Nothing Is Impossible: The Real-Life Adventures of a Street Magician (13 page)

I wasn’t too keen on the sound of either option, to be honest. To make matters worse, the operation to remove the abcess was potentially very dangerous. ‘I have to tell you that the procedure could be life-threatening,’ the doctor added. ‘There’s a large risk that you might not survive. Either way, we have to do one or the other, or face very serious consequences.’

I had an ultimatum: either I went on a dialysis machine or had a life-threatening operation to remove part of my small bowel. If I did neither, I might not have long left to live.

It was, and remains, the most difficult decision I’ve ever had to make in my life.

With dialysis I would have been in hospital for a lot longer; I would have had to sit in there for months on end hooked up to a drip for something that might not even work. I didn’t want to be stuck in the hospital for any more time than was absolutely necessary – there was so much I wanted to do. I’d already been there over four months. Cooped up within the same four walls, after all of my adventures so far, I couldn’t face staying there any longer. But if I chose to have the operation, there was a chance I could die.

Rather than discussing the decision with my mum, I rang her now ex-husband, the father of my brothers, Troy and Lee. I needed someone to help me make a practical, rather than emotional decision. My mum would have reached a decision based on what the doctor was saying, but I knew that her ex-husband would be able to offer more reasoned advice that wasn’t clouded by maternal instinct. And I needed that. He would help me to decide what was best for me.

After three sleepless and fraught nights, I decided to have the operation. I figured that it might be the riskier option, but at least I had a stronger chance of getting better.

I really upset my mum by not consulting her first. She and my nan had been coming every day for the last four months. It must have so hard for them, especially when I’d be so grouchy when they turned up.

Being in hospital for so long was pretty terrible. The only upsides of the day were watching certain television programmes that always happened to be on at the same time as visiting hours. So, I’d get frustrated. I didn’t mean to, I was just depressed. My nan would come every day at five o’clock and I
wouldn’t be able to watch the TV show I’d wanted to see. ‘What did you do today?’ she’d ask, day in, day out. I’d rack my brain to think of something new to say. ‘They let me have ice cream,’ I’d mumble.

It just became mundane. How much can you talk about what you’ve eaten? What is there to say about how green the walls are? Not only was I very young to be spending so long in hospital, but everyone in my ward was old. My friends were out in the real world having fun, and I was stuck in a room with seriously ill and dying old men, who were coughing and moaning all the time. It was depressing.

I was incredibly grateful to have visitors, but I have to say I was sometimes pretty grumpy! The day before my operation, I was particularly moody. I was on edge, knowing that I might not wake up the next day.

‘Cheer up, we came to see you,’ my mum said.

‘Yeah, but I didn’t ask you to come today,’ I sighed. ‘You’re choosing to come here, I’m not choosing to be in here.’

I was frustrated and feeling rather guilty after Mum had also brought up the fact that I hadn’t spoken to her about my decision to have the operation. Her eyes were a clouded with fear, anger, sadness. I felt so bad. After our heated exchange, Mum and Nan left and I was left alone.

That night, I somehow managed to sleep and when I woke up the next morning, the anaesthetist arrived to give me my injection. Neither Mum nor Nan was there.

As I slipped into unconsciousness I regretted the stupid argument with my family. They were just trying to be there for me; I had pushed them away.

Hours later, I came to in a huge amount of pain. I opened my eyes and my mum was by my side. ‘Sorry, love,’ she said. I tried a smile. ‘I’m sorry too,’ I croaked.

I must have fallen asleep again, because when I woke up it was later in the evening and my mum had gone. My entire body ached. It took me a minute to notice, but my legs felt strange. I went to move them and nothing happened. Panic began to rise in my chest and I struggled for air; I couldn’t move my legs. Everything just felt warm. I tried to move my head to see if I could see a nurse, but I had so little energy I couldn’t even push the emergency call button. The amount of painkillers I had been given meant I was unable to keep my eyes open. And, before I knew it, I’d sunk back into a deep sleep.

It was the following morning when I finally came around. Once more, Mum was by my side, holding my hand, and the doctor was standing beside her, with my charts. ‘How are you feeling today, Steven?’ he asked, peering over his clipboard. ‘OK’, I said, before I remembered. Once more, I tried to move my legs, but nothing happened, there was just a weird, warm sensation.

‘My legs,’ I gasped. I was so dehydrated that the doctor and my mum could barely hear what I was saying. He explained that they had had to work around my nervous system in order to remove part of my bowel. It meant that I would have temporary paralysis in my legs, but he assured me the feeling would return although I would need to train myself to walk again. My mum looked like she was about to burst into tears. I wasn’t feeling much better either.

