young man who was on his way back to bed to read letters and cards which friends and family had sent him).
My family were there when I needed them. Either my mum or dad came to visit every day, and my sister, Janet, who was training to be a physiotherapist at the same hospital, was able to come and see me regularly.
However, it was far from plain sailing. On the 20th of June, eight days after the operation, an infection was found which required an incredibly painful treatment. The first time this treatment occurred (it involved changing the dressing where the major surgery had been performed), I was given an anesthetic gas called 'Entonox'. I was told that whenever the pain got too strong, I should take a deep breath from the mouthpiece connected to a gas tank like that used by scuba divers. The first time this operation was performed something very strange happened. My mind was crystal clear and I could feel every second of the process, and every cry of pain. It felt like the process lasted for hours (in reality it must have been minutes), then after it was finally over and I thought I could relax, my brain decided to play a trick on me. I flashed back to the seconds before the process had begun and then went through exactly the same sequence of events - like watching the same video tape being played through twice. I began to pray that I wouldn't be caught in some horrible kind of time warp and be forced to spend the rest of my days reliving a nightmare. According to my diary though, the first time I went through it was a premonition and the second time the real thing - who knows?
The same process of changing the internal dressings took place each day, but on the second and third days my behaviour started to become unpredictable. In my weakened state it was impossible for me to sit up or get out of bed without help, but while sucking in the gas, I not only sat up by myself, but also grinned at everyone working around me! This I couldn't remember doing, but I do remember that instead of following the advice of only taking a breath of gas when the pain got too bad, I was breathing the gas all the time - mainly because the pain was so bad that 'too bad' became irrelevant.
On the fourth day I was told that I wasn't going to be given the gas anymore. Unfortunately, by then I had become totally addicted to it, and like any junkie without a fix*I learnt the horrors of overcoming physical dependence to a drug - commonly known as 'going cold turkey'.
I began to hate the nurse that had given me the news about the Entonox, and alternated between crying and trying to work out why that particular nurse hated me so much. When the process was repeated the next day, I was given two pieces of foam*2 rubber to hold in my clenched fists and a rubber stick to bite on during the event. It was at this time that I lost all belief in any God.
I knew that my life had been lived in a morally acceptable way until that point. I needed something to help me deal with the pain, and until then, I'd been led to believe that God or Jesus were there to help those who deserved it and resist evil. I cried for help...................
Then decided that if I was going to get through the next few weeks, it would have to be on my own account - there would be no divine intervention.
* noun - definition 6 (slang)
*2 noun - def. 4