"THE DAY MY CLOCK STOPPED"

                                        by Philip Spencer



  I'm at home, my own house, I awake, open my eyes, as it often does a tear slips out of the corner of my eye slides down my cheek and soaks into my linen sheet, my eyes focus to view a seagull gliding high over my house, dipping it's wing.  It finds another thermal and rises once again. I prop my back against the wall and stretch forward or try to, am as stiff as a board, my right leg pains but as I have done it before, I know the benefits that come.

  Ten minutes later, my temperature rising rapidly, as I rarely exercise or stretch, I slide to the side of my bed and stand up, I fall forward and lean on the nearest steady thing working my way toward the bathroom.  I have a smile on my face, I am so happy today. Its easy enough to get into the shower, although I do hang onto the steel bar that the shower head slides up and down on while washing.

  An unusual spider large enough to warrant watching tries to cling on as the steam builds, one of his legs has slipped, the rest are suctioned fast, so I forget about him. Showered, dried and shaved I go back to bed for a short rest and view the sky some more.  Three or four crows fly by flapping their wings energetically the way they do, its as if their wings and bodies are not as one in flight, unlike the seagulls and swallows.

  I suppose my story begins here really, the day my clock stopped. I say my clock because that's what it really was, my clock.  It wasn't a clock that could be seen or felt, it was internal. It had been ticking for thirty two long years in which confusion had reigned inside my soul, suddenly it stopped and for the first time ever there was a silence. The tears just came freely in that silence as I sat on the side of my futon, I did not know what was happening.  

  I put my head in my hands and hunched over, deep from within came a quiet whining noise, increasingly voicing itself until eventually out it came. That noise reminded me of a noise I had once heard while I was walking past an abattoir on my way to work. Starting with a long whine as I tried to contain it by not breathing, it built its energy until out it came.  As I looked down onto the bare floorboards the long whine turned into a growling noise as I watched the tearpool on the wood get bigger and bigger.

  At least ten minutes went by before I realized my stomach muscles were aching and I was sweating profusely.  I fell off the futon and ended up lying naked on the floor in a curled up fetal position, my tears just wouldn't stop. I think in those time-stopped moments I had found something or someone that had been neglected for the past thirty two years. I felt as though I had been awakened from a deep sleep.  I had been given a second chance at life.

  I guess the medical profession would say I had a nervous breakdown but to me I had been given a second chance, a time to heal. Being the eldest son in a family with eight children, I somehow always felt as if I was the one that was supposed to never make a mistake and always do things right.  

  That had just dawned on me, the fact that a load had always been there. I felt as if I had never been young or free, I had never been a child.  The fact that I had often made mistakes in the past and had gone down many different roads that led to just more confusion didn't seem to matter.   That load had always been there, a load that I hadn't asked for. There was more to be considered though, lots more.

  I remember in Donegal on holidays once, my car got stuck in the sand and while I waited for help to come.  A local man sat with me as we watched the tide come closer, talking to each other.  I remember a question put by the old man to me which came out of the blue:  "Where do you come in the family?" says he, as I had been filling him in with my life's woes, to which I replied, eldest son, never giving the question another thought until now.  

  He just nodded saying nothing at the time but looking back now I can see where his question came from, age in most cases anyway means knowledge and I could feel his knowledge. Anyway, along came a tractor and released my car from the clutching sand.  That was the last I ever saw of the old man.  Its funny the way sometimes you are being told something but somehow you're just not ready to understand what's being said.

  So as the episode ended I pulled myself up off the floor onto my futon and got under the covers.  I was exhausted absolutely so I just closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep, and I was so happy today. What I've just told you about happened seven years ago, my initial awakening. I never told anyone about that day as I myself did not understand what had happened.

  I was living on my own in a one roomed bed-sit having only one month before left my job after ten years, broken up with my girlfriend and her daughter and been given a diagnosis in hospital of Multiple Sclerosis. MS, it is known as, said my neurologist the day he told me.  I smiled at him and turned around and walked out toward the exit door with no questions asked just relieved that they had at last found out what was wrong with me.  My imagination was the most relieved and was followed by a nurse who told me to contact the MS centre for counseling.

  I got into my car and drove home with tears bouncing off my cheeks from time to time. As I was living with my parents I first stopped off at my girlfriends house to tell her my news, adding that if we broke up I wouldn't hold it against her in case she was scared. I was the one running and was making a doorway from which we could both escape.  Her mother was dying of cancer at the time and I suppose we just were not able to support each other with everything that was going on.  

