Category: Well-being

The Backdrop To My Life Now

ICU is with me always. It’s the first thing I see in the morning, in my mind’s eye. It’s the last thing I see as I fall asleep. It is in many ways, the backdrop to my life now.

I had to go to the hospital yesterday for yet another blood test. Afterwards, I made my way to the cafe nearby where I had something to eat. I realised I didn’t have the time and date for my face-to-face appointment with the haematology consultant. I made my way to that department to speak to one of the receptionists to find out when it was.

Upon leaving there, I saw the chap who works at the hospital and who helped direct my mum to where she needed to go the other day for a medical procedure. I mentioned that I was now ready to return to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). People who have been looked after there are able to go back and thank those who helped keep them alive, when they feel able to.

The next thing I knew he was introducing me to a man who worked in the ICU and within 5 minutes of that, I was walking up to where I had spent 10 days of my life last September. I was fine until I reached the corridor and then I just burst into tears. Across from my bed was a door I never thought I would ever walk through. There always seemed to be a reason why it wasn’t going to be that day and the next and so on. Behind it lay my old life and there it was in front of me.

It felt strange, approaching that door from the other side. Thankfully, not The Other Side. Tears flowed. All these people walking back and forth. Such a small part of the hospital and yet so many people, most of whom I had not seen before. Saving lives. Sustaining lives. Deft hands weaving and maintaining the thin thread between this world and the next.

A woman came walking through from where the side rooms are and where I was taken to, when my condition moved from life-threatening to critical. Her face lined with worry. She sank down, the weight of the world on her shoulders as she sat to eat and drink. I hoped that by seeing me in reasonable health, having previously been in ICU, it offered her something positive in relation to whoever she had been visiting with. That fingers crossed, he/she will pull through and make a full recovery.

I was able to look in through the doorway just long enough to see that I had been in Bay 7. There was someone there, where I had been. Tubes, wires, machines all doing their job to keep his body alive. He was covered in all this life-saving apparatus. My heart called out to him on the ether, praying he would be okay. I wondered if he had visitors or was all alone. He appeared to be unconscious so he likely inhabited that chemically-induced half-light and maybe having frightening dreams and hallucinations, as many of us do when we’re in that situation. I hope he too makes a full recovery and goes on to live a long, happy and healthy life.

I met one of the ICU nurses and we spoke for a while. She gave me a telephone number and through that I can come back and meet those who looked after me. It will be so good to see them. Already, some of these people have moved on. In just 6 months, some of the Earthly angels who tended to me are likely gone from my life forever.

The NHS loses tens of thousands of staff each year because hours are long and pay is very poor. Don’t get me wrong, these amazing people don’t go into the job for glamour or riches but they deserve a lot more than they are currently receiving, especially when the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is extremely rich. He doesn’t want to budge over pay because he is unlikely to ever require the services of a public-funded institution for his healthcare. Totally out of touch.

The first thing I was allowed to have in the way of food/drink in ICU was flavoured water. I keep it beside my bed now so first thing in the morning, I drink a bottle of that. The next thing I was allowed, was yoghurt so I have a yoghurt drink soon after. Then I was allowed jelly (jello) and ice cream, so I make sure I have that each day. It’s psychological. Doing this lets me feel I am on the path to healing and recovery and also so I never forget how fortunate I am to be here at all.

So yes, the ICU is always with me.

10 days which changed my life and outlook forever. It was nice to go back yesterday albeit briefly, so that I could see what the outlook was from the window in the corridor, across from my bed and just through the doorway. For some reason, I thought the unit was on the other side of the building. Now that I can map things out in my mind in relation to where ICU is in terms of the hospital building floor plan, it’s bringing me a degree of closure from the trauma of the experience.

I can’t wait to meet the staff who saved me/sustained me. It will be wonderful to see them again. To many, they are likely just ordinary people who pass them by in the street, shopping malls etc but to me, who experienced being cared for by them during my stay in ICU, they are heroes. Selfless heroes.

I love them all, very much indeed.

