I was in the operating theatre.
I was on the table, talking to the anaesthetist.
I was starting to panic; the anaesthetic was not working.
Next thing, it was lights out.
August 2001 began auspiciously personal life-wise, if miserably career-wise. I was a senior lecturer and researcher at the University of Edinburgh. The faculty had appointed a new head of my department and it transpired he didn’t like my research and was determined to get rid of me. I was done complaining, and now I was applying for other posts. On the plus side, I was in love for the first time in eight years and I felt that Nicki and I had a future. We had already backpacked to the furthest corners of the world and our relationship had survived and thrived. Also, I had developed a great relationship with my eight-year-old son. I was fit, hillwalking and cycling.
One Sunday night, I had just finished a pint glass of beer in my flat, overlooking Holyrood Park, when I felt what seemed to be a burp. Next, I tasted a metallic tang; fortunately, I had the empty glass at hand and almost filled it — with bright red blood.
Soon an ambulance took me to the Royal Infirmary. The bleeding had stopped, but they wanted to keep me in. I agreed to an appointment being made for a bronchoscopy, but still in denial, I told the medics I was off, and walked home. Two days later visiting Nicki in Dundee, I just made it to the toilet and vomited blood again. Next morning, I took the train to Edinburgh with a plastic bucket under my table.
I was given the bronchoscopy and a scan within the week, and spoke with a respiratory consultant over the phone. The news was not good. I had either TB or lung cancer. I taught a course which featured the pathology of TB and I knew my symptoms were not consistent with that. Moreover, four years earlier, I had witnessed the slow and painful death of a favourite uncle from lung cancer. Suddenly despair had gathered. All I had worked for, and possibly my life, was slipping away. I was simultaneously depressed and furious. The anger helped take me through; anger is part of hope; it motivates you for action. I held all this back from my son on our outings.
Then I met the surgeon. He proposed another possibility, but they would not know for sure till they opened my chest. I might have an aortic sequestration, a bulge in my main artery in the lung, which if it burst could collapse my lungs. The only way to cure it was to remove the lower lobe of my left lung and the damaged artery section. As a researcher, I knew the grim survival stats for lung cancer and this news was indeed, something to be optimistic about.
On Sunday the 9th of September, I attended the Royal Infirmary for a pre-op assessment. That evening, after a meal out with Nicki, the bleeding started again, the worst ever. I ended up in the high dependency unit, where no other patients were conscious and only kept alive by the creaking and sighing machines. I was very scared. I called the nurse, an Australian, to whom I confessed my fear. She said, ‘Don’t worry, you are in the best place to be ill.’ That simple message renewed my hope of survival and let me sleep.
My op was scheduled for the Tuesday. I got to know a few people in my new ward, the guy in the next bed was an eternal optimist. Despite his lung-cancer diagnosis, he knew he would come through it and went outside to smoke! In between cigarette breaks, he noticed my despondency and gave me much-needed encouragement. Another gent who had already lost a lung to cancer, bolstered me with his optimism. If he could get through, so could I. In what shape that might be, I could only hope for the best.
I had the procedure the next morning. When I woke, I was freezing despite the blanket, and for some reason, could not stop swearing, despite contrition and was putting swear words between the syllables of my apologies.
Nicki and her mother came to visit in the afternoon. I was still on oxygen and groggy. I thought that I had dreamt what they told me about a jet plane attack on New York, but I noticed the shock on the nurses’ faces as they watched TV monitors. It had not been a dream but a real nightmare.
After a couple of days in the recovery ward, the lab confirmed it was not cancer. I was delighted, but in great pain when the drugs wore off and so weak, I could not walk. I had stitches from my shoulder to my waist, but I was still in the game.
My recovery took three months of only being able to sleep supported in an armchair and being worn out by mid-afternoon. But I was in the clear, how much function I regained was up to me. I learned that overdoing it left me so breathless, that I felt I would black out. I learned to overcome occasional negativity by constancy and baby steps. I hoped to be able to climb mountains again.
After six months, my lung function was as good as normal. After eight months, Nicki and I climbed Ben Nevis. On such a clear day, as it was, I felt the world at my feet, no matter how crazy it had become. The illness taught me life was not a dress rehearsal – carpe diem. I looked to what was really important: family and happiness. I left the job, made a new career working for myself and vowed to “travel hopefully”. We bought a house in Dundee and I’ve never looked back.
* "To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive." RL Stevenson.