One Life

19th October 2005 Awakening this morning, I felt very low, and am beginning to wonder if I am totally irresponsible in the light of all that is happening around me, am I running away, and just giving up on my responsibilities in life, just being a dreamer. My family and the reader has to decide whether I am good, bad, a waste of space or someone that has no real control over what must happen in their life. I heard a story last night. A researcher worked for one year, she interviewed everyone who had ever jumped off a cliff and survived, of course, with life flashing by as they soared into oblivion, they realised that their problems were trivial, and the only problem they had was jumping off that cliff! Last night I spent £5 on the Lottery, like millions of other people it could be the answer. The most I have ever won is the odd £10. Realistically speaking, someone will become a millionaire each week, you kind of know in the back of your head that it is not going to be you, but the chance must be taken, Lady Luck may shine on you and take you into a different world - keep on trying. 15.40 hrs, 19th October 2005 Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! At last the call I have been waiting for has arrived. The blood is pumping through my veins so fast I fear my heart will burst. Those lunar rays did shine down on me because I am over the moon. Time to tell you a little about me. My name is Alan. Hello. When my life started to crumble the last consideration was to write a book. As you will have concluded already, I am no literary genius, and not having any academic qualifications in the English language, the way I write is of a simpleton. My descriptive excellence is missing. “I wondered lonely as a cloud that floats on vales and dales and hills”. (see, got that wrong) I would have started with “sorry, walking through a load of daffodils, I smashed them all up with my great big boots”, not quite the same is it? The computer is something I have never got to grips with, so writing this makes it harder (especially for my wife who has to sort out my illegible scrawl and put this into print). Behind every great man there is an even greater woman, with major tolerance! Anyone can put pen to paper and as I am no different from anyone else, and like writing poetry that I feel comes from my soul, the inner me. The time has to be perfect to place those special thoughts down, so I will add the inner me to this book. DAY 4 Tuesday, 1 November 2005 I could not sleep at all last night. My mind was in the hospital on my work. So I am feeling a little rough this morning. A good start to the day though, we have managed to get hold of some `Oramorphine', an oral form of Morphine and some other strong pain relief. We are given a list each day by the Consultants of patients they want us to assess. So Firmeda and myself went around the unit to all the patients we were to see and dosed them up with analgesia. Step by step and little strokes, that is how we will overcome. So now we have already set a president that no patient is to be brought to our clinic unless we have seen them first and given pain relief. Patients are still being brought to us from other hospitals. Today we had to assess 10 new patients, it is not necessary to go into graphic detail regarding their wounds, and the smell of infection. Most of the patients needed to be referred to the plastic surgeons, but 3 of them had to be referred to orthopaedics for amputation. The rushed surgery they had received in the field hospitals had resulted in infected wounds so bad there was no hope of saving their limbs. I was hoping and praying inside that the consultant would say `no, we can save that limb' but he didn't and added those patients to the theatre list. I felt like an executor. Today, I debrided wounds under local anaesthetic, something that in the U.K. would be out of my job description, but I have seen it done on numerous occasions, so if I have to become a minors surgeon overnight, so be it. I am trying very hard to get my head around what is going on, and where I am. If each day is like this one, this will be a very hard month. The hours which I put in will not be the problem; it will be the images imprinted in my brain. I had a little cry tonight. I won't tell Eleanor. Night, night.