Authors: Gillian Crook
The Irish counsellors name was Dave, and he knew what he was talking about, after all, he had an addiction to alcohol and had been `dry` 15 years, so I think he was by far, the one Counsellor, who was more than qualified for the job, and knew what he was talking about, and in turn knew exactly what us ‘recovering addicts’ were going through! Hey that’s tired me out and my arms are sore… Joan and Jo have just gone and I feel quite sad and empty. I have soo many cards, even one from the two 14 year old boys who pulled me out of the water… God, I will try and keep in touch, but it’s always so easy to say that. I am leaving here with so many memories, and the craziest thing is that I will always have a place in my heart for Plymund, even though it is the place that has changed my life forever, and you never know, maybe one day I will come back, and maybe, if there is a god who can work a miracle, I might find Alec and Shadow, mmh—dream on!
My writing is getting smaller and smaller… please god let me have a painless nights sleep with nice dreams of my kids and my mum and all my friends I leave behind in Plymund especially Joan and Jo and one very special request that you look after Alec and Shadow or go on and work your miracles and put me back to the last time I was with Alec, and dreaming will do… Amen. (twce). Nite peeps xxx…
Today I leave for Glasgow by Helicopter
My God, I thought that this day would never happen; me going back to Scotland—not exactly the way I planned—but I always knew I wanted to go back home, home being Fort George, and not exactly in a big bright orange flying machine (ok, helicopter ambulance), with a pilot, paramedic and nurse (I think he was on morphine too, or else he was stoned—we had a right old laugh), but not supposed to be minus two legs, though, at least I can spend lots more time with mum who I miss sooo much, and the kids will want to come up and spend most of the time with me when they can—I
know
it, otherwise, I would never be doing this. When I came to Derry, I can’t even really remember what I was feeling but I do know how awful my nightmares and hallucinations were… at one time I was hanging over a cliff with only something like Velcro keeping me on it and all the weight was on my top half and my body was severed at the waist and I didn’t know where my legs had gone and I was screaming with fear and no one would come, then I would wake up in sweats!! Other times I would be lying flat on a slab and everything that happened happened upside down, as if I was on the ceiling being held on by ‘something’ but I don’t know, and all the people were coming into the room under me and they were not even phased that I was on the ceiling where I was screaming for their help and they were just laughing and getting on with their chats and saying to each other ‘how well I was doing’ and I was screaming at them that ‘I wasn’t’, but they just smiled!! It was like this was ‘just a taster’ of the horrible life I was going to have, always frightened and in fear screaming for help and no one helping or understanding… saying ‘she should count herself luckily it wasn’t worse’. Christ, they wouldn’t have been saying how lucky I was if the roles were reversed—I wanted to be dead to stop the pain and fear… how I shudder when I think of those horrific times. There was also the time when I thought I was in one huge ward in severe pain, and the nurses would just ignore your screams and when you saw one coming over you would think they were coming to help you, and for that split second there was a rush of relief and anxiety, and then they would just wryly smile, come close and just when you thought you were going to be helped or even just talked to so as not to feel so scared being on your own, they would just tap your hand and carry on walking… this was hell and that was horrible, I could only compare it to how a leper might feel when thinking that someone was going to be kind, about to help them with food, and then just pop it in their mouth, kick them down and scowl!!
I eventually got a single room, and I remember I used to see things coming out of the telly towards me and it would put the fear of death in me, and yet there were other times I would make them keep the telly on all night so I could just hear voices and not feel as if I had been left all alone. Sometimes I would just pray for daylight.
On a lighter note, I remember when I was flat on my back and couldn’t see anything but the ceiling and I was in soo much despair the occupational therapists gave me some glasses I described as ‘my star trek goggles’ . . . they were made in such a way that when they were put over your eyes like very thick swimming goggles, you would be able to see people walking into the room whilst looking at the ceiling… it was really funny one day, because mum walked in and I went ‘hello mum, its good to see you, really see you’, she couldn’t understand at all and then when she realised why I was able to see her, her reaction was amazing, she was soo pleased, because anything the hospital were able to give me to make my life easier with my injury, she was so grateful for. So, these glasses became quite a talking point because no one, certainly of my visitors or even the nurses on my watch, had ever seen these before… It was something that the occupational therapists had come up with, and yes, partly to shut me up cause I was always moaning. Unfortunately, my star trek goggles met a rather abrupt end when one of the nurses, showing off, dropped them, and they couldn’t align them up to work properly again. Shame!
