It’s late here on the ward. Some of us still have our lights on, most are in drug induced slumber. I can’t sleep as I’m thinking about love, courage and acceptance. Particularly in relation to a fellow ward member, Mary.

Mary is my Mother’s age, born in ’42 into the blitz spirit of rations and making do.  I think she was here when I was admitted on Sunday evening.  I slowly became aware of her presence during Monday.  She’s a wee, wizened woman known for her keening and crying.  She impacts all of us on the ward. Nothing is right for Mary – we all march to her tune and her moods.  She berates her family, she berates the ward staff, she appears to not be a kindly, loving soul.   I’ve been too focused on me for the past 48 hours to care but today I found myself in a hospital corridor trying to comfort a lovely little pathologist nurse who had felt the full force on Mary’s wrath.  The nurse was in tears.  I was really angry and stomped past Mary’s bed,  thankfully with my new tongue – otherwise I may have said something!

Later, Mary stopped me and asked how I was doing. I explained about my mouth cancer and my recovery.  She looked at me and then pushed back her hair.  There is a lump on her neck bigger than a tennis ball. My surgeon, whose praises I had just been singing, has refused to operate.  He has told her it’s too late.  To get ready to say goodbye.  And suddenly I am humbled.  By the honesty of a man I respect and value – another Henry Marsh in the making – and by her human right to wail and cry at the scariness of it all.  Living is not always easy.  Accepting death – the journey we all must make – is harder still.

So Mary’s wailing tonight holds no terror.  I’m sending  oddles of love and wishing her and her family strength for the days and weeks ahead.

And finally I am grateful for the lesson she has shared today.  I have a recovery plan, I have my life ahead.   Its time to focus and get on and live it!