valorous idylls chapter 20

Strange Harmonies.

Morning light.
A new patient is in the bed across the room from me.
She calls a greeting.
She heard me during the night praying for a guy called Christopher and thought I was praying to Saint Christopher.
The travelling community hold Saint Christopher as their own.
She talks to me.
She says she is from a family whose members are involved in crime, and that she herself has been addicted to drugs and doesn't think she'll ever beat the addiction.
I say: "When I was coming off drugs, it was given me to understand that there are two types of pain. There's bad pain like when someone shoots you or stabs you and your body is saying: Uh oh, trouble here. And there's good pain. Like when you're coming off drugs. Every day I knew, that the pain of withdrawal was my body telling me: 'You're getting better." Every cell in my body was crying out. But I knew that was a good sign. This is the good kind of pain. Every pain you feel coming off drugs is saying: 'We're getting closer and closer to freedom.' 'We're winning this.' 'Everything is restoring, mind, body and spirit.' That pain is your very being saying: 'God made me to get better and I'm getting better.' This pain is your body giving you a thumbs up. It's a sign of ultimate triumph. The good kind of pain from drug withdrawal is telling you every step of the way: 'You did the right thing. You're getting better and better and better.'  That's what the good pain means. The good pain means you're healing. The good pain comes and you don't need to fear it. Jesus is perfect love and perfect love casts out fear. Know it. Drugs have no authority over you. You were made for victory."

valorous idylls chapter 19

Who You've Got To Know On The Night Shift

The mighty hospital has fallen silent.
Here we go.
Through the night.
Mind won't settle with a formal prayer now.
Instead I'm saying the names of saints.
Each Saint is a gift of God.
So I say the name of a saint, let what I know about him come to me, and praise God for the gift the saint is.
The names of the saints become a litany of praise to the creator and a celebration of existence.
Saint Joseph the worker.
Saint Claire who loved holy poverty a lot more than I do.
Saint Francis of Assisi, crazy about animals, people and all created things.
Saint Anthony with his candle burning bright tonight in Rowena Baines house.
I can see the candle.
Saint Joseph of Copertino who helps you get exams.
Saint Agnes.
Father Jerzy Popieluszko.
Bernadette.
Father Ragheed Aziz Ghani.
Father Francois Mourad.
Archbishop Boulos.
Martyrs of China.
Martyrs of Iraq.
Martyrs of Syria.
Martyrs of Russia.
Martyrs of Africa.
Martyrs of Europe.
Martyrs of the Americas.
Joan of Ark, wow, saint who by God's grace ended a hundred years war and incarnated France.
Saint Jean Vianney, the hilariously titled Cure d'Ars.
Catherine Laboure.
Therese of Lisieux who sent me buckets of flowers but no miracles. If you get a flower from her, it's supposed to mean she will obtain a miracle from God for you. It doesn't always mean that. Sometimes she's just sending you flowers.
Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta the seers of Fatima.
Maximilian Kolbe.
Pastor Richard Wurmbrand.
Sabine Wurmbrand.
Preacher David Wilkerson who wrote The Cross And The Switchblade about his time witnessing about the Lord to the gangs of New York.
Gwen Wilkerson.
Juan Diego.
Bernadino.
Kateri.
Hugo Festa.
Mother Teresa, best nun uniform ever and best nuns.
John Paul, a cracking good pope.
Isadore Bakanja.
Josephine Bakhita.
Thomas Aquineas.
Ignatius Loyola.
Francis Xavier.
Francis Xavier Zeelos.
Solanus Casey.
Mother Angelica.
Sister Valsa John Beebey.
Frere Andre Bassette.
Saint Cyril.
Saint Methodius.
Miriam Bourdy.
Charbel Makhlouf.
Gemma Galgani whom a supposedly possessed person claimed the demons feared.
Catherine of Genoa.
Catherine of Sienna.
I love the name Catherine.
Any saint called Catherine I want to know.
The Irish bunch.
Matthew Talbot.
Oliver Plunkett.
Saint Patrick.
Saint Brigid.
Saint Colmcille.
Saint Aidan.
Augustine who wrote of God: "I came to love you late, oh beauty so ancient and so new... Our souls are restless till they rest in you."
Benedict.
Dominic.
Saints from Biblical times.
Mary Magdalene.
Saint Peter.
Saint Paul.
Thomas Didymus.
Philip.
Saint John the Baptist.
John the Evangelist.
Saint Stephen whose face glowed and who forgave his killers.
Old Testament dudes.
Abraham.
Moses.
Elijah.
David.
Isaac.
Jacob.
The great cloud of witnesses.
Edith Stein.
Alphonsus Ratisbonne.
John of the Cross.
John Damascene.
John Chrysostom.
Saint Jerome.
Thomas Moore, the man for all seasons, executed by Henry the Eighth, courage, great sense of humour, featured in a great play incredibly written by the self described atheist Robert Bolt, and the film version by the same atheist was even better.
Angels.
Archangel Raphael bring us the Lord's healing.
Archangel Michael bring us the Lord's protection.
Archangel Gabriel bring us the Lord's light.
The blessed mother under her titles of honour.
Star of the Sea.
Ark of the Covenant.
Tower of Ivory.
Vessel of Singular Devotion.
Our Lady of the snows.
Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Our Lady of Pontmain.
Our Lady of Beauraing.
Our Lady of Banneux.
Our Lady of Lourdes.
Our Lady of Fatima.
A nurse enters and thinks to waken me but I am awake.
"Have you slept?" she asks.
"No," I say, but I'm very peaceful."
Something seems to strike her.
She casts a curious glance around the ward.
"Hmm, it is very peaceful here," she says and goes.
I dreamed a few years ago that I was in hospital and people were coming to see me but they were all people who had left the mortal life.
The dream now came true.
The ward filled with saints and people I had once known.
My brother John and the businessman Pat Dunlea were there.
I addressed God as to what was happening.
"Lord," I said, "I'd love to actually see them. Feeling they're here is great. But it would make a really great story if I could see them. I wouldn't be a bit shy about telling people."
In my heart I heard: "When you see them James, you're coming home."

