There was a news item recently that really upset me and I
can't stop thinking about it. A young
girl went to a wine bar to celebrate her 18th birthday and drank a cocktail
that was concocted using liquid nitrogen; a few hours later in terrible pain
she was rushed to the hospital where she was told they had to remove her
stomach or she would die. I can't begin
to comprehend what that must feel like for her, because her life will now be
changed forever in a really profound way, and all because of a drink! I have personal experience now of abdominal
surgery, and I can tell you it's bloody painful, and like her I had no choice;
if I hadn't had that operation I wouldn't be here now. But what she is going to have to endure is
way beyond anything I went through, and the consequences for her mean that she
will never be able to function normally again; life can so cruel sometimes, but
stuff like this shouldn't have happened to a little girl; because that is what
she is - a little girl just turned eighteen, studying at sixth form with the
rest of her life before her, and it is so tragic and unfair, and all because
someone had the bright idea of constructing a colourful alcoholic cocktail that
foamed and bubbled, to entice young people to drink. I know now just how important a healthy gut
is and how devastating it is for some people when cancer or other illnesses
affect the stomach. From the day I was
informed of my cancer I never cried; I just for some reason apologised relentlessly
to my wife, Sarah, because I somehow felt I was letting her down; worrying how
she'd cope if I didn't come through it and all that kind of stuff. And all through the pain and indignity of the
whole medical process I somehow held it together. But what affected me more than anything was seeing
other patients in the ward who were really suffering much more than me; hearing
them cry out in pain, clamping my hands over my ears as a doctor was breaking
the bad news to a guy in the next bed that his illness was terminal, watching
people struggle with the reality of having to face the rest of their lives with
a bag stuck to their side. But one guy
in particular, called John really got to me; early twenties, he was a handsome
kid, though terribly thin because he had had the whole of his large intestine
removed and was in constant pain. Every
day his beautiful young wife whom he had just married would come and sit by
him, stroking his forehead as he slipped into a welcome torpor as the morphine
hit him - and believe me after a few hours of that kind of pain you long for
that morphine shot. He had been in
hospital for a month, and things kept going wrong for him; constant emergencies
where he would be rushed back into surgery and they would cut away yet another
piece of his stomach. He had a stoma,
which he would have to cope with for the rest of his life, and many other
complications that I won't go into; needless to say he was suffering a great
deal. I got to know him quite well, and
we'd talk about stuff, football mostly; especially as we were both West Brom
supporters, and one day after spending hour after hour vomiting up green bile,
struggling to breath through his pain, he declared - "I just want a chink
of light; just want to know that things'll get better than this one day... just
a chink of light." That stuck with
me and always will, because it sort of summed up what we were all looking for
in that hospital ward - a chink of light to signify we were on the mend and
might one day recover and get back to our loved ones. When I did eventually come home, frail and
wasted and weighing less that eight stone, I sat on the sofa with Sarah and
Lucy, not quite believing I was back, feeling somewhat disorientated and
shell-shocked, and Lucy asked me what it had been like, and so I began to
relate various stories about my treatment and of the other patients in there,
and then I told her about John and how badly he was suffering and suddenly and
for the first time since my diagnosis I found myself weeping inconsolably,
sobbing and choking just remembering the poor guy and how fate had torn his
life to shreds. I find it strange that
when some people learn that you have had bowel cancer one of the first
questions they ask is "have you got a bag?" What's that about? Why do they want to know? What business is it of theirs anyway? It so happens that I escaped that particular
trauma, but I now know people who do have to cope with it, and I think they're
really brave, and I know that most of them would prefer to keep that piece of
information to themselves, because why would you want to discuss something so
personal with anyone other than your family?
I have always felt uncomfortable when someone jokes about disability,
and the colostomy bag has always been a target for a cheap laugh - well you
never know one day you or someone close to you might just find themselves
having to carry one around stuck to their abdomen, then I think the reality of
having to live with 'a bag' may just make those jokes feel rather unpleasant
and tasteless.
And now I find myself crying for
a person I don't even know - a young girl for whom a chance event has left her
forever dependent on medical help; her stomach has gone and I don't need to
point out what that would mean to a young woman just beginning her journey into
adulthood; the implications are just too horrible to contemplate, but the poor
soul will have to learn to live life in a very different way from here on. God damn any fool who would take smallest
risk with such a young life by selling them something so inherently risky as a
drink that is made using liquid nitrogen!
The alcohol industry sees our young people as potential consumers, and
something like this is the consequence of their cavalier attitude when trying
to reel them in. I hope that she finds
her chink of light eventually, but my God the poor girl has got a momentous
task in front of her.
