Status Epilecticus

Early Evening 7th December 1996

I think that every epileptic fit is perculiar to each individual. The poem below is my signature.

Status Epilepticus

The indelible fear

when the music plays loud.

Stretching and pulling on

every note.

A fist to a wall.

A zing to a snap.

A penchant for violence

Is on the fast track.

She’s moving quicker

With a silent flicker,

She’s falling backwards

As I’m getting bigger,

A towering colossus

Breaks on the ground,

A snake down a ladder

With its shivering rattle.

The roof of my mind,

Its steel now rent,

By a tumbling tornado

Of a force majeure.

There's a lake of green piss

and a stream of black bile,

The march of the shoes

Form a ring at the head,

Hands stroke the air

With fingers that dance.

The train’s stopping.

There's words in a pot,

A smell like honey

Drenched and hot,

A swelling of the tongue,

The crushed lower lip,

An old man’s spittle,

Sweet baby shit.

I walk this city,

Urban in flight,

Where muggers trail

In the shop window lights,

In search of doorways

And grim litter traps,

Where I can Fit silently

In Peace when you pass.

KM

The Gentle Black Haired Nurse

7th December 1996 Post-Operative

Someone's calling. Shut my eyes. Not me. They are deep in my inner ear. The usual litany: regiment, rank and number. Awake. Fear.
A black wand. A light in my eye. Have they come to magic up some miracle cure for me? Oriental girl. A doctor? Small hands. At my bedside smiling. Shines the light again and says pressure behind the eyes. Feel sick. Folding inwards. Who am I? This is not my body. Diminished. Travelling back in time...

Headache. New nurse with short black hair, eyes as black as newly mined coal; she is from elsewhere. She hands me my shorts. Thanks. I can dress myself. She does not look. I'm covered; no indecent exposure. My arm is dead. She reassures me; it's only temporary. She shaves my face. Not bad.  Husband or boyfriend should be proud. She's smiling back. I smile back. Love story. She's pretty. No make-up. Sleep sweet dreams.

I wake. She's back with a silver tray. Bandages and tape. Her breasts in my face as she repairs the damage. Please move them. Please. No bandage now. Cold air on a bald head. POW 1945. Not worthy of that. thought. She's dressing my head. She's smiles. Her job done

Who is the Newcomer? Wheel him into his vacant lot. His kids look at him in horror. Daddy's shaven head. . Get Well balloons tremble in the air. Daddy's coming home soon. I look at Mom. She's finished, I can see it in her eyes. She can't wait to leave. Can't blame her. Who wants to be around that? Anyway. Where are my kids?

Nurse black hair is back. Tablets Phenytoin and Warfarin. Rat poison. A weak smile. The winter sun floods the ward. Can see down  below now. Parked cars arranged like dominoes. My my first cup of tea in days. Taste so fresh. We speak. She has no accent. I fall asleep.

Nurse Station

5th December 1996 Post-Operative.

Why can't I lie on my side? These sheets are heavy weights. Bed's hard. Who are they and where are they going; let me me see. You're pulling at my skin. What the f***k are those? Hanging bags: scarlet, clear and cream. Drip. Drip into my vein. Through a butterfly...
Let me sit up. Let me rise. Shall I scream for help or wait? Passive. Wait until someone passes. I know what that's for, the paper mache box with the big hole . What chance. Eyes close. Pictures on the backs of my eye-lids. Biology lesson, 16, a rat hammered to a board and dissected. Found babies inside. I am too young for this. This never should of happened to me. Let me sleep. Can't. Flies buzzing around my bed; nagging. Go away please I just want to sleep. It's a nurse. Nurse with big hands. She smells of lavender and sweat. She's had a long day I bet, but she can go home now. Stop crying prick; as if she cares.
Rank bad smell everywhere. Boiled vegetables and burnt meat. Sleep.

Awake. It's dark and I feel different. Another nurse, a silhouette, a reflection in a window. She's close, I can feel her . Raise my neck to check her out. Pale and plump, just a child. Grey pinstripe trouser-suit. A student. Nasty smell of garlic on her breath. Please don't leave me with her. Drip. Drip into my vein. Bed's rising. Head hurting. She's calling me babe. No, you can't say that; I am, I've forgot, about 30 perhaps, she  looks about ten. Now she'll ask me where I am, my date of birth. Always answer correctly. Get out of here.
Bed raised. I can see everything now. Curtains open. Worse than I expected. Shit. Frightened. Dark. Only candle light. I can see their shapes. Little hillocks. Sandbags hiding  4 sleeping bodies. I need to get back to before. Christ, a tear.

No tears. I am conscious. Oh this f***ing place. They should sluice it down and wash away all the death. Here again, I knew it.. Don't cry. I am crying. I will smash this place up; punch holes in the walls, over and over again. I will break every pane of glass, rip every pipe from these old hospital walls. My alma mater. Hatred of my heart. I want  to lie down again. I  feel sick.

