Little things

6-minute read • 1,100 words

Originally published in Connect, the Respond Healthcare magazine.

During my life’s biggest drama, it was the little things that stood out the most.

“Drama” is underselling it a tad. Truth is, I could’ve died.

Let’s rewind.

I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease about 15 years ago, and it seemed like I was going to be one of the fortunate ones.

Apart from an annual check-up, I never needed any medication or treatment the way so many others sadly do.

That all changed one Sunday night.

The sharp, searing stomach pain came on out of nowhere. When it still hadn’t faded an hour later, and with GP practices closed for the weekend, hospital was the only option.

Good job, really. The A&E clinician took one look at me and sent me for an urgent scan, which confirmed his fears:

My bowel had perforated, the result of a Crohn’s flare-up I hadn’t even realised was happening.

The knock-on effect was that I’d developed peritonitis, a life-threatening infection.

By Monday, I’d had emergency surgery, and been fitted with what I’d previously only ever known as a “colostomy bag”.

So, yes: drama.

And this life-saving, life-changing event was only the first step on a journey that’s been filled with twists and turns ever since.

Yet of all the little things I remember about it, the first came right at the very beginning.

The hospital

Two months earlier, my wife Francesca and I welcomed Bonnie, our Labrador puppy.

Come the night of “the incident”, Bonnie was a bouncy bundle of joy, but not quite house-trained.

So, while Francesca looked after the dog, with my mum and in-laws checking in with and later rallying around her, my dad drove me to the hospital.

By the time we got to Chesterfield Royal, I couldn’t breathe properly.

Expanding my diaphragm to take in air felt like being stabbed in the belly. Before I’d even gone through to triage, the A&E nurses had to give me not one but two vials of morphine to ease the pain.

The knock-on effect of taking that much opiate in such a short space of time?

I was out of it. So much so that, sat in my waiting room chair beside my dad, a new problem arose.

Every time I leaned back, my sleepy head dropped so suddenly and violently that my old man thought I was going to snap my neck. Then he did something small, but meaningful…

My dad cradled my head in his hand. And he didn’t let up until the doctors called my name an hour later.

Who knows why that’s stuck with me, when he and the rest of my loved ones made so many other kind, considerate gestures in the days after?

Maybe some things only become important later on. Others, though, make a difference straight away.

New reality

My operation – an ileostomy, because it was my ileum (or small intestine) that had burst – was supposed to take three hours.

It lasted five.

I was put in the hospital’s high-dependency unit, and wasn’t well enough to be moved to a general ward until a week later.

Even then, I needed to stay hooked up to five separate drips, full of antibiotics, nutrients, and pain relief.

With three tubes in one arm and two in the other, taking my hospital gown off to get washed or use the toilet was maddeningly difficult.

Fortunately, things didn’t stay that way, for one reason…

From the moment I was first examined, I’d been under the care of Chesterfield Hospital’s specialist nurses, Tina, Emma, and Kath.

They helped me in so many huge ways, but the one that meant the most was one I’d never have predicted:

The nurses scoured no less than four different wards to find me a hospital gown with snap fasteners down the side.

Sounds trivial, I know.

Yet when you’re weak, tired, and struggling to come to terms with the new reality of living with a stoma, minor annoyances become major ones.

So, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to be so moved by the thought of someone going out of their way to make my life a bit easier.

Even so: who would’ve thought Press-Studs could be so transformative?

Discharged home

In total, I was in hospital for three weeks and three days.

There were countless other little things, both during and after that time, that made a lasting impression:

The care package full of funny, nerdy things my five best friends clubbed together to send to cheer me up.

The endless patience of Katy, my Respond Healthcare nurse, who helped me find products that made looking after this weird thing sticking out of my abdomen less stressful.

But there’s one thing, and one person, that had the biggest impact.

I was discharged on a Wednesday.

And as I walked into the living room for the first time in almost a month, I saw it…

Francesca had bought a single balloon and placed it in front of the armchair. In bright yellow letters, it said: “Welcome home.”

Never before has a ball of helium wrapped in foil made me feel so emotional.

I could’ve erupted into tears there and then. As it happened, I was just trying to stop our very excited Labrador from knocking me flat on my back…

Seeing things differently

Today, I’m coping with the day-to-day practicalities of managing my stoma better than I ever expected, and there’s something else too.

Since I never expected to have a stoma in the first place, being able to manage it at all feels like a win to me. But it wasn’t always this way…

In the period after coming out of hospital, I was struck by a sense of guilt.

I’ve met people before and since who’ve truly suffered with Crohn’s, far worse than I ever had. I felt like I’d hogged precious NHS resources that could’ve been put to better use helping someone else.

It was only later, in follow-up appointments, that doctors and nurses made me see things differently.

What I’d gone through was serious, they said. I was lucky to be alive.

They’re right, of course.

If the events of that fateful Sunday night had gone another way, I’d have had my time on earth cut short.

Yet as dramatic as it’s been, this whole experience has taught me something I’ll never forget:

With the right people around you, the big things don’t seem so scary. And when everything else is said and done, the little things are all that really matter.

Adam Kay is a copywriter and ex-journalist based in Sheffield. Follow him on Instagram at @adamkayco.