valorous idylls chapter 18

You Don't Know How Lucky You Are, Back In The, Back In The, Back In The Tallaght Hospital Franks Ward

Upstairs again.
Evening has settled over Dublin.
The night staff are starting their shift.
"Would you like something to eat?" asks a golden haired nurse.
"I would," sez I.
"What would you like?" sez she.
"Two pork chops, some rashers and eggs, a plate of chips and a caffe latte." sez I.
"I'm thinking something more in the line of tea and toast," says the nurse.
"That will be fine," sez me.
My mobile phone rings.
It is Rowena Baines a neighbour.
"I got your message telling us to be careful about slipping on the avenue," she exclaimed. "But I didn't realise it was serious. You never let on. How could you do that?"
"That's called acting," I told her.
"How did you fall exactly?"
"I fell. People fall all the time."
"Was it..."
"No. It wasn't them."
"I've lit a candle to Saint Anthony for you," she said. "It will be burning all night here in the house."
She rang off.
I was pleased about this.
Among those believed by Catholics to be saints in heaven, Saint Anthony is in the most positive sense of an old fashioned phrase, a dude, right up there with earthly dudes such as Calum Swift, Doctor Danilo and Maloney's surgical team.
If you lose something ask him to intercede with God for you.
Go on.
Try it.
Another radiant nurse drifts into my ambit and plumps my pillow.
Plumping your pillow is a Tallaght hospital euphemism for plumping your pillow.
Sigh.
"Did anything happen during the operation?" I ask her.
"It all went well?" she assures me.
"Why am I still on oxygen?" I ask.
"Oh your oxygen levels fell suddenly, that's all," she says.
"Would falling oxygen levels be dangerous?" I enquire fascinated.
"The doctors will talk to you tomorrow," she says firmly.
"It's just, Nurse, I'd hate to nearly die and not know," I plead.
"Stop thinking about it," advises the nurse.
"I mean I wouldn't be upset but it would make a great story if I knew," I persist.
She looks at me with the firstlings of fondness.
"Don't worry about those things," she proffers and then as she's walking to the door she calls back: "Oh, We're going to keep you on oxygen through the night. So there's nothing to worry about there either."

valorous idylls chapter 17

I Owe Woody Allen Ten Thousand Dollars (And Bob Hope A Separate Ten Thousand Dollars For Stealing His I Owe Joke)

