A DEATH TO DIE FOR (17 page)

I had not had a good night, there had been so many thoughts running haywire through my brain that even the diazepam could not relax me.

I had been the first to the washrooms but had no interest in what the breakfast trolley had to offer and was now sat by the bed in concerned anticipation of what the day would bring.

I tried to work out what time the meeting would start and when I might be able to get some answers, evidently it must have been called early because about half nine, quarter to ten one of the team of junior doctors headed towards me from the entrance to the ward.

There was a certain disquiet about him that also made me feel nervous.

He greeted me and then said that he had just come from the case conference and had been asked to tell me that after a careful study of the results of the PET scan no coalescences which would indicate a cancerous growth could be found anywhere.

He continued that it had been concluded from the more detailed information now available that I did not therefore have a cancer growing on my brainstem as first diagnosed but in fact that I had suffered a dissection of the carotid artery and the resultant aneurysm had created pressure on the nerves where they exited the skull which had been the cause of the paralysis I had been suffering.

When I asked him what had caused the problem he replied that it could either be an hereditary thing or might have been a physical thing like a hard sneeze or cough.

Now he said all of this as though I should know what it all meant and seemed genuinely surprised when I looked him in the eye and asked whether this meant that I was still going to die soon or not.

He replied in a fairly perfunctory manner that in his opinion he thought it unlikely.

I wasn’t sure that I was getting the full story, yesterday I was dying and today I’m not, why, what had happened to make things different, how come the miraculous change and anyway why was I having to deal with this junior doctor at this momentous time, where was the consultant.

I felt the anger building inside of me and then I erupted, I managed to hiss at him that I had been told for nearly a month now that there was no hope, that I could be dead by Christmas, my wife and family had been put through hell.

I used my right hand to count the fingers on my left to emphasise the points and continued.

I had to get a burial plot, make a will, organise and deal with my funeral arrangements. People had come from all over the country, in fact the world to say their goodbyes to me, my end of life had been sorted, it was a death to die for and now he had turned up at my bedside and taken it all away from me just like that.

I sat there, my chest heaved with emotional exhaustion and I coughed from the exertion on my larynx, I didn’t know what he had expected, possibly my grateful thanks but certainly not someone ranting against the news he had brought.

He looked a bit like a wide eyed rabbit caught in a cars headlights, he wanted to get away but didn’t know which way to go.

When I had calmed down a bit I asked him what would happen now, he managed to find his voice and said that if I could arrange transport that I could go home today.

Reality and incredulity at the enormity of the situation both hit me at the same time and I turned and buried my face in the pillow on the bed beside me and sobbed.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, when I looked up I saw across the bed the white coat of the junior doctor as he beat a hasty retreat, I turned to see a nurse who said that she would sit with me for a bit.

After a while I reached for my phone, I sat there with it in my hands and just looked at it as I tried to steel myself to make the call.

The nurse said that she would give me some privacy and pulled the curtain around the bed as I dialled Helen’s number.

The phone only rang once and it was answered, the first thing Helen wanted to know was had the consultant been to see me yet, in a crackling whisper I confirmed that someone had, so what had they said she asked. I put on the strongest voice I could and told her that they had said that I wasn’t going to die and that I could come home today if she wanted to pick me up.

There was silence at the end of the phone and then tearful joy followed by shouts off phone as she called to Jim and told him the news, she said that this was the best news ever and that she wished that she was with me now so that she could just hold me in her arms.

She said be blowed with waiting for hospital visiting times and that she would to get some going home clothes together, jump in the car and come and get me straight away.

The phone went dead and I imagined her quickly gathering things together while trying to ring people at the same time to let them know the news.

Helen’s calls must have been getting through because every so often my phone would ping! and a text offering congratulations would appear on the screen and then the phone buzzed, it was Andy ringing to hear the news for himself .

I knew that it would take at least a couple of hours for Helen to travel the distance from home and so eager to be ready I started to pack away my toiletries and pulled all of the clothes out of the bedside locker so that I could fold them ready to be packed into the holdall that she would bring with her.

Once done I seated myself in the chair to wait, however some of the shine started to come off as this now gave me time to ponder about what would happen going forward, after all I was still paralysed on my left side and I could only just make myself understood when speaking, I would not be able to drive a car myself our use the computer very well and therefore would not be able to work. I hadn’t taken out and critical illness insurance so how would I pay the mortgage.

The phone went ping! a text had arrived from Helen which said that she and Jim were in the car park now and wouldn’t be long and none of my worries could suppress the joy at seeing them as they came into the ward, by the time they got to the bedside tears streamed down all of our faces.

They dropped their cargo of my coat and the holdall and I lifted my right arm to hold Helen, she put both her arms around me and squeezed so hard that the cannula on the inside of my left arm dug in with a sharp pain that made me flinch, she quickly let go and then put her arm under mine and we held each other tightly and at the same time Jim reached his arms over Helen’s shoulders so that he could also join in the clinch.