One last thing that I could kill Derry for, was that for about the first month they made me wear a ‘brace’ that used to be sooo uncomfortable and sore that I used to try and pull it off cause it tormented me, and at nights it was sometimes unbearable, and I would pray to god to stop the pain and let it just go. If the nurses were not looking I would try and pull it off over my head! And get into trouble, what crap! . . . not one of my better ideas… however, they eventually discovered that it was an old fracture, and when they asked me I told them I had fallen down the stairs in my flat about 10 months before (actually, I had been pushed, in one of Petes’s angry fits and fell and hit my head on the heater at the bottom of these steep stairs, prick!), so it was on the x-ray as a fracture, they just didn’t realise it was an old one at the time, but couldn’t take the risk until they knew for sure!!! All that suffering for nothing… I could have screamed… in fact, I think I probably did… well enough of my really fun time here to reminisce about, time to finish packing… how the hell can someone, me, gather so much crap in such a short space of time—considering I came in with bugger all??
So, the day started ok and Craig arrived, he was the male nurse that was coming with me to Glasgow… off to a great start—Craig just told me that he doesn’t like flying… oh god, he probably doesn’t like the sight of blood either… oh dear, time to give Craig some morphine. Oh well, can’t do that, mines a pump, sorry Craig. Actually, Craig is one of the nurses I have got on really well with at Derry, and he had told me a
huge
secret that the hospital don’t even know. He has just split with his wife, and in the process told her that he is ‘gay’! I bet that was a bit of a shock for her, and went down like a lead balloon… plus they have a little 2 yr old son that they are fighting about with regards to access… ain’t that rotten (for them both). Good news for Craig though is that he has been accepted by a nursing recruitment agency to work for them, in a managerial capacity and has been offered the job, yeah! It means more money for him and gives him a better chance of being able to work more normal hours in order to get to see his little boy, Sam! I think that’s great and I really hope it all works out for him… out of all the staff I’m gonna miss, him, Dee, Premi and believe it or not (even though he was mostly checking out the waves), my surfing surgeon, Tom!!
Well, they keep asking if I’m gonna be ready on time, and all I can say is ‘thunderbirds are go’!! I could just see Craig in a little blue thunderbirds suit and pointed hat (mm, luvvly ducky!!) So, the morphine pump seems to be doing it’s job probably coupled with excitement, I’m feeling quite happy, on cloud 9 in fact (and I soon will be, boom boom!), and sad, as well as emotional… yeah, I will always miss Plymund, the good and the bad, and for obvious reasons, NOW I will never forget it, mmh? Well, back to the job in hand, and the journey… at least I’m not in pain at the mo… oh no, my writing is gonna start suffering and I don’t have a lot of time! Maybe I need just to say cheerio to a few more people… By the way, just to let you know, my ward buddy, Barry, who fell of his pushbike, is paralysed from the neck down and has a probable 10% brain damage, but they do have to carry out more tests in order to establish the full impact of the damage (oh my God, it’s soo sad… , I’m gonna stop for a while I’m welling up and getting upset thinking about him and his family! His family were wonderful, so dignified and united in their grief, I don’t mean grief like you would for a dead person, but when you think of it like it is, part of his body, like mine, has effectively ‘died’ and that affects the person and everyone who loves you, badly… I spoke to Teresa, his fiancé, and she was planning their wedding—she is gonna get married at his bedside if she has to… oh my God, what a strong girl. It’s so sad! Well just managed to say cheerio to a couple of the o.ts and thanked them for the glasses… oops, gotta go now, there’s some other nurse just come to the door and there’s about one more behind him… actually they are wearing green outfits. Maybe that’s our lift?
So… . Bye bye, Mr Derry-ford sky, drove the Chevy to the levy, but the levy was dry, but good old boys were drinking whisky and rye, singing this’ill be the day that I die, . . . this’ill be the day that I diiiee… . Oh, that songs in my head now, and after all the mayhem, pain and suffering I have been through, I BETTER NOT DIE!!!! . . . .
