Coming Full Circle

I don’t know if you’re calling me home, or if I am staying I found myself saying in the darkness of my hospital room, my head pounding to the point it felt like it was breaking open, my temperature and fear levels rising out of control, but I continued with a strong sense that I had to say this: if I’ve got any say in the matter and, I beg you please, let me stay, there are so many things I need to do, to finish. Part of me knew the grave danger I was now in. That part of me knew I had to ask for help as every cell in my body was screaming with fear and pain. I had to ask for what would be the biggest favour of my life. I then found myself saying: if I’m being called home are calling me home, please help me as I am so, so scared of dying, I don’t know how to die, I’m so afraid. I felt as if I was powerless in the enormity of what I was asking for. It was as if I was standing in complete darkness, peering over the edge of a skyscraper tall cliff, my toes already over the edge. I couldn’t move back. I knew then it was only a matter of time that I could remain here. I knew I wasn’t brave enough to just step off into the thick darkness stretching out ahead of me. I felt certain it was only a matter of time before I fell or lost my balance or, what seemed even worse to me was that I had to physically choose to step off the cliff edge. I definitely wouldn’t do that willingly I knew that much. In that moment as I asked for help for all I was worth, for the briefest of seconds I discovered I was in a glade of absolute light and with it came a brief moment of clarity. I suddenly had the feeling that if I would have to choose to step off the cliff, then that must mean I had a possible choice to stay. Right? Maybe? Possibly? I couldn’t lose time to think this through, without letting a fraction more time slip from my grasp I followed this pencil thin line of clarity that seemed to indicate that I had a choice in the matter. I noticed at this moment, that my mind had just for a brief moment shifted a gear and found its way completely out of my conscious control, into neutral. Momentarily I was cut free from all my superfluous thoughts; my unending hallucinations driven by the mental gunfire and rocket launchers going off in my head; my survival flailings of what if’s and how can I survive; will I have brain damage; to the unavoidable realisation that I was dying. In no way did I feel I was ready to cope with any of this. I was on a juggernaut whether I liked it or not, and we were careering out of control. My increasingly frantic thoughts had suddenly been silenced. My mind had just screeched to a halt. I was in a momentary ceasefire. The pain in my head of course did not – or could not – abate but surprisingly with my mind now in neutral and without any conscious control on my part, my thoughts were able to tail off and became firmly focused on my work. To my surprise, I found myself in the corridor where I worked, the Ruth Myles Unit, (a specialist bone marrow transplant unit which treats patients with leukaemia and other life threatening blood disorders.) I was aware I was hovering about half way up the corridor – at about eye level. The corridor was fully lit, I don’t remember any sound, but I found that I was hovering purposefully outside each of the rooms of each of my patients who I’d said I’d see tomorrow. This was my beloved project for which I had had big plans but which, because of the range of complexities setting up an innovative project as this one was, in any hospital, was still in its infancy. I was still busy scything my way through what seemed like acres of red tape and protocol. I was still putting in the foundations. I was starting to see great support for my project from nurses and physiotherapists, who were essential to its success but I understood too, it would take a while longer for the majority of our medical teams to really understand the value of my project to their patients. I had always understood what I had to do and all this was wrapped up in a big ribbon that I hadn’t even yet located; sustainable funding. As I saw it now – I was still miles away from creating the blueprint to let people know how to carry it forward if I was gone. I hadn’t factored that at all in to my plans before. You see, I continued, tears rolling down my cheeks, and my heart actually hurting with a heaviness and inconsolable sadness: “I haven’t finished yet…”