We slowly untied the knot of our embrace, Helen said that she could not believe that I was actually going to be walking out of the hospital with her which had been her prayer for the past four weeks.

She opened the holdall and started to lay out the clothes she had brought for me to wear home which consisted of a thick green woollen cable stitch jumper and a pair of green corduroy trousers, I said that wearing socks and shoes again would be a novelty.

Jim had carried in my heavy tweed coat, a brimmed hat along with a scarf and gloves.

A senior nurse came to the bed and said how pleased she had been to hear the news and that she would try to move things along as quickly as possible but my discharge had caught them all by surprise and that the relevant documents had not been prepared or signed.

She also went on to say that before I could go home I would have to see the dietician for supplies of NG food and that a prescription would need to be signed off by a doctor so that I could take home with me supplies of the drugs I had been using in the hospital.

This put a bit of a dampener on the proceedings so Helen asked her how long it would all take, the nurse said that she couldn’t put a time on it as everyone would  be about the hospital doing their normal work but she assured us that it would get her best attention.

Thinking that we would soon be on our way I asked Helen to help me get dressed so that we should not be delayed any longer than was necessary.

Once dressed and tired from the effort of doing so I sat in the chair to wait, Jim sat on the far side of the bed somewhat disappointed to find that there was no credit left on the TV card and Helen perched on the bed close to me and told me about all the things she planned to do over Christmas now that I would be at home.

As we sat there talking our happiness would sometimes spontaneously bubble over.

We didn’t have to wait too long before the younger of the dieticians I had seen previously came along carrying a cardboard box which she placed on the bed, she asked how had I been getting on with my swallowing, I told her that I had managed the weetabix also a cup of tea and a small part of the chicken dinner yesterday but in the excitement of today I had not tried anything else.

She said that I must continue to practice swallowing when I got home at which Helen said she would make sure I did and that she would puree the food to make it easier for me to swallow.

The dietician then produced a pump from the box and went through the operating procedure and said that we should use some coat hangers on the back of a chair at home to hold the bags upright.

Next she reached into the box and pulled out some sachets of the drink thickening granules, I pulled a face and she laughed and dropped them straight back in the box.

We thanked her for all that she had done, she smiled warmly and left.

Helen said that because she had left home so quickly that she had not had a drink since breakfast and was very thirsty so she and Jim went off in search for a drinks machine while I stayed by the bed in case anyone came.

I still had the cannula in my arm so when the nurse next passed by I asked her if it could be removed, she returned with a kidney dish and carefully took out the cannula, bathed the area and then put a plaster to cover the hole.

When they returned Helen and Jim brought an ice lolly with them from the machine I had found on Monday, I was feeling quite warm sat there in my demob clothes so the coolness of the ice was very welcome.

The afternoon dragged on interminably but eventually the senior nurse arrived with the discharge papers which had to be signed, that done she said that the only outstanding item was the prescription and she would see what had happened to it. 

Helen and Jim had got to the hospital at about 1.30pm and it was now nearly 6.00pm when the senior nurse finally came to us with a carrier bag full of boxes of medication, she said that there was enough there to last until well after New Year and that I should make an appointment with my GP as soon as possible so that I could be reinstated onto my blood pressure medication.

I asked the nurse what should I do if I had difficulty swallowing the tablets and was told to grind them up, add some water like they did during the drugs trolley round and drink them even if I needed to use the thickening granules to be able to swallow the liquid, she removed and replaced an envelope into the bag explaining that I should give the letter to my GP as it detailed what my condition was and what medication I had been taking.

Before donning my hat and coat I said to the senior nurse I wondered whether she would mind performing one last service for me and I held out my wrist with the collection of coloured bands, she smiled and said she could understand my reluctance to wear them home. She took a pair of scissors out of her apron pocket and cut through all four in one go.

A porter turned up with a wheelchair and now fully clothed including my hat and scarf I sat in the chair while he pushed me towards the main entrance of the hospital,  I had the cardboard box on my lap containing the NG pump and several bags of food plus the carrier bag full of tablets while Helen walked alongside holding my hand and Jim followed on behind carrying the holdall.

The porter stopped short of causing the automatic doors to open and having disembarked from the wheelchair I stood there still holding hands with Helen and looked at the outside world through the glass frontage of the brightly lit entrance with the box at my feet and trepidation in my heart.

Jim picked up the cardboard box, I pulled the scarf up over my nose and Helen grabbed the holdall, we moved forward together and the large doors opened with a hiss, we then stepped out into the cold winter air and headed in the direction of where the car was parked.

We had to cross an as yet unfinished part of the car park and the gravel crunched under our feet, I looked up at the light polluted night sky over this Birmingham suburb where a few stars still managed to shine through, I locked my gaze onto the brightest one and made a silent wish for continued good luck as I took these first few steps of what I hoped would be many into ‘my life after death’.