I had now been in Frimley Park Hospital for just over a week. By which time, I was experiencing serious pain in my right hip. The orthopaedic team had a bit of a problem. They needed to do a scan, which would require me to lie flat. But lying flat resulted in excruciating pain. We had discovered this when they attempted to move me from my bed to the MRI machine. This did not go well. As they slid me to the MRI bench, the pain was unbearable. My pain must have been very obvious to them (it may have been the scream), as within seconds, the nurse who was escorting me shouted, “Back on the bed! Put him back on the bed, now!”
There was, however, a much larger problem – my condition was not improving. In fact, it was doing the very opposite. The bacteria wasn’t responding to the four hourly doses of antibiotics, and fluid was building up in and around my heart, causing a dangerous amount of swelling. I needed to be moved to a specialist hospital, one that had a cardiothoracic ward. Put simply, I needed to be where the heart surgeons were.
My transfer was made slightly complicated by the fact that Frimley Park, very sensibly, wouldn’t allow me to be moved anywhere that didn’t have orthopaedic cover (for my hip). After a couple of days waiting for a bed to become available, we were informed that I would be moving to St Georges Hospital in Tooting. From then, it all happened very quickly. Within an hour, the ambulance crew had arrived to transfer me, and I was on my way.
It was time for my second ambulance ride. The journey from Frimley to St Georges took about an hour, and the use of lights and sirens made me even more aware of the seriousness of my condition. I actually got a little bit excited that this time I got lights and sirens, until I remembered that their presence signalled an emergency, and that I was that emergency.
Upon arrival at St Georges, I was taken straight up to Benjamin Weir – a cardiac ward for pre and post heart surgery patients – which would become my home for the next four weeks. The reason I went straight to a heart surgery ward was due to my heart continuing to deteriorate. We had been told that in an ideal scenario, they would be able to get the infection under control before operating on my heart. However, they also made it very clear that we were walking a tightrope, and that ideal scenarios didn’t always occur.
If my heart didn’t stabilise soon, then they would have to operate immediately, and opening up a heart whilst an aggressive bacteria is running riot in the bloodstream, does not come with the kind of odds that you would want to place a bet on. The main risk being that even if they managed to fix the leaky valve, there would have been no guarantee that the infection wouldn’t have found its way straight back into my heart.
My time at St Georges did not get off to a particularly good start. And by that, I mean it was horrific! I was moved so quickly from Frimley, that by the time I arrived, I was well overdue antibiotics and painkillers. As if that wasn’t bad enough, there had been a miscommunication between the two hospitals. It felt like Georges weren’t really given sufficient information about my condition.
Later that evening, Mim and Sean arrived to see me. They had both been visiting me at Frimley when I was transferred, so Sean, very kindly, offered to give Mim a lift to St Georges. I think to say that I was in a bad state when they arrived, would be a massive understatement. The fact that Georges didn’t seem to fully understand my condition, was concerning me. It concerned Mim even more. On top of that, the ward was genuinely hotter than the surface of the sun, and I was burning up.
Now, I don’t know what you think of church, but I love it. I am aware, however, that for a variety of reasons, many people have a negative view of church, religion, God, and all things associated with them. One of those reasons is religious leaders, because unfortunately, throughout history, a minority have used their authority to take advantage of, and abuse people within their church. If you are someone who has been hurt by one of these minorities, I am truly sorry.
Jesus is the central figure of the christian faith, and the Bible makes it clear, that all who identify as Christians, are called to follow Him. To follow Him means to be like Him. Those religious leaders who seek to hurt others for personal gain, are not being like Jesus. When asked the question, “What is the most important commandment?” Jesus responded very simply with, “Love God and Love People” (Matthew 22:36-40). The Bible also makes it clear that leaders of churches are held to a higher standard and should be the ultimate demonstration (other than Jesus) of what it is to love people.
Jesus is described in the Bible as ‘The Good Shepherd’. A shepherd cares for and protects the sheep in their flock. They will do anything to make sure their sheep are looked after. This is the attitude that church leaders should have towards the people in their church. As a shepherd is to their sheep, so a pastor should be to their people. I mention this because Sean is the pastor of the church I attend, and on that evening at St Georges, he demonstrated what it is to be a good shepherd.
As I’ve already mentioned, the ward was VERY hot and I was burning up. Sean could see that one of his sheep was suffering, and as the shepherd, he was willing to do whatever he could to help. He’s not a doctor, or a nurse, or any kind of medical professional, so he couldn’t do anything about my condition. But he did come up with a genius plan to cool me down. So off he went to carry out his master plan.
After about half an hour, he returned carrying a plastic bag full of coke cans. Well, some were sprite and fanta, but that’s not important. The important thing was where the cans had come from, and that, was an ice cold fridge. Sean and Mim placed the cans on my neck and under my arms. Oh. My. Goodness. Let me tell you, it was so refreshing, and just for a moment, I had a break from the heat.
Turns out that none of the shops in the hospital were open and Sean couldn’t find any vending machines. So he’d actually left the hospital and wandered the streets of Tooting until he found an off license. He was also Mim’s lift home and since Mim didn’t want to leave me until she was sure that the doctors had all the correct information, he had a wait on his hands. Whilst chatting to Mim the other day, I discovered that while he waited, Sean went and sat in a porters wheelchair by the lifts and worked on his sermon for church that week. He truly was a good shepherd that day.
I know churches up and down the country (and all around the globe) that have pastors like Sean. Leaders who genuinely love and care for people. Leaders who are patient, kind, generous, gracious, and humble. Leaders who will go above and beyond, often sacrificing something of themselves, for the benefit of others. Usually, when a church has leaders like that, it’s full of people like that too. Perhaps you’d be interested in going to a church like that? If so, feel free to contact me and I’ll help you find your closest one.
The next few days were easily the worst of the whole experience. The condition of my heart was becoming more unstable by the day, and the bacteria continued to be unresponsive to the antibiotics. The ward was hot and I was hotter. It was never quiet and never fully dark. Sleeping was almost impossible and, even if I did manage to drift off, it didn’t last long, as I was being woken every four hours for intravenous antibiotics.
Then, Mim and my parents received a phonecall. The kind of phonecall you don’t want to receive from a doctor. They were told that I was going for a procedure that would hopefully deal with the fluid build up in my heart. But my heart was fragile and the procedure had risks. Big risks. That procedure was a heart drain, and that heart drain, was the most weird, most bizarre and most uncomfortable procedure of them all.
It was now very clear that we were no longer walking a tightrope. We were hanging from it by our fingertips.
A Journey Of The Heart 