In a Lonely Place

3rd December 1996

It's 3.00 am and I am sitting on the edge of my hospital bed looking down at an empty car park. The ward is silent and dim. One night light on and that's mine. I have no intention of sleeping. I sit and watch as columns of steam rise and twist through the cooling vents. I sift through my broken thoughts, which are becoming more and more erratic, but it occurs to me, that no-one can prevent me from leaving this place. No-one, can bar the way. All that I need to do, is to sign the paperwork and then walk. So, why don't I? Is it that I am scared of authority, confinement, pain or being branded a coward? No, I am frightened of the unknown and dying. It is that simple.

6.00 am and there's a stranger at my bedside. He hands me a set of forms to read and sign. I sign, I don't read. He then imparts a little know fact, that there is a 2 percent chance that I could die in theatre or be condemned to living my life as a cripple. I thank him for his honesty and he leaves with a rye smile on his face.

Time accelerates, the hands of clock are spinning around and around, faster and faster. I cannot control time, I cannot send the sun back down, I cannot stop the nurses walking up and down, down then up. I cannot stop this day. I wish that the world would end today. A selfish thought I know but I do not want to die alone.

At about 8.30 my hair is shaved off and I am told to put on the backless gown that lies on the bed. It feels like I am about to be executed for a crime I did not commit. The event is starting to takeover. Means and ends are tangled. My whole body is shaking and my teeth are chattering. My mind is a void. I am finished. I am placed on a trolley and wheeled away. The floor dips and then opens into a pre-op room. I am shot full of drugs and I am told to count to ten...

I wake, dead or alive, on a lawn of lush green grass soaked in dew. I can  see an old white-washed brick wall. Bushes and trees everywhere; elms, poplars and sycamore. Mimosa and jade. The scent of honeysuckle rides on the air. And then it starts to rain and the ground starts to move. I have no foothold and I feel like I am sliding off the very face of the world. I am disappearing.

He Talks of Scalpels

The back end of November 1996.

The Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QE), waiting for another consultation. I haven't slept for weeks, I have no appetite, no desire to exercise and I definitely do not wish to converse with anyone. Small talk annoys me and big concepts dwarf me. Tired, I shrink into my seat and listen to the coughing behind me. My name's called and I am surprisingly quick out of the traps. I race towards the door at the end of the corridor with a new found enthusiasm named  'hope.'

Mr Fl  is sitting hunched over his papers. He looks up and finds me, yawns and says, 'you know why you are here?' He recognises the confusion in my eyes and then begins to spell it all out in a brusque and emotionless way. There is no warmth in the room now, no connection and no bond. He alienates me. His status, his knowledge and his skill overwhelm me. I hate him from the outset, this is the person who is going to enter into my head and mess around with my brain and my thoughts, that I, have struggled so hard to construct throughout my life's time.
He sits on his cloud and waits. He speaks, and rather than engendering confidence, he scares me shitless. 'You have a tumour the size of a golf ball in the parietal lobe of your brain.' He points to a dark shadow on the MRI image. 'I will perform a craniotomy to open the skull and then cut down through the brain and take a sample of tissue for analysis. If the tumour is accessible I'll give it a good scrape and suck it out.' I look into his eyes and search for swastikas and yellow stars. I look at his face, it's stern and military grey. I am thinking abortionist, rapist and murderer. My ex-wife is blathering on now about hospitalisation, procedures, recovery and the future; sensible things. And then, she does the unthinkable; she asks him if we can see the hospital ward. I look at her askance. Is she a lunatic? Would she like to swap places with me? Of course not.

I slither over hospital floors that are dirty and worn. A stick of a woman with no hair gallantly walks a drip along the busy corridor. I am getting nearer. I can smell it; the end of the line.
The surgeon and my ex-wife wait  ahead. I slow down and stop  and look into the distance at the arrow points downward: Neurosurgery East Lower Basement. Down we go again, another circle of hell, through the stench of unflushed toilets, over cooked food and relatives dressed in tobacco scented coats.

I enter the bright hall of high windows. The ward sister greets us and we walk the ward. The surgeon Mr Fl has fled the scene. We are left to walk alone. I bow my head and look at the floor. When I raise my eyes I see her sitting up in her bed, she is the most forlorn creature I have ever seen. Half her hair has been razored away, her skin looks as thin and delicate as the wings on a moth and guess what; she's f***ing crying. Weeping. It's a shame for us, isn't it?

The Twenty Seconds Window

I wake. I pull back the bed clothes. I sit. I stand. I walk and it's all cool. I think, work and food. I am granted twenty seconds of forgetfulness before my brain chooses the right channel and I think; brain tumour and cancer.