The medical maelstrom: facing fears

Irish Jesuit Brendan McManus SJ spent some time in hospital recently. The veteran pilgrim walker and author is no stranger to long hikes and climbing mountains. But as he explains below, his hospital venture saw him facing equally challenging circumstances where he had to dig deep, face his fears, and struggle hard to pray.

The Medical Maelstrom

“The catheter is going to have to go back in” – the worst words I ever wanted to hear. Next thing I’m laid out in my gown horizontal on the hospital bed while the doctor prepares the ‘instruments of torture’, several tubes and instruments that have to be stripped from their packaging, as I wait in dreaded anticipation for what’s coming. Add to that my own fear of needles/intervention and you have a crunch moment, where I had to dig deep and get the abdominal breathing going to try to get to that deeper place of calm.

The joys of elective surgery and the wonders of modern medicine where everything can be done with minimal ‘invasion’ on the body and where you can be up and about again in a few days. All the focus is on the ‘waterworks’ or ‘plumbing’, as they jokingly refer to it. Normally I wouldn’t be aware of it but suddenly it is everything, the focus of the day, the centre of pain and discomfort.

I was glad just to be able to walk again on day four and with a special urostomy bag discretely strapped to my leg, that the catheter feeds, I was mobile and encouraged to walk around the hospital. Not that there are many places to go once you’ve done the wards and corridors. I found that the hospital cafeteria was a nice place to hang out, even though I had to brave it out being the only patient in a bathrobe and compression stockings. Still, I felt human again to sip a coffee and just look out the window on the world, envying those busying by with their lives… Especially I used to get up to the top floor where I could see the Dublin mountains, their gorse covered loveliness was like a beacon of hope for me.

The greatest support was from the two patients beside me on the ward, it was a source of great comfort to have others to talk to who were going through the same experience, when they left two days before me I was bereft and didn’t have the same connection with my new neighbours. I would walk every chance got and often met other patients on the corridors or in the lifts, easily identifiable by their ‘war wounds’, the cannula strapped to their hand or arm, and that slow shuffling gait. But the sense of solidarity is enormous and the conversations were always real, honest and touching: “What are you in for?”, “How are you feeling?”. Joking aside, the staff were excellent, compassionate and caring and very supportive during those crunch moments.

Still, there is the unintentional indignity of it all, total strangers inspecting your bodily functions, access all areas; being woken up at night to have your vitals monitored, sleeping in an medical bed, having to eat on schedule and having very little privacy. I was given a personal disposable ’towel wash’ but insisted on getting up early to have a shower (quite a feat with the catheter/urostomy bag) shave and applying some deodorant/aftershave; I felt somewhat human again when it came to breakfast.

The real difficulty for me though was the difficulty or even inability to pray. One thing is the hospital environment: the noise, constant activity, interruptions and artificial light; but the other is that ‘inner noise’ of anaesthesia/medications, physical pain and general upset. It is so hard to get calm, to get ‘back to yourself’ and the lack of any normal rhythm doesn’t help either. I found the chaplain’s visit, a local priest, to be very healing and calming and receiving Holy Communion was an emotional moment, being deprived of my normal daily mass routine.

I had to dig deep into a reservoir of gratitude: grateful just to be alive, for the wonders of modern medicine that was so minimally intrusive, for the care of the nursing staff and compassionate understanding, the ability to move and walk (being able to take a shower even with the tubes and feel human again)….and the promise of getting better of course, the hope in the future.

There were some long days and some long nights, the flush of pain medication kicking in was always a relief (“will I become an addict?”) and a promise of dreamless sleep. One of the Gospels I read in my suspended state was that of doubting Thomas John 20:19-23. What struck me as never before was the sheer physicality of Jesus when he asks Thomas to put his fingers into the wounds. It’s extraordinary the concrete bodiliness of this meeting; proof that it really is Jesus resurrected (the wounds are witness to his experience) and the source of connection with Thomas the unbeliever, and the one thing that really changes his mind. He believes because he has experienced Jesus directly, physically, intimately really… That passage spoke volumes to me about the importance of the body, the reality of the resurrection and the importance of scars as a means of connection and healing; it’s a bit of a paradox really: God gets bloody and beaten up to prove his love for me in my own minor ‘doubting’ moment. As the prophet says, ‘By his wounds we are healed (Isaiah 53:5)’, I am intimately connected to Jesus through my own ‘wounds’, I feel this common human solidarity through his human nature, and I’m great comforted and affirmed.

I got to watch the Pope’s funeral on an iPad, a deeply moving liturgical service that I was glued to in my hospital gown and wrapped in blankets. What really touched me though was the RTE commentator who several times referred to those watching from hospital, prison or care homes. I was one of those people for whom the TV coverage was a blessing, transporting me to sunny St Peter’s Square and helping me forget the empty clinical ward where I was.

What helped me:

• God has a keen sense of humour engineering the precise situations where I am challenged to grow and let go
• Deep breathing to get calm and get ‘underneath’ the physical sensations
• Repeating a mantra: ‘Be still and know that I am God’ or ‘Into your hands Lord I commend my spirit’
• Trying not to get anxious by over anticipating; live in the moment
• Praying with the problem, ask for help with anxious or difficult moments
• Remembering that this too will pass