No patch of sky

in the fluorescent corridor

I didn’t send out a ‘patch of sky’ note on Wednesday 12th June, as I spent 24 hours in A&E which gave me plenty of time to think…

Almost right…

Lost in the abyss

Like so many other people I felt strangely but deeply affected by the disappearance and death of British TV presenter Michael Mosley. I wish he had made it to hospital. He seemed, and I’m pretty sure he was, as my wife says, a good man. A good egg. Someone who did their best to be honest and truthful, however ill-defined and out of fashion that concept may be. He seemed like a good companion on our 21st century journey through health fads and conspiracy theories, diets and diseases. Many people have paid tribute to the positive contribution he made to their lives through his media work and advice. And one cannot but feel huge sympathy for his loving wife and family to have lost husband, father and friend.

Yet I find in the unravelling of the story of his last few days all kinds of threads and challenges, questions and symbols.

A man of undoubted high intelligence and, I would say, endowed with plentiful common sense, undertakes a journey across an arid landscape in the full heat of the day with an umbrella for shade. Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. He had been on the Greek isle of Symi for just a day, staying with friends who lived on the island. He had been here before. It probably wasn’t his first walk in hot sun.

Yet what certainty of purpose led him to set off with no water, no phone, no map. What questions were asked before he set off? Had he sunk a beer or two? Had he eaten lunch? Had he drunk lots of water? Did he suffer some kind of health event, a heart problem or a stroke?

Of what he can have had no concept, is how his demeanour and behaviour, his trial in the desert and the manner of his death would become symptomatic, emblematic, metaphoric (metonymic, even) of our peculiarly British loss of path and our existential state of being mise en abime. Some might argue it’s a universal phenomenon but I’m happy to stay focussed on ‘this little world’ of the UK now and in its recent past, that’s made ‘a shameful conquest of itself’¹. In fact, so close did event and metonym run for a while that it was even hazarded, according to The Times, that Michael Mosley might have been lost ‘near the coastal resort of Agia Marina’ in ‘a water-filled “bottomless” cave with a network of tunnels which is known locally as “the Abyss”.’ The phrase ‘doing a Michael Mosley’ will surely become a colloquialism on a par with the Australian ‘doing a Bradbury’.

Mosley’s misfortune has the peculiarly English quality of ‘defeat snatched from the jaws of victory’, a wonderful expression I first heard used by sound engineer Steve Brown when we worked together many years ago. Mosley has unwittingly inserted himself into the domain of English failure. It’s the backs against the wall, Dunkirk spirit. It’s Chamberlain’s 'peace with honour…peace for our time’ at Munich. Somehow there’s an echo of Scott’s expedition in Antarctica and Captain Oates leaving the tent. ‘I am just going outside and may be some time.’²

It’s the hero’s farewell, ‘It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.‘³ It’s Mallory on Everest, and Nelson at Trafalgar, not to mention what happened to so many poor bloody sailors after the battle.

The end result is losing one’s way, losing oneself in the abyss, in self-sacrifice or self-sabotage.

Self-sabotage

I know something of self-sabotage. It’s a particular talent I have.

As I was walking down the tiled stairs at the apartment where we were staying in Verona at about 4pm on Tuesday afternoon, I think I may have glanced at my phone. I was following Rosy who had crossed the vestibule and was about to open the front door. I fell, missing my footing from the last but one step. I crashed to the floor on my left arm and upper body, letting out a loud scream. I thought I had broken a rib or two. I felt giddy when I tried to sit up, so lay prone while my watch bleated its emergency alarm. You’ve had a fall. You don’t say.

The scene of the accident. Where do the stairs end and the floor begin…? 

Rosy and I decided it was probably best if I went to A&E as I’m on blood thinners, which increase the risk of internal bleeding. Rosy called the emergency number.

The paramedics turned up very quickly, a tall, thoughtful man in blue and two women in white fatigues. I was still on the floor but leaning against the wall now, as the women took my temperature and blood pressure, while the man asked me various questions about my injuries and state of health. I covered my medications and pacemaker with Rosy translating, since the little skill I have in the Italian language, seemed to have deserted me when I hit the floor.

They decided to take me in and escorted me to the ambulance. I sat in the back facing forward with one of the women next to me facing to the rear. As we cross the fast-flowing Adige river, I commented on how full it was, high up the bank. She says they have had a month of rain.

At the hospital I'm put in a wheel chair and triaged. I try to work out the colour-coding of the staff. A cannula is installed by a nurse or phlebotomist in white who takes my blood. Most of the nurses wear dark blue T-shirts with the word infermiere on the back. Doctors wear blue as well with medico on the back. Ancillary staff wear white, porters blue/green and the senior doctors or consultants walk round in buttoned white coats looking terribly professional, a finger of one hand to their lips in thought.