Hours drifting by waiting for the operation.
Can't pray full prayers now.
Now praying the rosary using shortened versions.
Like this.
"Our Father who art in heaven."
And that's the whole prayer.
Then.
"Hail Mary full of grace."
And that's the full Hail Mary.
I remember an account I read of Major Julian Cooke leading the crossing of the Waal river during the attempted Allied liberation of the Netherlands in 1944.
It was a hellish scenario.
Rowing across a wide river with no smokescreen cover with German guns zeroing in on them from the opposite bank.
Julian Cooke recalled that he prayed the Hail Mary all the way across the river under withering machine gun fire.
He had prayed the shortened version: "Hail Mary full of grace," over and over again.
I look up.
Some doctors are standing by my bed.
New dudes.
Not dudes I've seen before.
These two are also like Doctors Calum Swift and Danilo, cool as a breeze.
Only more so.
In fact, they're Charlie Choiseul cool.
Charlie Choiseul being an actor who appeared in my production of Woody Allen's Death a quarter century ago and who remained unperturbed even if the world around him seemed to be ending, as it usually did in my productions.
I still owe Woody Allen ten grand in performance rights for that one.
But isn't it extraordinary!
Everyone in this hospital is either cool as a breeze or extremely good looking.
I hope they're as capable in the practice of medicine as they are at style and deportment.
The ghost of Steve Tyler is standing on the far side of my bed.
He sings informatively: "Nah nah hah, Dude looks like a doctor. Nah nah hah, dude looks like a doctor."
He isn't helping.
The new dudes introduce themselves as Doctor Maloney's team.
They say it with an air of barely suppressed triumph like the character Colonel Hannibal Smith in a television series from my youth announcing to vanquished baddies: "We 're the A Team."
They have faint whimsical smiles.
They are quietly confident.
I like this confidence schtick.
Although given my druthers, I wouldn't necessarily have chosen BA and Murdock to do my operation.
Then they're gone.
More hours.
Now the bed is being wheeled down to the operating theatre.
I'm in a pre op holding area.
Large doors at the end.
We'll be going through those doors eventually.
That's where they'll operate.
A Pakistani girl says a few words about oxygen.
This girl's name is Jamie.
A shortened form of the Arabic Jameela which means beautiful.
I approve of the fact that staff at this hospital introduce themselves by name.
I smile at the coincidence of our names.
A guy joins her and introduces himself as Khaled.
He says: "So. We're operating on the right arm. Ha, ha, ha. Only joking. The left one, right? Ha, ha, ha."
Khaled recommends that I opt to have a further pain killing injection, something he calls a blocker.
He adds provisos as he is procedurally required to do, about how it could kill me.
"There are things that could go wrong," he points out cheerfully. "There's a small chance of killing you if we pierce the lung. But we recommend you have this."
Ho hum.
I agree to the blocker.
The girl explains what she's doing as she affixes an oxygen mask and gives me oxygen.
I look at the large door at the end of the room.
I think: Now we'll get a look at this Maloney.
I'm expecting an austere, tall, balding, portly figure with authority in his eyes and a stern face.
An heroic living legend type on whose broad shoulders the great momentous responsibilities of this hospital fall.
Yes, now at last we'll see this Maloney.
I am quite curious.
The girl says: "I'm going to give you some different oxygen."
I start to blink.
I'm still thinking: Now we'll see this Maloney.
My eyes blink and open.
I am in a different room.
There are six anaesthetists in gauze masks and green gowns around me.
Khaled is shaking me vigorously.
"Mr Healy, Mr Healy," he says. "Can you move your fingers? Can you move your fingers?"
The scene is a bit like in the movie Airplane where half the passengers are lining up to calm down an hysteric woman, and they're taking turns to shake her, and the shaking is getting progressively rougher, and there's guys in the queue with baseball bats and knuckle dusters waiting their turn.
There's an obstruction to my breathing but I can breathe.
"Can you move your fingers?" urges Khaled again.
I look at my arm.
It's encased in red plaster.
The fingers are visible.
Three of them move a bit when I try to move them.
"Look at that," I say to Khaled. "Not everybody can do that. Look. That's really good. Look. See that. Look. There you go. That's how you move fingers."
Khaled sighed.
He sounded relieved.
The clock on the wall behind him says 6.30.
"What happened?" I ask.
"Nothing," says Khaled. "Who said anything happened?"
"Well five hours have passed since you brought me in," I said. "What's been going on?"
Khaled muttered to one of the other anaesthetists: "Keep him on that mixture. It will break down the mucous."
He walked away quickly.
Five hours.
I had experienced it as the blink of an eye.
The blink of an eye.
Long enough for the surgeons to do the operation and for the anaesthetists to nearly kill me.

