Video transcript
The hospital ventilator opens and closes mechanically. Catch another breath in time
with the rhythm. I'm flat on my back in the intensive care bed, deep at the bottom of
the ocean. Harsh artificial light burning yellow above my head. However did I get
here?
Christmas 2005, a time for family and festive cheer. My stomach however has other
ideas. Perhaps I’ve over eaten or it’s the after effects of all the hard work I’ve done in
the run up to the holidays. I don’t really know. The twelve days of Christmas however
turn into five weeks. Getting weaker, can’t eat, can’t drink. Taxi to the hospital,
carried across the threshold. More Frankenstein’s monster than bride.
‘You’ve had an acute attack of Crohn’s’ the consultant said.
Internal organs necrotise poisoning my system. No time to run just time to face the
truth.
‘Subtotal colonectomy and stoma’. The odds are slim but now I’m a gambling man,
roll the dice, do or die.
I struggle to avoid eternal sleep as the medical staff busy around me. I can’t move.
An angels hand is in mine, although there’s no one there. No fear of death anymore.
Slowly I surface from the deep. My daughter’s photograph is posted in the ICCU
ceiling. I still can’t move though. Infection. Isolation. But my lungs slowly heal and the
blood returns to my limbs. I learn to walk again, like a little child, each step an effort.
Black humour keeps you going. Tasteless jokes you’ll never again share.
Three years later on I live with the changes. My scars are now like old friends, a
comforting presence which helps make sense of my world. Life is precious.
