The routine was always the same, until it wasn’t.
His wife would walk on the ward, his son and daughter trailing behind her. They’d sit by his bedside for hours, talking to him about the mundanities of the day. Occasionally they’d stop a passing doctor or nurse to ask about his progress.
Once the decision had been made, I heard him whisper my name to her, and then she walked over to bring me the spare medical supplies he wouldn’t need anymore. He and I had talked, our beds diagonally across from each other, in the dull gaps between visiting hours, about music and the weather and football, even though I don’t follow football. But we were strangers really, and giving me the supplies was an uncommon kindness.
The next week, my wife picked me up from the hospital. And in the days that followed, I kept coming back to the thought of how unfair it was that I’d got to go home and he hadn’t.
It was the nurses I saw in follow-up appointments who made me see things differently. Their lesson was one we’d all do well to learn.
What had happened to me was serious, the nurses said. I was lucky to be alive.
(It was true. A Crohn’s disease flare-up had left me with peritonitis, life-threatening unless treated swiftly. The surgeons did save me, obviously, but the route back was a physical and emotional rollercoaster; those thoughts of unfairness for my hospital friend, classic survivor’s guilt.)
Yet it was something else the nurses told me that really stuck:
In life, there’ll always be someone worse off than you, but that doesn’t mean what you’re going through is any less deserving of compassion.
My pal on the ward was sicker than me, no doubt. But others were in a better state than I was. Still others, far more ill compared to my mate. Everything depends on the lens you look through.
When it comes to health, nothing is black and white. There are bright parts and dark ones, and a zillion colours in between, and all of them forever changing. Your health is a spectrum, and the point where yours sits at any given moment has a shade and hue all of its own.
Judging how well you are by measuring against others won’t serve you. Your body and mind are uniquely yours, and you should look after both as best you can, because the day will come when you can’t.
Prioritising your personal health isn’t selfish but essential. That’s why airlines tell you to put on your own oxygen mask first in an emergency – if you don’t help yourself, you’re no use to anyone else.
All of us know what it takes to be healthy, because it’s what our parents and teachers and governments have always told us. Get some exercise. Don’t stay up late. Eat more fruits and veggies. Take care of your mind. The knowing isn’t the hard part.
Actually paying enough attention to your physical and mental wellbeing takes effort. But it’s not about strict rules, only guidelines, and you just need to stay within them more often than not. And if you fail to get in your five-a-day, or your seven hours, or your 10,000 steps, don’t beat yourself up for falling off the wagon – just climb back aboard tomorrow.
Health, I suppose, isn’t the only thing that exists on a spectrum. I sometimes find myself thinking about my hospital friend’s family, what they’re up to these days. Their lives will be coloured differently now, stained forever by what happened. But they’re lives nonetheless, and even though he – her husband, their dad – can never know or see for himself how they’ll unfold, I like to think he’d want them to be lived to the full.
His name was Matt.
Until next time,
Adam Kay
