First published January 8th, 2017

Precisely, I did not die between entering the Operating Theatre and publishing this article. What happened after I published it and before you, dear Reader, read it, is another matter altogether. Not dying is a great concept which I totally embrace. It’s much less final and carries with it many more possibilities. It’s not good to contemplate trading the alternative. The alternative offers options and choices, the trade offers oblivion. I’ve been very involved with bodily mending since my last blog. That one, C3, detailed my understanding of the preparation, “The explanation includes lying prone for the six to eight hours before I wake up ... Providing the waking up part is included I don’t see that as a problem.” Waking up was the preferred choice but it wasn’t a guaranteed one. 

The anesthesiologist asks a zillion questions, each of which has been asked before, and which culminate in you being asked to sign a document alleviating the hospital of any responsibility should you not wake up or if you should wake up on a ventilator. These things used to be called iron lungs; they basically mean you are a vegetable. It’s very difficult for relatives to get their head around the concept of iron lungs even when the explanation is done sympathetically. 

One of my surgeons went through the procedural plan with Martini, concluding with “If we cut this vein, it will cause bleeding into the brain which may paralyze him.” To which possibility she asked, “For how long?” Once she had fully understood the catastrophic possibilities, she gently put him at his ease with, “Well, I don’t think you will cut into that vein - do you?” 

I was wheeled downstairs to the Theatre before the anesthetic. My vital signs were monitored with a machine which sat, facing me, by my legs. 74-69-72-66-64; my heart rate bounced its merry way towards New Year’s Eve but, at one point, it read 49. “Yes!” I fist-pumped the air. Forty-nine and we rounded the corner towards the Theatre doors. No stress there then. Forty-nine beats per minute. Proud owner of a low heart rate. The doors opened and in we wheeled. “WOW!” The word escaped, unthinkingly and audibly. WOW! Indeed. The place was like a vast, blue palace. Jor El’s Fortress of Solitude made crystal on this seminal day. My hands instinctively patted my thighs searching for a phone and I started to ask if someone would take a selfie. How utterly stupid is that? Seriously - how utterly stupid? I regained sensibility and just marveled. The shining palace made the cockpit of a 787 Dreamliner look like a cornflakes box. Then ‘they’ started talking, explaining what was going to happen but I was only half-listening; I was more interested in drinking in the cerulean vision in front of me; drinking in the mind-boggling wondrousness that was to be my ‘home’ for the next few hours. Then ‘they’ stuck a mask on me, and I was gone...

Unfortunately, I can’t describe anything about the next eight hours of total unconsciousness. I would have loved to have watched the operation on a TV screen placed underneath the table, but they didn’t offer me that option. The next thing was waking up. Well, groggily coming ‘round and slowly trying to instruct Martini on a Facebook post. “Dictated by Clive; typed by Martini. Everything went well. Updates later.”

She tells me it took me four, agonizingly slow attempts to get the sentences out, and in the correct order. I think it said everything it was meant to say. It was my words, not a message designed to keep everyone at bay. It told them I had not died which was the most important message that I am sure they wanted. It told them there were no complications and it told them I would fill in the blanks when I really woke up. 

If I’d woken up with paralyzed legs, I don’t think that would have bothered me much. Arms and legs would have been a problem but those weren’t options that were on the table, were they? Not with damage at C1. I think the choices came down to Yes or No. Yes, functioning and operational capabilities; or No, cessation of neural activity a.k.a. death.

I am appreciative of the local people who went to their Temple and prayed, who said their own versions of prayers and asked for my ‘deliverance’ and survival, but it’s illogical, isn’t it? 

Why would a god, or even God, favour me over a small child in Aleppo? What makes me more valuable to the Universe? I know I’m not. We are all equally valuable, so why prioritize? Why assume that simply praying - which is internal dialogue with an imaginary friend - will change the Universal Laws governing the forces of nature? It won’t. Why should it? The laws of nature are about as fixed as it’s possible to be fixed.

More fixed than my fixated neck. Nature - and the laws governing it - will decide the outcome of any sequence of events. The sequence may be so complex and convoluted that we have no chance of tracking it or of making any insightful interventions in many instances, but the basic laws of nature will prevail. Always. No amount of internal dialogue with imaginary friends will alter the outcome. 

Surgical interventions may alter the outcome. Drug routines may alter the outcome. Positive as opposed to negative mindset may alter the outcome but they simply raise, lower or stabilize the hypotonic or raise, lower or stabilize the hypertonic energy vibrations of the metabolic activity at the specific site of the injury. God has nothing to do with it. 

Again - why me, as opposed to a child in Aleppo? Seriously, why me? Why would a God choose? And how would a God choose? Answer me that. Why allow a child to die of brain cancer and allow me to survive a fractured neck? Why? It doesn’t make any sense. So, pray away if you feel better by doing it but please realize that it is you feelingbetter that is the outcome, not me getting better. 

Having said all that, nature must be working its magic in some way or other. No serious pain from the surgery site. I’m not supposed to move my head, and I have to wear the neck brace when I’m standing or sitting. Bracelessly lying down is Ok, so sleeping takes place brace-free. It’s a chore having to remember that, and I sometimes wander round with no brace until I remember, but the biggest problem is people asking questions. Because I’m not drinking or eating copious amounts, my mouth is very dry and talking is a chore. Answers to questions, therefore, are easiest done by head nodding or shaking and they are both No-Noes.

I took a break there - two days almost. 

I said, ‘no serious pain’, right? Bollocks - very painful indeed. Top right of the surgery site, I guess where the rods are bolted to the lower part of my skull. Slightest movement and the muscles go into spasm. 

Tablets didn’t help till I found my T3; they do have some effect. Sleep was the problem - I couldn’t find a comfortable position so I ended up sleeping from around 3pm till 6pm, waking up not knowing if it was evening or morning; sleeping again from 8pm till 11pm, then from midnight to 3pm and so on through to real morning. 

Just slept from 9pm through to 11pm. Two hours is not a good stretch. Lots of ‘what if’ questions pop into mind: What if the grafts have shifted? What if the screws have moved and levered the rods out of place? What if the screws are touching something they shouldn’t? And so on, and so on. 

Periodically, and regularly, there are small, gentle clicks as various bits adjust, readjust, or shift their orientation. I’ve become even more sensitive to them than in the past and they are worrying. 

Remember the whole thing went from 1 (‘uncomfortable’) to 9.99999 (‘What the Hell was that?!’) in one fell swoop of a crack. What if the clicks are subtle accumulations of weakening bone relentlessly moving towards another bony catastrophe? 

The pain has a cumulatively depressing effect. Not the pain per se, but the fact that it’s there. That it is constantly there. Pain is endurable but the cause of the pain is the worry. Crying seems a suitable answer. 

Fucking up all the great work done by the surgeons would be an appalling step to take. It’s Sunday night. My appointment is scheduled for Tuesday. Is it bad enough to seek emergency consultation? Probably not, so I’ll soldier on.

Monday morning. 6.30am. A case of two hours good, four hours better. George Orwell would have been pleased. Different pain too. Now it feels as if someone has driven metal rods into my skull. Oh, fuck.