In two weeks time, I get married to the beautiful Miriam. It’s almost surreal. Proposing from my hospital bed seems like a lifetime ago. I mention this mainly to explain why my blog writing has slowed a little. In all honesty, you probably shouldn’t expect much between now and when we return from honeymoon in mid April. I may not have much time to write. But a little time of waiting actually fits with what we were experiencing this time last year.
These next two weeks are going to be somewhat crazy: I am entering my last week of work at the amazing Jubilee Church; we are in the final, also known as frantic, stages of wedding preparation; I am packing up and moving to Woking; and yes, that means I am currently looking for a new job. I will miss Jubilee Church greatly. I have so many wonderful memories from my eight years working there. But new adventures await, and for that, I am very excited.
This time last year we were in an odd season. Here in the UK, the ‘Beast from the East’ had left us. A snow storm that, by our standards, was pretty significant. I had been out of hospital for just over a month and my long course of antibiotics had finally come to an end.
Taking IV antibiotics at home was an interesting experience. It did once again remind me that our health service really does run on the hard work and commitment of so many different people. I am proud of my family members and friends who have been or are still part of this great team we call the NHS.
I still had the IV line in my arm and a district nurse would come once a day to plug me in to new antibiotics. She was a trooper. Come rain or shine. Or heavy snow! She made it to my parent’s house to give me my drugs. As mentioned in previous posts, this story has many heroes. She was one of them.
Another of them was my good friend Richard. During the snow storm, I needed to return to St Georges for an MRI scan of my hip and to have my IV line removed. However, the snow was causing us concern, so Richard came to our rescue in his Land Rover and drove us there and back.
Having a PICC line removed from your arm is not exactly pain free, but it’s not the pain I remember most. No sooner than the nurses had removed it, the microbiologist walked through the door and said, “You’ve taken some blood, right?” Of course, they hadn’t.
Now, this may not seem like a big deal. However, as you know, I’m not a big fan of needles, and taking blood from a PICC line is super easy and requires no extra stabbing. But, if you need to take some blood just after you’ve removed it? Well I’m sure you can figure it out. It did make us all chuckle. Well, I only chuckled until they stabbed me in the arm with another needle. And then in the other arm because the first one wouldn’t give up any blood!
The reason this part of the journey was odd is because I was actually feeling much better. The infection was well under control and for the first time in a couple of months I didn’t have any wires or tubes stuck in me. When I was sat down in a chair, I felt positively healthy! It was only when I went for my daily walk (about 200 yards) that I was reminded of the fact that, although I was much better, I was still broken. My heart was not working as it should and the infection wasn’t completely gone.
We have labelled this part of the journey, ‘The Eye of The Storm’, because it was a time of peace and calm. It was during this time that Mim and I watched a disaster movie called ‘Into The Storm’. It’s about a crew of tornado chasers. Near the end of the film there’s an incredible moment where they are sheltering from a massive tornado inside a storm drain. The tornado passes directly over the top of them and they find themselves right in the centre of it.
At this point it went calm. The winds dropped and there was peace as a lady asked, “Is that it? Is it gone?” One of the storm chasers answered with, “No, we still have the tail end to come and the tail end is always worse.”
We really were enjoying the fact that I wasn’t in hospital: I had friends round to play board games; we had a trip to the cinema; a visit to a curry house; I made it to Church; popped into the youth group bowling trip; and we even managed a few trips to the park with family.
But we knew the storm wasn’t over. There was more to come and we had a sense that the winds ahead of us, were going to be much stronger than what had come before.
It was a time of waiting.
Waiting for an unavoidable storm.
Waiting for open heart surgery.
A Journey Of The Heart 