TOUCHDOWN—JUST ARRIVED AT ST ALWYNS GENERAL HOSPITAL,
GLASGOW
Tuesday 7th October 2003
Oh my god, what a journey, or should I say flight, the in-flight service was great… well, I’ve never had my own personal aide that’s also a comedian, as well as a nurse, and that’s allowed me to get high on morphine… at least I think I was… not too sure. Dunno how Craig managed, can’t remember too much, but at least his nerves survived this trip… things seemed ok, and by the way it’s really difficult to write and I’m starting to feel a bit shaky. Things
were
ok, until I got into this Glasgow, shit of a hospital… the staff were unfriendly and one nurse, bloody Marleen, who I felt like slapping, (poisoned dwarf), complained I had far too many bags and I told her to ‘wind her neck in, or I would strangle her with her pointy hat’, meant as a joke, of course, which, she didn’t find very funny, and then went on to complain I had too many bags—bloody cheek, so I told her that that was my luggage ‘condensed’. I was just waiting for the other 6 dwarfs to walk in and really make my day. I tried to escape, but I think the helicopter had already gone, so I had missed any chance of going back with it, actually I hope Craig is OK going back? I had ‘severe’ words (in a soft sort of way, in case she hit me), with the dwarf, oops (nurse), Marleen… she is really horrible and she had a baad attitude! Oh dear, I have never been in this frame of mind before. Staff started washing me with some sort of flannel and were nonchalantly rolling me for side to side, and then had the barefaced cheek to insult me by asking if I was OK?? Well if that barbaric way of being treated was OK then I was like ‘a pig in shit’!! Were they taking the piss with that question??
Was… taken to a ward called the ‘Philistoll’ or something like that, wanted… to speak to the kids, where were they? My medication is fucked up, just like my writing and head at the moment. Can’t stand, nurses, doctors or anyone!!! Crap, look I’m getting tired—what am I gonna do, this isn’t normal? What I need to do is (take a deep breath) and SIT UP PROPERLY! Some occupational therapist said A is for AMBITION! ATTENTION! AGGRESSION! I have had to put up with a lot, from a lot of people too… that nurse Marleen could have been a bit nicer and polite—busy or not—maybe we caught each other at a bad time? Wish they would get me my kids or mum?
Don’t remember too much but I was rushed in for an operation to my backside! Extremely severe wound, sounds pretty bad and I don’t know what they are talking about except that ‘its bad’!! Is that all I’m gonna hear, bad, bad, bad… . what is going on… dunno but, it’s, BAD! Oh dear, just spoke to a Dr Dunne and apparently he is the main doctor, oops, oh, dear, don’t like him much. Don’t know why; think I’m fed up so to get this over with I AM GOING TO SUMMARIZE:—Barry upset nurses with his usual aggressive attitude and tone on the phone because he gets agitated when he doesn’t get YES SIR, NO SIR!! Actually, if he got the dwarf I hope he gave her a really hard time… he demanded to speak to Dr Dunne, who I’ve decided should be. Dr Didn’t, cause he wouldn’t speak to Barry at first and then he changed his mind… whatever, so, Dr Didn’t, did, speak to Barry—prick!—
Then
insinuated to me that Barry may have been insulting!! Really? I thought, cheeky bastard, but he’s probably right! Mr Templar saved the day and diffused the situation; he is a darling and, good news for a change, MY SURGEON!! He will talk to me bout my Op tomorrow… I’m tired… gotta stop. Oh, before, I go, I must say, Thank You God—you got me, here to Glasgow in one piece—I think—well, not in one piece, in a few really—my head and arms are two pieces in tact, and I’m dragging the other half around—but, nevertheless, I am back in Scotland! I hope and pray that my kiddies will make it up soon, and Chris, the flying nurse got back to Derry Ok, and I hope everyone here, even the poisoned dwarf, are gonna put me together again—there’s a good nickname for me… ‘Humpty Dumpty’—Humpty Dumpty dived from the wall, Humpty Dumpty had a 40ft fall, all the queens nurses and medics on hand, were there at the bottom to help Dumpty land! Okay, it’s bad, and I should have said AMEN, after that…
Woke up I think… fell back to sleep. Oh god, my bum is sore, I think… at least I don’t know, but summit is? . . . saw Dr Didn’t in the haze, and some doctor called Dr Terry, who is the Medicine Woman… at least, I hope, or even a Witch Doctor who can work miracles with my pain! We spoke for a bit, and I told her where I thought it was sore… it was so hard to tell. She said she would sort out medication… I hope so… she is really nice… maybe this time tomorrow all the pain will be gone and this mark on my bum won’t exist and things might not seem so strange?