Just a few months earlier, I’d been hotly pursuing a dream to become a magician, gallivanting all over the world. Now, I was bedbound and worried I may never be able to walk again. Resentment growled inside me as my dreams came crashing down around me. I felt far from a ‘dynamo’ now. I felt like giving up all together.

A few days after the operation, the doctor came back to see me. ‘We removed part of the bowel,’ he explained. ‘We cut out the bit that’s bad and tied a little bit together in the middle, so you’ve got a bit of bowel now that’s all good…well, for a few years, until it gets bad again…’ His voice was becoming increasingly quiet, until suddenly he picked up again. ‘Do you feel better? Do you feel normal now?’ he asked.

The question stopped me in my tracks. I hadn’t felt normal for the first twenty years of my life, so I wasn’t sure what he meant. ‘
You have just cut half my tummy out. Yeah, I guess I feel normal…is this normal?
’ I don’t know that I’ve ever felt normal. What is normal?

THE NEXT SIX
weeks were the longest of my life. Thankfully, the feeling in my legs slowly returned, but I had to learn to walk all over again. It was so frustrating, taking baby steps, almost falling over like an old man along the way. It’s something I never want to have to go through again.

I had to keep reminding myself of the most important thing, that I’d made it through. I was still alive. I was incredibly lucky.

The one upside to being in hospital was that I had ample opportunity to catch up on the latest film releases. Andy, from the video store where I used to work, brought me in a couple of films to watch on the hospital’s cranky old VHS player. One day, I was lying on thickly starched sheets, staring blankly at the green walls, fiddling with my cards, and half-heartedly watching the film
Troy
, starring Brad Pitt.

There’s a bit in the film where a little kid goes up to Brad Pitt’s character, Achilles, and says of the Thessalonian who Achilles was about to fight: ‘He’s the biggest man I’ve ever seen. I wouldn’t want to fight him.’ Pitt turns to the boy and replies, ‘That’s why no one will remember your name.’

Now, I wasn’t harbouring ideas to become a crazed hard-nut ready to take on the biggest guys in Bradford. But that line suddenly and inexplicably struck me. If I died, who would remember my name? What memorable things had I done in my life? I felt goose bumps prickle my skin.

I could have died a few days before and it struck me that, if the worst had happened, that would be it. I’d have my friends and family at my funeral, but who else would care? What mark had I made on the world?

Inside, I could feel the clouds of depression dispersing inside me. It was like a revelation was taking place.

Although I’d been heavily involved in magic, meeting other magicians, travelling to America to trade shows and conferences, and building my name in the UK, I was really still an amateur. I was good at magic, but I was far from great.

I’d seen the way that magic could unite people when I was bullied as a kid. Regardless of race, ethnicity, class or background. Even the ones that used to pick on me suddenly wanted to be my best friend. Imagine if I could spread that feeling around the world?

I had the potential to change things, to bring happiness to people’s lives, if only for a few minutes at a time.

Suddenly, a fierce determination roared inside me. I could either languish in this hospital bed, or I could use this opportunity to do something. Something big.

I knew, there and then, that I had to make my mark before it was too late. Having nearly died impressed upon me the importance of seizing each day. It gave me the chance to re-evaluate what I wanted to do. I needed to set up a real business, because until that point I hadn’t been running things properly. I’d get bits of cash here, there and everywhere, take random bookings and drive round to clubs with my boys, my little group of loyal friends. I’d made some budget DVDs of which I’d sold maybe a hundred copies, but that wasn’t the right way to go about it. There was no structure, no plan.
How can I make it bigger? How can I touch the whole world?

I needed to make magic my career. It was time to go all out. No matter what the odds.

ONCE I’D HAD
my moment of clarity, I was filled with renewed energy and I started devising a plan from my hospital bed, scrawling ideas across bits of paper. I had heard through my old youth club, MAPA, that The Prince’s Trust gave out start-up loans for young entrepreneurs who needed a helping hand.

What would I need to do to impress The Prince’s Trust to give me the money I needed to get started? I realised I had to have a business plan that would help me stand out from all of the other theatre companies, new businesses and lone entrepreneurs. What could I, Steven Frayne, do that hadn’t been done before?

From that moment on, I stopped lying about, watching films and eating grapes. When I wasn’t re-learning how to walk and practising my card shuffle, I was thinking about, and writing, my business plan.

At that time, a lot of rappers were becoming famous from self-made mixtapes. The mixtape was a way for a new artist to get their music out to people without worrying about a record label or a release schedule. You made your music, pressed a few thousand copies and sold them on the streets for a fiver. You had kids everywhere, from Bradford to the Bronx, selling their CD on the streets for a few quid. I loved the DIY mentality, the idea of hustling and not waiting around for anyone.