I Shouldn’t Have Looked!

It wasn’t looking good at the end of my last post and I apologise for leaving such a large gap between then and now. I’m aware that some of you don’t know me. Perhaps a friend recommended this blog to you, or maybe you have stumbled across it randomly. Regardless of how you got here, you’re most welcome. However, I’m aware that if you don’t know me then you don’t know how this story ends. For you, this could be like one of those movies where you’re led to believe that the main character is telling the story, only to find out, through some dramatic twist, that someone else is actually the narrator because the main character dies at the end.

Well I’m pleased to tell you that it’s not one of those tales. It really is me writing and this is my story. Actually, when I think about it, as we’ve already discovered, it’s not just my story. There are quite a few main characters and a whole bunch of heroes. Some of those heroes will be mentioned just once, while others will keep swinging by to save the day. This story is just as much about them as it is me. Some of the heroes in this story won’t get mentioned at all, for professional or privacy reasons, but that does not change their hero status. They know who they are and they know how grateful I am to them.

This blog has started at a fairly rapid rate of writing, because there was quite a lot to say about the first few weeks of 2018. There is still a lot to come, but for the next couple of months it becomes a bit more spread out, so I may not post quite as frequently. But then again, the more I relive the moments of last year, the more I seem to remember (or be reminded of), so who knows how much I’ll be writing! But I’m aiming for about one post a week.

So, where were we? Ah yes, the heart drain. Before we begin, you should probably know that this one is not for the squeamish. If, like me, you struggle with needles, you may find this a bit hard to read. The previous post ended with me in a very fragile condition: fluid was building up in and around my heart, causing a dangerous amount of swelling; the bacteria was still not responding to the cocktail of antibiotics I was being given; and I could have been rushed into theatre for heart surgery at any moment.

I felt awful. I mean really awful. On Sunday 21st January, I had a visit from my friend Matt. Matt works for a lego building company, so he brought me some lego flowers and a land rover to build. Although these gifts were amazing and much appreciated, Matt was outdone by his son, Noah. Noah’s gift was incredible, but we’ll come back to that in a minute.

A well-known fact about pain killers is that they ease your pain. However, what you’re not told is that the more you take, the more they affect your bowel movements. Basically, the stronger the pain-killer, the less you poop! Which is why one of the most frequently asked questions in a hospital is, “Did you open your bowels today?” I was on some pretty strong drugs by this point, so my answer to that question had been, “no” for quite a few days.

This is why Noah’s gift arrived at the perfect time. Heart failing, antibiotics failing, and a very painful bowel build up, I needed something to make me smile. It really isn’t easy to make people smile in that kind of situation, but it’s so important, even if it’s merely momentary. Noah nailed it! After Matt had given me the lego gifts, he reached into his bag and said, “Oh, and Noah wanted you to have this!” What he pulled out next brought that joyful smile back to my face. Noah had given me his ‘Poo Emoji’ mug. Never would I have believed that a mug in the shape of a swirly poop could bring so much joy. But it did. Thank you, Noah. And thank you, Matt. You were both heroes that day.

I don’t know if it was the joy of the poop mug or the sudden motivation to play with lego, but that afternoon, for the first time, I got out of my bed and sat in the chair next to it. For the next hour or so I sat in that chair and built a lego landrover. It was a blissful moment of peace in the middle of a violent and unpredictable storm. I think I spent too long sat in the chair as I felt rough for the rest of the day. But it was most definitely worth it.

I think I remember getting into my chair the next day aswell. But the day after that, Tuesday 23rd January, I stayed in bed, and my bed was moved to theatre. Not the kind of theatre you want to go to. That day will always be, not so fondly remembered as, ‘Heart Drain Day’.

A porter and nurse wheeled my bed and me round to the theatre and into some kind of holding area. I just remember thinking, “Wow! There’s loads of space here.” Back on the ward everyone and everything was so close together. I was taken through a consent form and asked to sign at the bottom. Most of the possible risks just went over my head, but the last one rang loudly in my ears as I signed on the dotted line. It simply said, “DEATH”, it wasn’t actually written in capital letters on the form, but it felt like it should have been.

Once I’d given my permission, they wheeled me through to theatre and moved me onto the operating table. The room was really big and the table I was on was right in the middle of it. It felt a bit odd because it was just me, the surgeon and one assistant. I kept looking around and thinking, “I wonder when everyone else is going to get here?!?” But no one else came. It would be just the three of us, my swollen heart, and a giant needle.

I’ll be honest with you, I’m not sure why what happened next was a surprise to me, but it was. Back on the ward, I had been told that I was going for a procedure that would drain the excess fluid from my heart. I’d pondered a little bit about what this procedure may involve, but apparently my pondering had two glaring omissions – Number One, that they would be putting something through my chest and all the way to my heart, and number two, which is arguably much worse than number one, that I would be awake for the whole thing. I do recall saying to them before they started, “Are you not putting me to sleep for this?” Apparently not!

I’m not sure it was necessarily a good thing, but they really were very good at talking me through what they were doing. Curiosity can be strangely powerful at times. As they were starting, I made the ridiculous decision to lift my head and have a look at what was going on. I’ve made a few terrible decisions in my life, but that one ranks near the top! Stood over me was the assistant and in her hands was a needle. A large needle. When I say large needle, I think that, other than in the movies, it’s the biggest needle I’ve ever seen. I immediately put my head back down and said, “I shouldn’t have looked!!” They agreed and suggested that it was probably best that I closed my eyes or stared at the ceiling. So that’s what I did.

Turns out the gigantic needle was only the local anaesthetic. It was followed by an uncomfortable few minutes where they pushed and twisted a tube through my chest and into the lining of my heart. It was very unpleasant. Once that was in place, it was attached to a drainage bag, which immediately started filling up with what is best described as ‘red slime’. I was then given my new accessory to hold onto while I was taken back to the ward. The red clashed a little bit with my heart monitor attachments, but I’ve never been one for fashion, so I didn’t really mind.

This drain was the final thing they could try before they would be forced to operate on my heart. If it didn’t do its job of relieving the pressure, the only option left would have been surgery, and that, as I mentioned in a previous post, came with huge risks. I did think about leaving you on another cliff hanger, but I thought I’d be nice.

Over the next 36 hours, 1.2 litres of that red slime was drained from my heart. It had worked. I cannot tell you how much better it made me feel. It was such a relief. But it gets better. The microbiologists had been hard at work trying to come up with a cocktail of antibiotics that would fight the bacteria in my blood. Well would you believe it? It was during that 36 hour period that the antibiotics joined the fight. I feel as if it was like that glorious moment in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, when all hope seemed lost and Gandalf came riding over the hill to save the day.

But there’s more! It was also during that time that the laxatives worked their magic. I will spare you the details of that particular chapter of the story. There are some things that you just don’t need to know. The only reason I mention it is because in the space of that 36 hour period, I went from feeling like I was going to die, to feeling like I was getting better. I still had a long way to go, but in that moment, we could all see a few small rays of sunshine starting to break through the storm clouds.