“TAKE SOME Buscopan and if the problem persists get back to me.” I didn’t think much more of a persistent pain after a quick visit to a doctor.
A day or two passed and the pain became unbearable and my beautiful mother brought me to Waterford Regional Emergency Department. After a few other people were stitched up and seen to before me, I was eventually examined by a doctor.
The nurse asked me for a stool sample. I duly obliged and excreted a pint of blood into a container. That’s when the severity of my illness hit me and my embarassment about the condition went out the window. Delirious and delusional, the morphine was delightful. I slipped in and out of consciousness. The embarassment returned when a stunning nurse gave me a stool chart and asked me to document my bowel movements. I have never been a bashful person, but documenting the texture and colour of my stool for all the pretty nurses brought about one or two blushes. I let it all hang out, as they say.
I wear my heart on my sleeve and I like to think I’m a mentally tough person. My mother and girlfriend are worriers, I am a realist. What will be will be! Three days in Waterford Regional and my condition was deteriorating, so they moved me back to Clonmel, which, I hadn’t known, had a gastroenterology unit. I was going home. Timmy Ryan always falls flat on his feet!
As I lay in the stroke unit (yes, a stroke unit! I gave up my private room because there was a lady worse off than me who needed the room more) the reality really hit me and the positivity, in slow motion, was sucked out of me. “We really have to sort this, Tim” said the surgeon. “The bowel may have to come out.”
My first thought was carrying a bag of shite around with me for the rest of my life. It was one in the morning when he gave me this news. He was just out of surgery and wasn’t able to come and see me during the day.
The loneliness in that hospital when the lights went out…
I was pumped up with more steroids than Armstrong so, naturally, I couldn’t sleep. This gave me plenty of time to think and cry. The loneliness in that hospital when the lights went out is ingrained in my mind. The lowest ebb of my life. I was a previously fit and healthy twentysomething who had just developed the worse case of ulcerative colitis the doctor had ever seen.
Sores and ulcers ran for five metres through my colon. It hurt. Everything hurt. Physically and mentally. The morphine, however, was delightful. I had been in hospital for three weeks at this stage and had endured a week of “When are they going to let me out of here?” “Are they ever going to let me go home?” from the gentleman in the bed next to me, who thought it relevant to ask every nurse, doctor and cleaner the same question over and over – “When are they ever going to let me home?”
I cracked, “Listen, I’ve been here three weeks and I haven’t asked that question once. Think about others and shut up complaining you’ve a clot in your leg you’re going to be grand. Dolores over there has a blood disease and doesnt have a clue what’s wrong with her, Niall has cancer and I was told last night they might have to cut my fucking colon out. Shut up moaning! Just shut up.”
I felt a bit embarrassed about my Victor Meldrew meltdown
I’m a teacher and like to lead by example, therefore I rarely tell people to shut up as there are more effective ways of getting someone to quieten down. I felt a bit embarassed about my Victor Meldrew meltdown and had never been so disrespectful to an elder since secondary school. I apologised to Maurice for lambasting him but was secretly content and happy I did it as I didn’t hear him utter those famous words again.
I preached my philosophy to everyone on how to do time in hospital. I had learned it from Avon Barksdale, a character from the TV series The Wire. He was doing a stretch in prison: “You’re only in here two days – the day you get in and the day you get out.”
The doctor put me on a new wonderdrug called Infliximab. You wouldnt want to be a vegetarian receiving vials of this drug as it was made from mice protein. Thirteen kilos lighter in the space of a few weeks, the drug was kicking in and I was eventually able to write ‘soft and brown’ on my stool chart instead of the usual, ‘bloody liquid’.
My new best friend, Tommy, and our interest in trout, hurling and horses
The positivity came back and I went for my usual stroll around the hospital grounds with my new best friend Tommy, from Borrisoleigh. Tommy is around 80 and the two of us had some similar interests – trout, hurling and horses. Cheltenham was just kicking off and we spent the morning picking horses. I had been in the ward for two weeks at that stage and Cheltenham offered me respite from the extreme boredom.
A skeleton of my former self, I slowly developed an appetite and start putting on weight again. I had lost every shred of muscle and had a fat head from all the drugs I was being prescribed. I was so happy. I made it out of that hospital with all my organs intact, thanks to the wonderful (short-staffed) medical team there. I am truly indebted to the wonderful medics who helped cure a horrible disease I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
I saw everything in a new light
Everything I had ever taken for granted in life, I saw in a new light. Simple things like the beautiful countryside, my family’s loyalty, my beautiful girlfriend. My family had rallied around me while I was in hospital. I was never short of company. Looking back on it now, I realise they all took it in shifts at my bedside. We talked when we wanted to talk and sat in blissful silence when we didn’t want to talk. Just having a familiar body plonked on the chair beside me was my saviour and, as I said earlier, when the lights went out in the hospital it became a totally different place.
Not being open about my health nearly cost me my colon. So to everyone, especially males – who are the biggest group known to neglect their health – grow a pair and don’t ever find yourself in that lonely place when the lights go out in the hospital. Be it mental health or your physical wellbeing. Tabhair aire.
Tim Ryan is from Clonmel, Co Tipperary. He’s a dog-loving, music-playing, nature-loving Irish and Spanish teacher. He currently lives in Toronto.
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