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The ‘I’ Word

There is a tendency to presume that the multitude of issues within this country is to do with a certain word, which for many is simply termed The ‘I’ Word. That word being Immigration.

Looking through YouTube comments whenever a report has been released from the higher ups about things which have gone awry in the legal system, people can be seen talking about how ‘I’ is behind it all.

There are very few people born in this country (UK) who are 100% British although they may have lived their entire lives within any one of the constituent countries within the union without ever visiting the others. A news article from 2016 states that “according to recent research the average UK resident is just 36.94 per cent British, 21.59 per cent Irish and 19.91 per cent French/German.”

I am reminded of my extremely positive experiences of immigration, when I was taken to hospital last year. During my stay, first in Accident & Emergency and then when it was realised how serious the situation was, Intensive Care. Very few people who tended to me one-on-one fitted the White English or British model. The nurse who looked after me the most while in Intensive Care, her country of heritage was India. Another nurse, was from a Black background. Others had Latin and Southeast Asian backgrounds.

I had 2 operations during this time, the first of which was life-saving. Without it, I would have died. The second was a continuation of the first but with me out of the immediate danger zone. One of the 2 surgeons in the first operation was of an Indian heritage and the surgeon who performed the second operation was from Eastern Europe.

I was discharged onto a surgical ward and although still critical, I was being prepared to return home. This is where I was treated by people of Eastern European backgrounds, as well as people within the Black, South Asia and Southeast Asian communities.

Upon my discharge, there were still issues and I had to return to the hospital for treatment on an Outpatient basis. The vast majority of the people who tended to me one-on-one in this regard were people not originally from the UK.

Do you know what the abiding memories I have of all these people has been? That these people were not originally from the UK? That they are immigrants?

NO!

It was that they cared for me. Tended to me. Looked after me. Made me as comfortable as possible. Reassured me. Supported me. Held me. Helped me recover.

It can’t have been easy. In the very beginning I had no bowel control. I was also wearing a catheter. My wounds were open. They ensured I was always bandaged and on the road to healing. They ensured my mouth was never dry. That I was always clean. They cocooned me and kept me safe and protected at all times. I felt loved, every step of the way.

There will always be the occasional bad apple in any batch however my overwhelming feelings towards immigration, is that I welcome it. I would be dead without it for sure.

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Silence As The Backdrop To Life

My experiences last year in hospital and the time spent in Intensive Care clinging onto life has taught me a great deal. I was a frail, sensitive child. The archetypal seven-stone weakling. Yet, I have surmounted the seemingly insurmountable. I have stared death in the face and found myself, even in my weakest moments (both physically and mentally) and against all odds, able to keep up the fight to remain here.

I was listening to music earlier. It’s the relationship with silence which makes music so moving, for me at least. It’s in the interplay of the music against the backdrop of silence which was there before the song began and will be there when it has stopped, which makes music so affecting. The omnipresent silence therefore the canvas onto which music is sonically painted.

As it was then last year when my life hung in the balance, the silence of non-existence juxtaposed against the fight to stay here, even though one day I’ll be gone. I just knew my journey wasn’t done, that more of life needed to play out. I likely will not amount to much in societal or worldly terms but that’s not the point. I am reminded of the quote spoken by Warren Zevon back in 2002 as he edged closer to the silence having been given the diagnosis of terminal cancer. “Enjoy every sandwich” he opined on Letterman.

You know, I never really understood that sentiment until fairly recently when I was once again able to eat and enjoy a sandwich. Up until then I had been very careful about what I ate due to the extensive nature of the bowel surgery I had undergone. Life is strange. I had been wanting to go fully vegan before all the drama of last year and had successfully cut out red meat but still occasionally ate white meat and some dairy. Now, all of that makes me feel physically sick and I end up on the toilet a lot, which leads to that area stinging and burning, so in a way what happened forced me to adopt the life I always wanted but hadn’t given myself fully to before.

So it was then, I took a bite of a sandwich.

The softness of the bread, the tastiness of the filling, the feeling of doing something usual again after so long of eating in essence, bland foods. Before all of this, I would have needed to have been taken to a great restaurant with the most extensive menu to feel anything like that but nope, there I was, sat in my kitchen tucking into a regular sandwich and it tasted incredible.

