Kidney stones - ouch!
My friend Soldier
Boy is in hospital. Five days ago he woke up with the worst pain he’d ever
endured and headed off to A &E, where he was admitted with a suspected
kidney stone.
After being told
to fast, so that they could operate on him, he slept the first night on a
trolley in A&E’s corridor (correction: he didn’t sleep, because he was on a
trolley in A&E’s corridor!) since which he’s been on a ward, fasting every
day, hoping that the operation might happen.
At 9pm each day
the doctor has come around and told him that the operation wouldn’t be
happening that day, so he doesn’t need to fast any more, but he has to fast
from midnight as they might operate on him the next day.
Soldier Boy then
has 3 hours to find something to eat, after the hospital kitchen is closed.
For the first few
days he was quite understandably in a rage, but now he seems accepting of the
process.
“I’m in a washing
machine, Charlie. I have to wait for the end of the cycle.”
I have been a very
poor visitor, my platitudes feeding his rage, his rage making me wish I wasn’t
there.
At the age of 17 I
spent 6 weeks on an orthopaedic ward, after snapping both my femur and tibia in
two. Hospital days start early, then seem to drag on forever. You dream of the
calm and quiet of the night but, when darkness finally falls, one of the
patients on your ward throws a crazy fit and robs your sleep, until you’re
longing for the daylight again.
For a while I was
that crazy guy. They put me on 4-hourly morphine injections which had me
screaming shouting crying out in opiate-fuelled delirium. I felt as if I was
clinging to the ceiling, looking down on the ward.
After a few days
one of the lads further down the ward told me that there was a plot to kill me.
Driven demented by my explosive vocals, the other patients had decided that if
I didn't shut up at night, there’d be one morning when I might not wake up.
Incentivised
somewhat by that vital little sliver of info, I refused to take any more painkillers.
I was going be in pain for months anyway, so I might as well get used to it.
What seemed to a
teenager like a singularly sensible and conveniently macho decision has taken
its toll on my life, because during the ensuing weeks, I built a tolerance to
pain that has ill-served me.
Pain is there for
a reason. It’s your brain’s way of telling you that there’s something wrong
with your body. Through a combination of hospital horrors, English Public
School rigours and not wanting to look a wuss, I’ve serially ignored pain over
the years, only seeking treatment when what was once a mere injury has
developed into a permanent condition.
Sorry if I’m
getting all medical on you. It’s part of my culture. Jewish people are as
obsessed with illness as the Irish are with death. In the same way that Irish
conversation is peppered by the passings of people you barely knew, Jewish
chit-chat is riddled with illness.
It’s not just a
matter of establishing who is suffering from what. Oh no, there’s a world more
to it than that. Once you’ve revealed your illness, you have to be ready to
field a barrage of questions:
Is it chronic? Is
it terminal? Who’s your doctor? Did you get a second opinion? Who’s your
surgeon going to be? Do you know her success rate? Have you checked out other
surgeons who might have better results? What drugs have they got you on? What
dosage? Are you feeling side-effects? How long will you be in for? Right, I’ll
be there first thing tomorrow morning.
When one of my
family is in hospital we don’t so much visit as move in and set up home. During
my much-missed dad’s long decline, we spent months as a family sitting all day
in hospital rooms. We’d swap shifts, eat endless Marks and Sparks sandwiches
and prepare the patient for the specialist’s weekly visit.
"Don’t just
tell him you’re fine, Dad. He needs to know."
To pass the time I
used to take breaks from my father’s room, walking in circles around the
corridors, where I discovered that it wasn’t only us who were obsessed with
health, medical matters and moving into the hospital as a family.
Nearly all the
BUPA rooms were taken by either Jews or Arabs. The sight gave me comfort, even
amidst those desperate months of sadness. It made perfect sense. Of course, the
trouble stems not from our differences but our similarities: our attitudes,
behaviours and yes, the obsessions we recognise in them yet dislike in
ourselves. If the stories are to believed, we’re all family. Both Judaism and
Islam came from Abraham.
I’m bringing
Soldier Boy a copy of Ken Bruen’s ‘Purgatory’ to read. A big fan of the Jack
Taylor series, I love the way Galway City is a co-starring character in each
book.
Poor Soldier Boy
is stuck in his own purgatory, waiting day after day to be operated on.
Oops! I’ve missed
a call. There’s a voicemail from my doctor.
My blood tests are
back. Can I please call the surgery?
Now it’s too late
to call. The surgery’s closed.
Well, look who’s
in his own little Jewish purgatory now. I’m sure it’s nothing. A vitamin
deficiency; a cholesterol blip; maybe I’m anaemic again.
But my, those test
results came back within a few hours.
The doctor told me they wouldn’t be back
for days.
What’s the rush
about?
I’m not being a
hypochondriac. I'm just fulfilling my cultural imperative!
©Charlie Adley
No comments:
Post a Comment