Monday 24 January 2011

The Tumultuous Occasion of Being Tube Free


The last chain shackling my limp body to the mechanical prison, which has been my bed for eight disturbing, disastrous and downright dreadful days has finally been broken. Every tube, be it a saline drip, catheter or even marvellous morphine has been discarded. I am a free woman, which is rather lucky as all the veins in my arms have been bludgeoned, strangled or stabbed, unfortunately resulting in their ultimate demise. William Wordsworth most adequately expresses my emotions surrounding the addition of each cannula, tube and machine that became a necessary attachment to my body,

Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,”

More tubes, more machines meant more complications, more time in the day when I was no longer living, just purely existing. Today, however, I truly believe I have turned the corner. I will be remaining in the realm of the living. I will have the energy to write ridiculously overdue, verbose responses to my friends. I will don day clothes (with the assistance of some exciting old-lady gadgets) and the nightdress ghost, neither alive nor dead, who has been my persona for the last week, will be consigned to the benthic depths of myself. I will, at long last, be able to look outside the window into the lives of friends, family and acquaintances, no longer solely absorbed in my own difficulties.

6 comments:

  1. I'm so glad! Congratulations, I hope your recovery is swift and complete :)

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  2. thats amazing soph, i hope more than anything that that corner stays turned and you keep on improving so that a spontaneous game of articulate is not too far off the cards!

    Joe
    xx

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  3. Very pleased for you...you explain your happiness so beautifully. Seeing out of the window into the world is something we all take for granted. I've had a bad day today but thinking about it now, I was just being stupid!
    All the best
    x

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  4. wonderful news Sophie, looking forward to seeing you really soon. Michelle x

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  5. Well done Sophie. One of my pupils, a Russian doctor to whom I related your story assured me that the success rate of your sort of operation is very high. I was reluctant to plant false hopes in you , or in me . It seems that you are well on the way to proving him right. How pleased he will be on Friday when I quote this blog.
    Keep it up and don't forget we have a date when I come to England in the summer.
    Incidentally, he wanted me to translate your blog into Hebrew, but I cowardly told him that in Israel, we don't have the language rich enough to match your beautiful range of words. Truth is, my Hebrew is not rich enough !
    love from Jack White

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  6. Sophie,
    "But He beholds the light, and whence it flows,
    He sees it in his joy;" - on reading your post I turned again to the whole Wordsworth poem - so beautiful. You are inspiring and I am glad to hear your recovery progress is so encouraging.
    Finally, I recomment Gerald Finzi's choral setting of "Intimations of Immortality" - it's bound to be on Spottify. I hope you like it.

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