In a row of other waiting patients, I sit in one of those large, grey high-backed hospital chairs with a fold-up leg support that I can never work out how to fold out. I’m taken for an ultrasound scan and x-rays.

In radiography I’m posed in various artistic positions to acquire the necessary images of my thorax. First my chest is placed firmly against the  target plate which goes up and down a few times before the right position is achieved. Then I have to put my hands together as if praying, put them over my head but bend my back and raise my chin. All the while the radiographer makes fine adjustments to my position with encouraging prods and exhortations. And my injury makes its painful presence felt.

Then I wait. It takes me a long time to suggest Rosy should see if she can come through, which she does around 10pm. She brings me a chicken and bacon sandwich from Aldi. She had had to walk miles because she parked in a car park signposted ospedale but it was 20 mins away. And when she found a supermarket it was 7.55 and it was closing, so then drove to Aldi, and afterwards found the on-site hospital car park which is free.

Eventually around 11pm I guess, a doctor has a good look at me and my results and says they will keep me in overnight. I ask if I could go back to the apartment and come back in the morning. She asks if I have someone with me and I explain that Rosy is here, she speaks Italian and used to be a doctor. They discuss me and agree it’s best for me to stay overnight, which I do on a gurney in a corridor, along with many other open-mouthed old people. I feel quite at home.

On the walls of the corridor are poster presentations about various research projects - treatment of mushroom poisoning, torsades de pointes in drug users, the effects of 10 micron particles on the ‘respiratory apparatus’, which I read avidly along with my Private Eye as the night makes its fluorescent path to dawn. I do sleep on my gurney. Especially after they give me soluble cocodamol. I feel sorry for the stocky woman in dark blue who sits at the foot of my gurney looking after an elderly man I take to be her father-in-law. She looks tired. In the morning she feeds him broken pieces of one of those small squares of toastie, soaked in tea. Laden with responsibility, she stands watching the exit for a while. When her brother or husband turns up, she rushes away.

I feel sorry for the pale faced old woman with a furze of golden hair who lies on the gurney at the head of mine. She often calls out Aiuto and seems very confused. The staff are very caring with her and calm her down.

Eventually after another x-ray where I again have to adopt various artistic poses guided by the firm hands of the radiography assistant, I have an interview with a doctor who goes through my notes and images, removes my cannula and shaking hands, bids me farewell.  No charge. As a citizen of the Regni Uni I’m entitled to reciprocal healthcare in Italy and the rest of the EU. Remember that, anyone? Before Brexit? Before our shameful conquest of ourselves?

An experience of civilised healthcare in 22 hours.

The security guards, the Rangers roaming the corridors, carry guns.

Self-determination

When we leave the hospital, Rosy receives a message from her cousin asking her to call him about his mother, her maternal aunt who lives in Victoria on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. At the apartment Rosy calls him to be told that her aunt is suffering from heart failure and will need to go to a care home, as she will no longer be able to live independently. Rosy calls her aunt. She has opted for assisted dying. The conversation ends abruptly as Rosy has hit her payment limit on an international call. Rosy writes an email to her aunt.

Dear R,

I’m so sorry, we were cut off - not entirely sure why, the Italians may have decided I used enough of their airtime.

You sound very well and in control of things. I wish we had assisted dying in the UK.

But I also want to say how much John and I enjoyed our visits to you in recent years. We had a lot of fun and enjoyed listening to your wise words. You were very supportive to me in 2017 when I came over (inadvertently without John!) and our family were going through a difficult time. And I know how much Trish valued you as an aunt, friend, mentor and companion in silly humour! You were like a mum to her.

John has always valued your advice as a writer - we have your books lined up on a shelf in our house.

Anyway, this is sad to be saying goodbye, but I’m really pleased that you are able to make your own decisions and not feel in thrall to the possibility of extreme frailty and disability.

You have contributed huge amounts to many, many people who have benefited so much from your sage wisdom.

John and I both wish you well on the journey ahead.

Sending much love and thanks for the life force that you are.

Rosy

Marks indicating the height of historic floodwaters from the River Adige on walls around Verona.

1. From the famous speech by the dying John of Gaunt in Shakespeare’s Richard II

2. Scott, Captain R.F. Scott's Last Expedition: The Journals of Captain R.F. Scott. Pan Books, 2003, p.462. Oates also said: ‘Myself, I dislike Scott intensely and would chuck the whole thing if it were not that we are a British expedition.’ King, Gilbert. Sacrifice Amid the Ice: Facing Facts on the Scott Expedition. Smithsonian Magazine. Both quoted in the Wikipedia article about Oates.

3. A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens