At a Stroke.

I wrote my last post in the Anna M in the very pleasant circumstances of her present mooring at Moaña on the magnificent Ría de Vigo. The weather was splendid and I dived over the side two or three times a day into Atlantic water at a perfect temperature for cooling off. I was just getting down to some painting and varnishing when I found my right hand giving me trouble. Next thing, it became quite dead and I couldn't grasp anything in it at all,- if I tried to do so, it would just fall out,- a most alarming feeling!

    I got on the phone to family, and our Cristíona soon had Pablo at the marina calling an ambulance and picking me up in the marina boat. I was whisked off to a very swish health centre and thence to the enormous Hospital Álvaro Cunqueiro at Vigo. Two nights on a trolley in the reception area were not fun, heart monitors beeping around me etc, but for all I know the stuff they shoved into my veins might have saved me from a much worse stroke, or even death. Anyway things soon looked up when I was moved to a two-bed ward in the neurological department. These public facilities were excellent and the care very friendly, efficient and thorough. The architecture of the whole hospital was startling and imaginitive, and the social expense involved, mind-boggling.

      My impression, that there was some kind of cultural statement involved, found a degree of confirmation when I looked up Álvaro Cunqueiro, and found that he was a Galician writer who didn't appear to have anything particular to do with medicine. I wondered what he would have had to say about having this huge hospital named after him, and what prompted the Galician health service to do so? Perhaps a writer from his time of fascism may have had some words of caution about grandiose social undertakings,- and unfortunately, for me especially since covid, a fascist is as likely to wear a white coat as anything else.

    When one is ill, one finds oneself deprived of one's normal precious sense of autonomy, as also do the victims of fascists, communists and totalitarians in general. The necessity for clear values and strong ideas of meaning becomes particularly acute. One needs an anchor equally in the personal and the transcendent. Saints, who managed to articulate the Word of meaning in their particular time and place,- to hit The Note in a way that reverberates down the centuries to us-, are a big help, as is a sense of belonging to a place. I am glad that, in Ireland, we traditionally name hospitals after them, but it's not much use if the people become deaf to that Note. I suppose that a 'secular saint' like Álvaro Cunqueiro may do the job, but I wonder who hears him after a generation or two? One would hope that, along with any genuine creative writer, he leaves a call to espouse personal responsibility and an holistic attitude which gets us beyond contingencies and specialist expertise.

    The word 'fascism' is a very unsatisfactory bit of shorthand for what comes about whenever humanity ducks such responsibilities. We suffer a crisis in our sense of meaning and belonging, as chaos reaches an intolerable pitch. In one form or another, it is forever threatening the human race. In desperation, we reach for shortcuts that will obviate the need to tackle 'the steep and narrow road' that leads to salvation,- but I like to think that this road need not be as difficult as we sometimes fear. The Crucified One shows us a very simple first step, which is to do our best to meet those whom we encounter, right in their pain.

    Knowing how difficult this can be, and how weak we are, we need not be ashamed of withdrawing somewhat, in order to minimise the necessity for such encounter, but only if we take the opportunities that do come our way. There will never be a shortage of them! And so we build the sense of care, of value and belonging, which is the foundation of, among other attributes of a good society, good health care. To say the least, this sits uneasily with the need to deliver profits to the health industry of today, not to mention all the other industries involved. When money becomes the first priority, we may be sure the whole system will break down.

    I came out of the hospital feeling pretty wrecked and a good deal older. I found myself shivering and shaking from head to toe from some kind of infection one day, and the blood thinner they gave me caused much itching and a rash. My right hand remains weak and shakey, and I doubt if I shall ever be as capable and useful in practical matters as I have until now liked to consider myself. Still, here I am, shortly to be another octogenarian, who until recently might have been expected to pass away by now, but maybe will remain on the payroll for another fifteen years. What will transpire in these years?

     So used to hearing that you can't say that, perhaps with my own inner voice as much as any other,- to keeping my head down with perhaps the hope that a bit of example is worth any number of words, I've come to the conclusion I had better do more than chuntering on in this blog, in order to make myself heard. Our eldest son loves to remind me how I bailed himself and our then polite three little children out of middle class life in England in 1973, with mutterings of impending doom, to live in a leaky thatched cottage on a mountainside in Co. Donegal.

    It happens that, by the grace of God, it all worked out very well, though not without difficulty, not to say trauma. We had another six children, all still alive and kicking and in their very different ways doing well. Perhaps that sense of impending doom can be a positive ingredient to human flourishing, though you wouldn't think so, listening to most contemporary discourse. I needn't catalogue here the many and diverse threats hanging over our heads, and I feel for the (diminishing cohort of) young recruits joining the fray. If I have something to say, it is to suggest ways in which these threats can be turned into positive opportunities for human flourishing. Instead of trying to pretend that we can batter on regardless, we must face and embrace those threats, and change accordingly.

    I have made an attempt in this blog to raise my voice somewhat, but not many people read it, though with strong growth lately to a total of 115541 page views. Curiously, Singapore has sometimes overtaken the United States to the top readership spot. I wonder why? Anyway, I am going to take advantage of our Cristíona's presence to see if I can get another dimension going with a podcast. I need another miracle if I am to see the Anna M's electric drive through to reality!

Wouldn't it be great to see those humungous outboards being replaced by electric drives?