Some thoughts on my own personal experiences of being ill and in hospital.
Most people at some stage of their lives know what it's like to be in hospital, either as a patient or a visitor. Eleven years ago I became seriously ill after contracting a bacterial heart disease. I came within a heartbeat of death. The experience of months of being ill, weeks in hospital and major surgery had such an impact on me that I was inspired to work with other performers and artists to devise Waving not Drowning as a way of communicating some of what happened to me.Arriving at hospital by ambulance, weak, confused, vulnerable and scared, as doctors and nurses examine you, undress you, talk to you and about you, wash you, feed you and give you drugs to kill the pain, thin the blood, help you sleep, help you shit etc etc. As a result you cant separate what is real, unreal or surreal. You feel isolated, trapped and long to escape or hide. Sometimes with no idea of the time of day or even where you are.
While you are prepped for major surgery your thoughts drift in and out of a dreamlike state, frightened, alone and not knowing if you will survive. Then the long hours of surgery and the triumph and relief as you come round, realise that you are still alive (and it really hurts!) and begin the long process of recovery.
All this has fairly recently happened to me all again. A different journey within a Health Service that has and is changing rapidly but all the same elements were there. This new production NIL BY MOUTH will draw on those recent experiences to create a piece of dance theatre that will have you laughing, crying, gasping for more and asking questions about mortality, life, love and the state of health care and the healing process in the modern world!
The extracts below are from a daily diary I kept while in hospital for a month during March and most of April last year. It's taken me over a year to sit down and reread what I wrote while in the Freeman Hospital as I waited for decisions and actions to be taken that brought me, once again, to the operating theatre.
When Oran was designing this website I told him I'd have some extracts ready within a few weeks -how time just slides away!
These fragments are just that - small bits that point towards experiences, memories and a whole rich collection of people that I met during that strange month. Some of this (fate and funding willing) will find its way into the performance called Nil by Mouth that's waiting to be made.
Thanks to Jacqueline for the notebook and pen, to all of you who visited me and all those who were there as patients, surgeons, doctors, nurses, porters, cleaners, friends, relatives and a cast of machines that went beep, woosh and were just silent in the early hours of a cold dawn light through the ward window.
These notes are transcribed exactly as I wrote them with no changes. In some cases I've left the names blank - not simply a matter of protecting privacy but also something to do with a line between the personal & the public
Gordon Sharp. Artistic Director.
DAY 1
5 people in ward 9 when I arrive there bizarrely 3 are from Northumberland - one from Morpeth & one used to work down the Pegswood pit - thoughts about people's history - all sorts in hospital. Also being wheeled along a corridor backwards as doctors, nurses etc pass me by. Conversation in the ward about cars & gardens & the state of the world today - violence & education and how things were when they were younger. Cleaners on the ward cleaning all the bits of the TV & radio >> maybe having that as a focus >> registrar telling me that I should definitely be in here!!
Possible problem with my valve - narrowing could have similar symptoms. A boy whose grandad is on the ward & spends all day here as he's being bullied at school - wanders the wards & asks the patients about their illness & medication.
All the processes & procedures of examination, breath, ECG & a student trying to work out what's wrong with me >> Examination by doctors and consultants.
DAY 2
Waking at 5.30
Chi Kung in the Dayroom -
Sun and clouds in a winter sky with snow on the ground outside.
Muffled sounds of radio & TV from other patients headphones & sets. Nurses with the morning medication.
Arthur & George talking about the history of families in Morpeth & Pegswood. Down the pit. Also stories of the Winter of 47/The War/the roads and much more. George used to work down the Pegswood pit. Sunshine & snow.
Waiting
DAY 3
Doing Chi Kung in the day room. Grey sky clearing & a view out across the city clearing to reveal its landscapes. Guys talking last night about working & aluminium & coal mining. Yesterday they did the echo scan on me and lying watching her doing all that stuff and my heart pumping on the screen. 2 guys [Gorge & Joseph] who've been in for 3 weeks and not having anything done. The nurses call you by your first name & doctors by your surname. All the sounds - beeps & clatter of cups, sounds of taps etc. The class difference between most of the patients & surgeons/consultants.
A team of 5 nurses change the sheets, beds up and down, patients moving around.
Lots of laughter at visiting time.
Apprehension about angiogram. then waiting, then the long trolley journey with the nurse & the porter & all that goes on in the operating theatre - the wires, tubes, all the technology >> watching on the screen.
New patients on the ward when I come back from the angio - 3 of them & one a very talkative & angry Geordie but actually really sweet. I feel better than I've done for a while - maybe it was the heparin or something else they gave me >> learnt that its not the artery - the old pig skin* is finally wearing out - thank you to the pig & Mr. Holden* but now I have to wait.
Late night (round midnight) a young doctor talks to the man in the bed diagonally opposite me - light through the curtains, whispered conversations. His name is Tony Jackson.
* My aortic valve was replaced in February 1996 with a pigskin one after a bacteria (streptococcus salvius) had munched it's way through mine and nearly killed me.
*Mr Holden is the surgeon who did the operation in 1996 and saved my life.