But more so than that, it took me directly into that given moment. I could never get my head around the concept of Living In The Moment. I was always thinking about the past or planning towards a future. I understood it in my head but it never resonated with me fully. Now it does and I get it. I am now completely focused on whatever it is I am doing in any moment and I give my all to it, whatever it happens to be.

The backdrop is always silence, whether it be the knowledge that one day I won’t be here in the form I am now, as I once again enter non-existence or just writing in ‘silence’ which is never possible as there is always some sound happening whether it be one of the cats purring, the hum of the refrigerator, an owl hooting outside, rain pelting against the window. I’m okay with not existing as we all reach that state anyhow.

The simplicity of the moment is always there, perhaps making a cup of tea which has now become a minor ceremony as I imagine how many people, how many pairs of hands, how many lives were involved in the process of getting the tea from the Sri Lankan fields to my warmed teapot and then a flavoursome brew. It can be watching the refuse collectors first thing in the morning, as the truck makes its way up the street and often under the cover of darkness. The unsung heroes who work the menial jobs with little to no thanks and who get up at ungodly hours to work a totally unglamorous job, just so our lives run a little smoother.

Everything is different now.

My entire outlook has changed and for the better. I don’t just sense the interconnectedness between all things, I see it, I hear it, I KNOW it. But what I have been completely unprepared for is how much I have become the silence which is always there, playing out against the backdrop of my own life.

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Contemplation Time

I am sitting here listening to a song, The River Knows Your Name, by my favourite singer-songwriter, John Hiatt. It’s from the album Walk On which was the first album of John’s I bought and still the one which captivates me the most.

In the town in which I live are three rivers and the smallest one flows into a larger one and then further along that river flows into the largest. So there are 2 points along the journey of each river where a river merges with another and becomes one before individuating once more.

I am reminded of the quote attributed to Rumi – “You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.” I like that. We don’t have to surrender our individuality in realising we are each more alike than different.

I was thinking about water and how it often represents emotion and just as the song began, rain started to pelt against the window. There’s a whole world outside that window. I used to get up really early and walk about and streetlights would be on and the occasional lighted window in the houses around me but by and large, everyone would be in the land of slumber having hopefully nice dreams and who knows, maybe some astral travel as well.

The rain hit the windows hard and I was reminded of the musical warrior, Gord Downie. A remarkable individual. I was introduced to him through the parent band, The Tragically Hip. The album was Live Between Us. It was so different to anything I had heard before yet I was captivated at once by the sound and feel of the band and the deftly poetic allusions created by Gord as he expressed himself artistically through song.

The first studio album I heard was In Violet Light and I was especially taken by a song called “It’s A Good Life If You Don’t Weaken.” Gord Downie died in 2017 of an aggressive form of brain cancer, called glioblastoma.

In the time remaining after his diagnosis, he went on a final tour with The Hip and that last show is on YouTube in its entirety. The song Grace, Too is incredibly hard to watch because in the screams contained within the song is a man railing against the dying of his own light. He begins to cry. The screams become a cri de couer. It makes me want to reach into the screen and hold him and tell him everything will be okay although he and I would know that it wouldn’t be. I would still want to reassure him in some way. At least to let him know I value/valued his presence on this Earth.

Gord also recorded a haunting album entitled Secret Path which charted the short life of Chanie Wenjack, an Anishinaabe boy who ran home one night from an Indian residential school before sadly succumbing to hunger and exposure. His body was found next to a railway line. He had walked for 36 hours in sub-zero temperatures, wearing just a windbreaker. It’s a powerful musical statement pertaining to a terribly sad time in the history of Indigenous peoples living in Canada.

When I was in Intensive Care last year, I got chatting to a nurse who worked there. She was mad keen on the band Rush, another group of incredible Canadian musicians and it was through her I reacquainted myself with them. The drummer Neil Peart had himself passed away due to brain cancer. I had in the past been crazy about the band and had seen them in London on their R30 tour. The only concert I have been to where people not only stayed for the drum solo but awaited it with baited breath and Neil didn’t disappoint. Three master musicians.

