Every Breath You Take

I was once a good runner. I competed at regional and national championships, and raced distances from 800 metres to the marathon. A back injury thirty years ago forced me to stop and turn to cycling. My lung capacity and functioning was never tested then, but I feel sure it would have been above average.

It’s normal to lose lung capacity over time – it declines at 1% a year beyond the age of 35. But mine almost halved after my first big cancer operation. This problem was discovered by Dr Riley, a consultant at the Regional Respiratory Centre at the City Hospital in Belfast. But the reason why took longer to emerge. A surgeon had inadvertantly damaged my diaphragm during the operation. The pressure inside my abdomen had steadily pushed my stomach through the hole and compressed my left lung.

In a very long and complex operation, I had been opened up from my groin to my neck by three teams of surgeons, There ensued an argument between the three leading surgeons as to who was responsible for the hole in my diaphragm. Eventually it was decided who would fix the problem. Mr Graham called me into the Royal Victoria Hospital. He explained he would do his best to repair my diaphragm, but he didn’t know whether this would be possible until I was opened up in another major operation. To a very active person, this was an especially severe blow. I had to face the prospect of being permanently without the use of my left lung. It felt like a death sentence. But little did I know.

At my next review with Dr Riley, I complained about a pain in my right side after the breathing test. You breathe through a mouthpiece into a machine, and this measures your lung capacity and functioning. He examined me and sent me for an urgent scan. Dr Riley subsequently told me that he had felt a lump where one should not have been. It was a tumour, a metatastic recurrence. I had Stage Four cancer. So I went from what seemed like a death sentence, to an actual one.

I had two major operations to remove the tumour from my liver and bowel. The first failed and the tumour regrew aggressively. Thankfully the second succeeded. But after both of these operations, my left lung fully collapsed.

The first collapse took place in the City Hospital. I was put on an IV drip with no food. After 12 long days, my lung reflated on Christmas Eve. My Christmas dinner was a piece of dry toast and a spoonful of scrambled egg. I got out of hospital on Boxing Day.

The second lung collapse was even more dramatic. This happened at home, a day after being discharged from the Mater Hospital. I was blue-lighted to Craigavon Hospital and spent the night in a wheelchair, with T at my side. Later on the lead consultant told me I had won The X-ray of the Night. The A&E doctors held a contest for the worst problem they came across on their shift. Gallows humour does help front-line workers cope. But this wasn’t a competition you wanted to win.

The next morning I was taken to the Royal Victoria Hospital by ambulance. Mr Graham was keen to open me up straight away and attempt to fix my diaphragm. But I was only nine days on from a major operation, very weak and full of stitches. So it was agreed to postpone the surgery until I was fully recovered. Almost a year later, I was wheeled down to theatre in the Royal not knowing if my diaphragm could be repaired. Thankfully it was. But the aftermath was terribly painful. My ribs had been spilt open and the nerves that run along them had been damaged. I had to sleep sitting up for three months, drinking morphine every couple of hours. I ended up with cold turkey (not the festive foodstuff).

But, very slowly, the pain became manageable and I could return to normal activities. And the next year, the breathing tests showed that my lungs had dramatically improved. I was 23% above the average for my age and height. Then I got Covid, and was very ill with it. I was left wheezing badly and hardly able to walk for several months. After a course of steroids I did improve and became able to cycle again. But the breathing tests showed that my lung function had fallen by 20%. A permanent impairment, I was told. Just my luck to survive Stage Four cancer, only to be brought down by an evil virus.

Yesterday, I had the breathing tests again. Surprisingly, my lungs were back to the level they had been pre-Covid. Keeping very active and regularly working them by cycling up hills had helped my lungs to recover. Dr Riley signed me off from his clinic. I thanked him for everything he had done for me, and reminded him that I wouldn’t be here without his intervention. He looked a little sheepish, then said he had only been doing his job. But I assured him that wasn’t true – he had gone above and beyond.

The NHS is like that. Most of the people I came across in the past fifteen years were dedicated and hardworking. Some weren’t. But they were a minority. Then there were those who went well beyond what they were supposed to do and made a significant difference in my life. Dr Riley was one of these. I’m pleased that I don’t need to attend his respiratory clinic, but I’m sad that I won’t see him again.