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A timely yoghurt and a lucky escapeIt’s a record-breaking August Bank Holiday with temperatures in the 30s.Luckily I can keep relatively cool up here in the trees. My mind drifts back to another scorcher, last Thu 25th July, the hottest day ever recorded in the UK (38.7 °C at Cambridge University Botanic Garden). While the world was baking in intense heat, I was cool and comfortable in my air-conditioned hospital – a place I had not expected to be. I had been admitted on the previous Saturday when I felt unwell after the first cycle of my post-op chemotherapy had come to an end. It turned out that the high dosage didn’t suit me. You know things are bad when your first stop is the Acute Medical Unit. In Pembury, the AMU is on the lower ground floor, not exactly the basement but it feels that way. You’re only a trolley ride from the Intensive Care Unit, and after that, at the end of the corridor (I have always imagined), the mortuary. Luckily, the Fates intervened and I was soon installed in Ward 10, Room 23. Pembury is a new breed of hospital, built in 2012, it is planned around individual wards all with en-suite bathrooms. Each room has a view of the forest to aid healing and is blissfully cool on hot days. I call it the Pembury Hilton. In the first couple of days I quite enjoyed the peace and quiet and the view. I read loads and did a lot of thinking. I felt I was holding my own even though the medics seemed unsure about the diagnosis. I was producing a lot of fluid through the stomach but the kidneys had stopped functioning. So one team said I should be on restricted liquids and another said I must have lots of fluids for the kidneys. In the end I had both, with a little by mouth supplemented by a saline drip. I could see that the doctors were getting worried. By Wednesday I couldn’t get any food down. I had no appetite and the taste and texture of any food was like muddy gravel. The chemo had attacked all the mucus membranes in my body including those in my mouth. It was the start of a despairing time. I couldn’t eat and the dehydration salts I had to endure were not very pleasant. At one dark moment I asked if I could have a yoghurt as the only thing I could get down. This was was refused because it would increase my fluid intake! Desperate I persuaded the ward doctor to prescribe a yogourt and, bless him, he did. He prescribed two, to be dispensed at once! It was a compassionate and sensible action on his part. His kindness throughout my time there was a key factor in keeping me going. Up to that point I had not been concerned about the situation but by mid-week I could see fear in the doctor’s eyes. Their strategies weren’t working and I was fast fading. For the first time in the whole cancer treatment saga, which had already lasted six months, I felt despair. I seemed to have no way of affecting the outcome. Anyway I’m a lucky man and my wife Di came in every day to keep me company and watch the Tour de France.On that black day her visit was vital. After four days some medicated gel mouthwash arrived to help my sore mouth. From then on things slowly improved. I got better and by the following Saturday I had escaped, slimmer and weaker, but ready to continue the fight. While incarcerated I had plenty of time to ponder the design of the hospital which at first glance is a long and boring series of square boxes seven stories high. Given the huge size of the building (it has over 500 beds), it sits lightly in the landscape. The more you look, the more you come to appreciate the care that went into the design. External colours are a variety of shades of white and grey. On a cloudy day the building appears to merge with the sky, ameliorating the impact of its impact. The sharp edges of the building contrast with the softness of the woods it is set in, offering a pleasing juxtaposition. The windows have decorative louvres down one side. Different colours are used to pick out different rooms and floors. I could go on but you would accuse me of being deranged or deluded. A couple of weeks after being discharged, I visited Chiddingstone Castle with our Stanza poetry group. It is full of collections of historic artefacts such as Samurai uniforms and Egyptian bits and pieces. (Fascinating and quite random). It prompted me to write the following poem in an attempt to come to terms with what had happened two weeks previously.Articulated dragonLying, submerged in dim consciousnesssuppressed by the weight of illness and despair, I let the disorder take its course.I drift to a mock Kentish Castle full of archaeological bric-a-brac and artefact.In a cabinet, among many articulated metal creatures,is the dragon. Long, still and heavy as armour.Pick him up and he moves, life-like with menace,roaring in terrifying silence.I lie in my cubicle, monitored, lanced and drippedand as days pass, slowly, I feel the lid of the ward lifting.I move, articulately, shake and fling my limbs,and roar and roar and roar. ................
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