Nothing for me to do

When I was thirteen I ran straight through a plate-glass door. I have a scar down the side of my nose to prove it. Fourteen neat little stitches and a newly acquired ruggedness from that day forward. At least, that’s what my mother told me. I ran down a long hallway, swerved past the lounge, hurdled the coffee table and was halted, in mid-air, by a very large, very clean glass sliding door. Bam!

The world suddenly stopped. I was frozen, lying among a million diamonds of razor sharp glass. The most significant injury was one long shard protruding from my nose. As anxious friends and family gathered around, I felt a sense of bravery, for although I was indeed hurt, the pain was defused by the shock. I stared at the sky above and let out small giggles.

The overwhelming memory that has stayed with me from that day was the serene comfort and calmness that washed over me. Once placed on the ambulance gurney, those men in white coats dedicated every shred of their being to my wellbeing. At the hospital, as I lay on that gurney swaddled in crisp white linen, I glanced back and forth at the myriad of hospital staff fussing around me and felt indestructible, immortal and completely protected from everything bad in the world.

My role in this whole episode was to lie there, and simply be treated and repaired. There was nowhere I had to be. Nothing for me to do. Just lie there and be looked after. Now sleep. Hmmm.

At 48 years of age, the nose scar fading, I found myself once more under the protection of those wonderful angels in white. And while for some, hospital is a scary place, full of horrible possibilities, for me, and with limited experiences therein, it has always been a haven. Within these walls, away from the ghastly world outside, and with every known remedy for every possible condition close at hand, I have always felt totally safe. That was until the doctor leaned over me, roused me from my anaesthetic and said ‘I’m sorry, I have some bad news. You have cancer.’

My stomach fell away taking every last drop of oxygen with it. The light above my head was spinning dangerously, the air in the room sucked away and the doctor’s face blurred into some grotesque caricature. I couldn’t respond. I was free-falling, nothing to hold onto, nothing to save me. ‘I’m very sorry’ he said.

Reality has slapped me hard every day since, and now, almost halfway through my chemotherapy treatment, I realise my boyhood beliefs, although once comforting, were fanciful. And though I still maintain a healthy respect for hospitals and know miracles can happen, they do not always happen, and between those times it’s just called ‘life’.

Happiness, sadness, joy, grief, hope, charity, pain, heartache, illness, laughter, anguish, love, fear, death and life.