  So, soon after, we broke our relationship of two and a half beautiful years and I anyway, spiraled into the deepest depression you can imagine. If I have ever loved anyone it was this Mother and her daughter and I knew they at some stage would reappear into my life. After seven years of working and waiting, my 20th school reunion came around and although it was beautiful to see her again I just didn't feel comfortable.  I just froze in her company.  I wanted to hug her and hug her even though she had after all broken my heart and abandoned me or that's what I thought so we didn't really talk about much that night, all those memories, those bad sad memories that I so much wanted to leave behind reappeared.

  Meanwhile I had found temporary comforting from another woman. Later that week I phoned and asked her to call to see me on a beautiful sunny day.  I, doing what my heart wanted, stretched out my hand and took hold of hers while sitting in the back garden.  I was too afraid to feel anything.  There was nothing left on which to grow once again a relationship.  The fire had gone out or had moved elsewhere, were my thoughts. We had both been badly hurt, I even more so because of my personal situation and also because I was leaving not one but two loves in my life.  She had her daughter to comfort her, anyway it was enough not to want to risk it again.

  I went home and my Mother and Father were sitting by the fire so I knelt down close to the fire and told them the news about my diagnosis.  It didn't seem to shock them, they may have guessed beforehand, certainly I think my mother knew.  Anyway seven years ago I was not close to either of them and I was trying desperately to put on a non-freaked-out attitude if you know what I mean. What my parents really thought I'll never know but I'm sure they felt sorry for me at least.  I was now going into a world of my own.

  As the weeks passed I couldn't take the sympathy any longer and needed space to sort things out in my own head so I moved into that bed-sit I was telling you about, one of my brothers was at the time working abroad and wanted to return home to live with his girl so as I was now dealing in antique furniture selling in a weekend market.  I asked him if he would like to start a business with me as I had some cash put by.

  During the time leading up to my diagnosis, which was about a two year span I seemed to lose complete contact with myself, every ounce of energy I had was being sucked from me through misunderstandings arriving from the fear of the unknown.  I just did not know what was going on in my body. My symptoms were minor at the time, mainly a tingling sensation in my lower back with some numbness in my right leg which at times caused me to limp.

  Firstly I went into hospital to have a myelogram which was to see if I had something wrong with any of the discs in my spine.  What an experience that was!  A night spent in hospital to be woken at six o'clock am by a Priest asking if I wanted Holy Communion or something.  It was Sunday morning; I went back to sleep.

  So, over to another hospital in an ambulance, just sit up there please and bend forward resting your arms on your thighs, a local anesthetic and then in goes the needle squirting dye into my spinal column.  I felt weird; I was put in some machine and rotated in different positions and x-rayed, sent back in the ambulance and put to bed sitting up, which was the way I had to stay for twenty four hours. This was my introduction to the medical establishment complete with a headache for about three long days spent sitting in bed.
 
  Negative, they found nothing wrong, all that for nothing.
 
  Next, off to see a neurologist and get sent to another hospital, this time for a week.  I spent a few days sharing a room with three other men.  One had just had a heart transplant, the others I never found out what they were in for.
 
  First things first, blood tests, blood tests and more bloody blood tests, because I had told the doctors I had in my past taken Heroin, Cocaine and other drugs. The poor nurse that was sent to take the tests had great difficulty doing so because of the layers of gloves which she had to wear.  I felt sorry for her so I gave her a hand; it made me feel happy again.

  Next was the Lumbar Puncture.  Lie on your side please, another local and in goes the needle this time by one of two doctors who by this time had me really wondering if the one that was putting the needle in knew where to place it or not, so much poking had been done. As he sucked out some spinal fluid guess what was happening in the bed next door! His pace maker had just gone on the blink, panic stations as nurses ran here and there, curtain around the guy and thirty seconds later out of the room he goes down to intensive care.

  During this time my needle had been taken out and the beautiful nurse had let go my hand.  That was a nice touch, I needed it. The rest of my time was spent getting weaker, sleeping, reading, eating, worrying, flirting with the nurses, making small talk, down to the look for nicotine hits, telling visitors what's been happening and wishing my now ex-girlfriend would come in to see me.  The rest of the time I was wishing I was elsewhere smoking a long thin slow burning joint overlooking some large multi colored green forest.

  I never did find out if the pacemaker guy made it or not, I did ask but they didn't give much away, those nurses.  I suppose it was none of my business anyway.

  Now I've had MS for nine years and am in a wheeler most of the time and live alone. I've had to get used to a lot of changes along the way and can only say that the more time I spend alone the better. I haven't given up but I have given in. I've given in to me; in most parts anyway.  A me that never listened to the real me. I think I'm beginning to find peace, finally.


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