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75th Anniversary of the NHS (2023)
"I'm a Catholic Boy. Redeemed through pain and not through joy..."
The lyrics to a Jim Carroll song from 1980 ran through my head the night it struck.
And that the front door was only a few more paces away...a few more and I'd be home.
In truth - and unlike our better halves - most men have an irrational fear of physical pain. We will do anything to avoid it. Exercise in a good case in point. We know instinctively that if we don't do the requisite amount of cycling, swimming or even walking distances on occasion (anything that isn't watching tele, surfing the net or sitting in a strategically placed stereo-imaged recliner), we will eventually inflict on ourselves a whole shitload of pain. And all of this avalanche of hurt will come to us at a time in our lives when we’re least able to cope it. We know all this. But like the dumb schmucks men are - we avoid it.
"A stroke doctor will be here to see you soon..."
I remember two things clearly - the chill that statement instilled in me as the nurse said it (the years of Chocolate Digestives, Salt and Vinegar Crisps and Peppermint Creams was over) - and looking up at the two shuffling Ambulance men on either side of my wheelchair. They'd craftily conned me - deliberately not saying that word as they screamed through the rush hour traffic. And I also remember being sappily taken aback - cheated like a child denied an ice-cream cone on a seaside pier. You see while women can call on monthlies and childbirth as real instances of proper agony - men haven't a clue about screaming - and like to keep it that way. In fact men will avoid pain like they avoid paying taxes, responsibility or bolshy in-laws.
And that's where this book of 75 poems comes in - because in many ways "My Broken Heart (75 Days In The NHS)" is about what happens to you when you avoid a little discomfort, when you shirk your health, when time simply runs out and you literally have to man up or you're going to die - inside and out.
Because of a right-sided carotid and dissected artery complication (needed to heal) - my quadruple bypass operation had to wait 3 months from its diagnosis date (2 Nov 2012). This meant that when I entered Whipps Cross Hospital on Friday 28 November 2012 expecting the big saw on my chest plate within days - the surgeons and consultants gradually decided that I had to wait until 2 February 2013 before they’d attempt such a dangerous operation. This meant I'd be monitored and kept alive by drugs and care. 70 days of pain in the British National Health Service followed by a bypass and recovery. Nice.
I'll freely admit that I properly broke down twice - and came close to losing it completely on many other days when the closed-in spaces and the wait and the pain were becoming too much. And though it was understandable - I still wince at the thought of me becoming so creepy-needy in hospital - crying behind the Side Room door like a big girl's blouse at visiting children making too much noise. And it's true that nurses can save your sanity with a cup of tea and a biscuit on more than one occasion and are endowed with a well of kindness that seems inexhaustible and at times inexplicable.
But there were the belly laughs too, characters you meet, bonds you make, my family and friends mucking in like troopers and the extraordinary array of staff working their asses off and constantly lifting up your spirits (no praise is enough).
On the night I left St. Barts Hospital in the City of London - 75 days after my internment - it was four below outside - absolute brass monkeys. I remember I thought my lungs would explode at all that air. And I remember sitting in our car with my lovely wife Mary Ann on that almost surreal journey - finally on our way home to see the kids - the skyline and neons of old London now so beautiful and new. Again another song leapt into my consciousness – the jubilant "In God's Country" by U2 from their magnificent "The Joshua Tree" album.
"Desert sky...we need new dreams tonight..."
I remember thinking the sappy Irishman is being given a second chance.
And can I rhyme Altoids with Haemorrhoids and get away with it?