Anyhow, I started watching YouTube videos and I came across a performance of “It’s A Good Life If You Don’t Weaken” performed at the 2021 Juno Awards with the remaining members of The Tragically Hip and with special guest Feist on vocals. It broke me in two. Here I was, still close to death and yet suddenly remembering how precious life was/is. Sometimes I forget. I have healed and life goes on. Gord isn’t here. Neil isn’t here. Their music however remains, as do I.

And as do you reading this.

If I could, I would reach out from this screen and hug each and every one of you and let you know, in no uncertain terms, how grateful I am that I know you.

Thank you for your Earthly presence in my life.

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Window on the World

I went for a coffee yesterday and I sat right by the front window of the store. A few inches of glass between myself and the wider world.

People were walking past outside, most looked in and yet it felt as if I was in my own private place.

All around me inside the bakery/coffee shop were people, those queuing up for takeout beverages and snacks as well as those hoping to find a seat to enjoy their purchases in warmth and comfort in the friendly and pleasant surroundings.

Even had it been warm enough to sit outside, I would still have felt that sense of privacy. My very own window on the world.

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1994

I have been absolutely miserable since 1994. Yes, all that time. I was thinking back to then and trying to work out what could have occurred to make me feel that way and I realised it was the year I got into organised religion. Organised religion may work for billions of people however it didn’t work for me at all. It caused me to wallow in depressions, caused me to hate myself and it definitely caused my mind to fragment.

So, I started thinking back to that time. What brought me enjoyment? Music. I had discovered some great musicians around that time and I had my Sony Discman and my rechargeable batteries and I would charge up a load to get me through a day’s listening and really give my attention to a couple of albums, not flitting between mp3 albums like I got into the habit of doing. I wonder if I would have loved music the way I used to had I been brought up on Spotify? I developed a kind of musical ADHD in relation to it. I would be partway through an album, see the tab for Related Artists and before I knew it I was listening to another album and then another and so after a few tracks into each album I would be off listening to something else. You really can have too much choice.

I grew up with a television which up until 1982 (I was born in 1973) had only 3 channels and the programmes didn’t go through the night, there was a cut off point around about 1 a.m. but there was always something to watch, not like now when I can trawl through 50+ channels which are on 24/7 and seldom find something I a) want to watch and b) is actually edifying to sit through. Most of it is dross. There was infinitely more quality back then.

So, I made the decision to go out and buy albums again. We have a charity shop here in the UK called Oxfam and they have stores dedicated to music and books while their other stores deal with clothing, bric-a-brac, jigsaw puzzles, board games etc It was in one of these the other day I bought 2 albums, one by Ray Wylie Hubbard and one by North Mississippi All-Stars. Both still factory sealed and at £2.99. I felt that old rush of excitement buying music. I have not heard these albums but I know something of the artists in question so I know I will like them. To actually give my time to music rather than keep zig-zagging about.

So, today I connected my mp3 player to the dvd player and have sat through individual albums again. One interestingly from 1994.

Those albums are:-

(Blues) Freddie King – Burglar (1974),
(Jazz) Esbjörn Svensson Trio – Seven Days of Falling (2003),
(New Wave) Men at Work – Business As Usual (1981),
(Psychedelic/Space Rock) Ozric Tentacles – Become The Other (1995),
(Rock) Dave Matthews Band – Under the Table and Dreaming (1994),
(Heavy Rock) Dynamite – Blackout Station (2014),
(Contemporary Rock) Albany Down – South of the City (2011).

This was how it used to be. My Mum and Dad would give me a tenner (£10) each week and at the weekends I would head to the record stores and pick up an album or 2 and they would get played through the week. If I liked the music, I would seek out other albums by the same musician/band and if I didn’t like it, I would swap the album for something someone else had and didn’t really listen to or else I would give them to charity shops.

I have thoroughly enjoyed listening to music today. So far, all of the albums I’m keeping. If I come across some I don’t like I will just delete them from the device to make way for something else.

