AN EMERGENCY

A dispatch

Joseph Wright of Derby, Two Boys with a Bladder, ca. 1769–70, oil on canvas.

Dear Readers,

The Kureishi Chronicles is a year old. Thank you for staying with me. Last week I had a bit of a close shave, as you’ll discover below.

As always, if you have the means, and believe in paying for good writing, do become a paid subscriber. Your contributions go towards my care.

Love to you all,

Hanif

Carlo and I write every morning. It’s the part of the day I most look forward to. After having been washed and dressed – a procedure which makes me feel as if I am just a body - I hear his key in the door and he charges into the house. It is an uplifting moment because now I can become my writing self, my sentient self, what I might call my real self. I am back.

But after half an hour of work, I’m getting spasms in my bladder. They’re getting stronger. I can’t ignore them. I fear something is up. It could be serious. Earlier that morning, as my live-in carer and the council carer worked on me, they found that my catheter wouldn’t flush; the saline fluid they use to clean it wouldn’t go through, which meant that sediment had probably accumulated in the tube. But we let it go.

Now, I am becoming increasingly uncomfortable, imagining my bladder filling up with fluid and expanding like a balloon. It is disappointing, if not depressing, that I am forced to interrupt our work. But there is no way around it; this issue has to be solved before my blood pressure and temperature shoot up. I am at risk of a stroke.

Isabella and my carer hoist me out of my chair and back into bed. I am now in considerable pain. I need my catheter to be changed, a simple procedure that takes ten minutes, but which must be done by a qualified nurse.

My carer sends Carlo out to find a large syringe so that she can attempt to flush the tube with more pressure, which might clear it.  But none of the pharmacies have one. By now, am I writhing with discomfort, and I am getting hotter and hotter. My head is throbbing, and my blood pressure is rising. Tracey arrives, and now all three women are on the phone to various agencies and medical practitioners, desperately seeking help. Carlo cools me down with a damp flannel. I tell him what an inconvenience it would be to have to die today, particularly since I am expected at lunch later.

The district nurse doesn’t appear to be coming, so now the women are on the phone to the emergency services, but they won’t send an ambulance because I am still breathing and cognisant, as they put it. The bureaucracy is intransigent, they ask for more and more details.

The pressure in my lower body is swelling. I feel I might burst. I am not allowed painkillers. My blood pressure is now at 196. I can see how worried everyone is.

At last, two ambulances arrive. I can see the lights flashing outside the window. Four staff come into the house with medical equipment. There are now eight people in my living room. I like being the centre of attention but this is too much. Unfortunately, it turns out, none of them are qualified to change my catheter. They want to take me to A&E.

A trolley is brought into my front room and I am slid from my bed onto it. My heart is seriously sinking. I’ve been out of hospital a month, and I do not want to go back, even for a short time. I know I could be lying on this trolley, in a corridor, for hours. I have heard the stories. But I have no choice.

I am taken out of the house and into the street. Sachin arrives on his bike, and my family watch as I am loaded into the ambulance. I say to Sachin, “curtains,” and he laughs. I am reminded of the times my father was taken to hospital, this shrunken figure carried out of the house by burly men.

In the ambulance, the paramedic straps me down, preparing to take me to Charing Cross, a fifteen minute drive. The engine starts. Moments later, the back door of the ambulance is opened, and a paramedic tells me that he’s found not one but two district nurses outside on the street. They go into my house, collect the equipment they need, and join me in the ambulance. They clean themselves up, prepare the apparatus, and do the job. The moment they remove my blocked catheter, urine shoots out and I immediately feel better. I am dressed and returned to my house and my bed.

What a relief, and it’s only lunchtime. Not long after, I am in my wheelchair, scooting up the road to the former Rouge, where I am meeting friends, after a morning when I thought I might die.

Hanif