valorous idylls chapter 16

Come Back Corporal Jones All Is Forgiven

Saint Brigid's Day.
A feast I've never remembered in my life.
I'll remember it from now on because today they're operating on me.
Saint Brigid is one of those spectacular Irish saints from 1500 years ago who can seem a bit mythic.
That is to say some of us aren't too sure whether she existed or not.
Fembos in Ireland often try to hijack her as some sort of goddess in a divide and conquer manoeuvre against the ancient church.
There's a Saint Brigid of Sweden too who is more recent in the historical sense and whose life has more credible attestation.
Still today I'll call on the intercession of the Irish girl.
A nurse with the name tag Ruth Ibeabuchi arrives at my bedside and attaches a monitor to my functional arm.
She frowns as the machine beeps.
"James," Nurse Ruth Ibeabuchi shouts suddenly. Calm down. Calm down James. James calm down."
The affect is quite quaint.
I'm sitting quietly in the bed.
Ruth Ibeabuchi is still shouting "calm down."
The sponge bath guy approaches and addresses me congenially.
"So James, what do you for a living?"
The machine goes: "Beep, beeep, beeeeeep."
I think this is hilarious.
Someone trying to relax me by asking me what I do for a living.
Ruth Ibeabuchi rounds on the other staff member.
"You go way Paul," she cries. "You go over there. You go over there. Do your work."
Now this is rum.
But the man does not retreat.
He says again quite gently: "Are you okay there James?"
Ruth Ibeabuchi lets another cry: "Go away Paul. Go to your work."
I say: "It's alright. I am okay. And thank you."
He goes.
For all the world it is as though he had been trying to protect me.
But from what?

valorous idylls chapter 15

A Man's Life What Is It

The rosary through the night again.
Sleeping a bit.
Not able to dwell on the prayers as before.
In the morning a young man with a classic Dublin accent does the rounds giving sponge baths to the patients.
His name is Paul.
Some he brings to the bathroom.
Most of them he manages to clean in their beds.
He is patient and kind, discreet and careful.
He speaks reassuring well chosen words, takes an interest in the person, lets the interaction take whatever time it takes.
He never forgets each patient is a person.
Each person has his full attention, before he quietly and efficiently takes his leave and moves on to the next one.
I address the creator of the universe briefly: "Lord that man does more good in a morning's work than I have done in my whole life."

valorous idylls chapter 14

Franks And Beans

Sharing a room with several other patients at the Short Stay Trauma Unit in the Franks Ward.
There's a Granny I'm not too fond of as she glares and mutters remarks when I recurrently use the shared toilet.
I've already discreetly asked a nurse could I use a more remote toilet out in the corridor.
The nurse laughed and said: "Ah they'll just have to get used to you. We're all in the same boat."
Which cryptic remark intrigued me greatly.
The way she said it suggested to me the Eagles song: "We are all prisoners here of our own device."
I return to bed smiling.
There's a young mother who slipped on the mountains while playing with her infant child.
She's a teacher and speaks with a trendy city accent.
There's something very appealing about her aside from the accent.
It is a quality germaine to herself and to her personhood.
I've no idea what it is but I know I like it.
I'm thinking her husband is a lucky man.
Anyone married to this lady has won the lottery of life.
Between the jigs and the reels she tells me she hasn't slept for sixteen days.
The doctors have given her pain killers but she still seems to have a lot of pain.
I'm wondering could she really have been awake for sixteen days. Is that possible? Maybe on the medication.
Across from me, there's a family man who fell down the stairs at his house.
His teenage children cluster round the bed and clearly adore him.
The doctors have reassembled his leg with a metal frame around it.
Steel fixing rods seem to lead through his skin into the bone.
He says he has no pain in his leg, that they've controlled that, but that the pain in his chest is excruciating.
There's another guy with some sort of a handicap who is the soul of the place and who is also surrounded by a family of love.
There's a woman who's got an arm injury like mine which she incurred like the earlier mentioned guy by falling down the stairs at home.
None of them can believe that a day ago they were walking around hale and hearty.
They're all blaming themselves for their woes.
I'm sitting here quietly, shaking my head and saying softly to myself: "It's not your fault lads. You didn't ask for this. You are not to blame."