Observations placeholder

Joe Cassidy

Book: The Diviner

Round about that time, though, building became a bit of a challenge. I'd get this desperate fatigue and have muscular problems, along with other strange symptoms that made me feel very unwell. There were times I was too sick to work. I went to the doctor with one thing after another. They would send me to the hospital for scans and tests. They thought it was this, then that, then the other. They mentioned ME at one time, but they never settled on any kind of diagnosis.

Soon a pattern developed. I’d be really unwell, so I'd be off work. Then I'd get fitter, and would go back to work again. I might be fine for a while, but then I'd suddenly find I was going downhill again. In the end I gave up working for my brother. I just couldn't cope with it any more. After that I did a bit of security work, which was easier.  ..........

My health at that time was still bad. One of the doctors was convinced that I had ME, and he put me on tablets that were supposed to help. I found out later that they were actually antidepressants. Shortly after I'd started the course of pills, I was out in the car with Jean when I realized I didn't feel at all well. We were on the way to my mother's house, and when we arrived there I felt even worse.

I remember sitting there not able to move. I literally could not get off the couch. Jean was worried, so she rang the doctor on call. He asked which tablets I was on, and Jean told him. When he heard they were antidepressants he wasn't too concerned. I suppose he thought I was immobile because of depression. But when things didn't improve, Jean rang him again an hour later and said, 'My husband really isn't well. Please could you come out? There's no way I can get him into a car to come and see you.'

The doctor arrived in, looked at me and then took my blood pressure. It was dangerously low, so he called an ambulance at once.

I remember being brought into the Accident and Emergency. There was panic and mayhem everywhere that night, but a lot of the panic centred on me. I had drips put into me and I was wrapped in tinfoil. I'd no idea why. Jean has said since that it was the only time she felt I was going to die. She left Naas Hospital, went home and cried her heart out. To all intents and purposes, I was in a coma by then - or that's what the doctors thought, anyway.

I remember looking out through the door to the entrance hall, and this lady was walking out carrying a briefcase. A voice in my head was saying, ‘You have to get her back.'  I didn't know why, because she wasn't wearing a doctor's uniform. She could have been anybody. She was just getting to the exit door of Naas Hospital, and the doctors were starting to wheel me in. The voice kept saying, ‘You have to get her.' I was zoning in on her; I wanted to get this woman to turn round. It was like I had to. She had her hand on the door, and as I focused on her, she turned round. She saw the mayhem going on, and to my surprise and relief she came back in.

She thought I was in a coma - everybody did - but I can remember everything that happened, even down to the tin-foil. It was very strange, because at one stage I felt as if I had left my body. I was up in the corner of the room, and I was looking down at the doctors working on my body. It's hard to explain. And the odd thing was that I didn't feel any sense of panic. I just thought, Oh, there is my body. They’re working on my body. But I'd no fear; I wasn't thinking, Oh God, I'm going to die. At the same time, I didn't have any fierce will to go back to my body. Where I was seemed to be paradise. I had no pain; just an unbelievable sense of peace.

Eventually I returned to my body, and this woman was working on me. Then they wheeled me through to the ward. But I sensed after a while that-these doctors didn't know I was conscious. They were talking over me as if I wasn't there.

And I remember lying in the bed, but I couldn't talk to them.

It was frightening. I was thinking, They haven't a clue that I am aware of everything that is going on.

...................

‘And you know what the problem was?'
'I'm allergic to those pills I was given. For the ME.' I’d heard them saying that too.
'Can you explain what it felt like, when you were trying to get me to come back?' she asked.
'It was like a slow-motion film. I knew I had to get you back. I didn't know why.'
'That's extraordinary.'

We sat in silence for a while.

'I was trying to leave the building.' She looked totally bemused. 'I'd been working a long shift. I was tired, and I was thinking about the hot bath I was going to have the minute I got home. And the glass of wine, and the early night, and the lie-in the following morning. I was thinking about how I'd spend my time off. My whole weekend.'

She laughed. ‘I can’t explain why I turned round. Crises happen in Accident and Emergency every day of the week, but for some reason I was drawn back.’