I have also jettisoned organised religion from my life and I have renounced everything from the Abrahamic faiths. I was happiest when I was involved in Earth Spirituality. Mother Earth, Father Sky. No names for it. Just a simple appreciation that everything is living and wanting to connect with all life forms, from the smallest insect to the largest cetacean.

In my mind, it’s 1994 again and I’m on the correct path once more. I wish I was 20 again rather than nearly 50. I’ll just call it 1994 with 30 years worth of experience under my belt.

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My Emotions Are Raw

When I was a kid I cried easily and being a boy growing up on a tough Council (social housing) estate, that set me up for a fair bit of bullying and I suppose early on, the walls started to go up.

I have always used to some degree. Tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, sex, masturbation you name it. Anything to keep me largely benumbed but still with the ability to function socially.

Cue the 9th September 2022 and suddenly I am forced to confront those demons. Placed on a ventilator, my penis catheterised, a tube in my neck by which fluids and nutrients were given. Unable to hold in my waste, from both ends.

All those years of running and hiding and here I was, ostensibly naked and having to face everything head on all at once.

I can remember still being in the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) and watching as a mother and son came onto the ward in search of a male relative. An ordinary event. As their eyes found one another in the room and even before they had embraced, I could feel my emotions stirring. When they came together physically, I wept. I couldn’t hold it in. It was a beautiful thing to witness.

And so it is, I am still finding my emotions raw for the most part, crying spontaneously. It’s scary to have so many raw feelings floating about within me however I am finding them greatly cleansing too.

I am that small boy again except this time, I am not going to build any walls or defences against my emotions. I’m simply going to let them flow free.

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9/9/2022

This is a date I will always remember.

That was the day I presented to hospital with crippling abdominal pains and 2 days later, a crash call was made due to my being unresponsive with a significant bleed on the ward.

I underwent my first operation on the 11th to perform a laparoscopic small bowel resection.

My second operation was performed on the 13th and a further laparotomy was performed with another section of small bowel removed.

I was discharged this evening.

I am to be on blood thinners for life, which I’m not happy about as they quell sexual ardour – muted orgasms and the like.

I only came off blood thinning treatment a few months ago because of these issues – I had a Pulmonary Embolism in 2017 and that fateful decision has clearly led to this new medical event.

I’m not happy that I will likely now be single for life however having tasted my own demise and having just spent 11 days in Intensive Care, it’s not something I am keen on repeating.

I won’t bang on about Universal Healthcare which is free* at the point of service for all however I am ever so grateful I live in the UK where this treatment was provided for me at no expense other than an *incremental amount of tax taken from my wages throughout my life compulsorily up until this point.

I have taken my first blood thinning tablet this evening.

I have lost so much weight from my face and I have a pallid, grey listless type of look however I will rally. One week ago I was messing several pairs of diapers per day and now I am able to sit here, with full control once more of my bowels. Simple pleasures. I have recovered so quickly in terms of food as well. One week ago, I had a line in my neck and was being fed intravenously.

In time I will go back to see all the doctors and nurses who tended to me and thank them personally. They were magnificent. This has been an ordeal and very nearly a tragedy and it shows that life can change in a moment because on the 8th I felt perfectly well and healthy.

I am sat here listening to The Allman Brothers. My mum has been remarkable, walking nearly a mile through the hospital complex each day to come and visit me, at age 90. Both cats are close by and the garden hedgehogs have just been fed.

Things right now could be a whole lot worse. I’m alive and for that I am grateful.

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I Feel Alive in The Newness of Life

I had another MASSIVE download these past couple of days which again I cannot put into words that even I could understand, let alone you the reader coming to this.

All I know is, I know.

That may sound trite however I now have a knowing, an inner understanding. A deep resonating awareness at the centre of my being.

I know I am enough. In fact, I am more than enough.

I know that all of you are too.

I know that I am in exactly the right place and time and that everything that has ever happened to me was meant to have worked out that way, for me to have these realisations. I am now actively jettisoning, shedding old ways of being.

I feel alive in the newness of life and I am loving it.

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