134 – Circling the Drain, Part 1: 1 January 2025

This shows Margaret and me on 25 April 2019.  My open heart surgery had taken place in November 2018.  I was delighted and astonished to still be alive.  Celebrating life with Margaret was such a wonderful experience.

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My circling of the drain and growing ever closer to death can be accurately dated to our cancellation by Anne Ryan on 8 February 2021.  What had until then been crippling but intermittent episodes of life threatening symptoms were transformed by Anne’s behaviour into a daily struggle to breathe, eat and live.  The coughing returned far worse than it had ever been in 2020 and my ability to sleep was eliminated as effectively as if the chain saw used to open my chest in the heart surgery had been repurposed to ensure death by sleep deprivation.

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I usually delayed going to bed for as long as I could, hoping that the constant coughing would settle down.  I told myself that if I went to bed AFTER the coughing had settled, I might be able to sleep for longer. 

This strategy was a total failure.

It did not matter what time I went to bed and went to sleep.

I always woke up coughing fiercely at about 12.30 am or (if I “slept in”) at 2.00 am at the latest.

The coughing had a single mission in life – ripping my insides into tiny pieces.

I used to pretend that if I left our bed and crept quietly into the living room and closed all the doors, Margaret would be able to sleep through my coughing episodes.  Common sense told me this was stupid, but Margaret never openly told me that my coughing made it impossible for her to sleep – so I kept pretending to myself that at least she was getting some sleep after I moved away from the bedroom.

The difficult part of the nights started after I had left the bedroom.

The coughing came in spasms from deep within my belly.  It felt as if my insides were going to erupt out of my mouth and spill onto the floor while the spasms were in progress.

I found that I could eventually make the coughing spasms ease up if I did Perimeter Prowling.  Perimeter Prowling was the name I invented for my slow walking around the walls of the kitchen and living room.  I timed how long it took me to do a slow walk around the perimeters.  One circuit of the perimeters took about 60 seconds.  If I did Perimeter Prowling for 30 minutes – or 30 circuits of the perimeter – this usually but not always - induced the coughing to ease up.  If the coughing eased up, I could sit down on the sofa without coughing.  If I got REALLY lucky, the coughing would even go away for a while.  If the coughing temporarily went away, I could sit upright on the sofa and rest my head on a cushion.  Sometimes, I was able to doze for about an hour while resting my head on the cushion.

They were very dark days.

Margaret had been given a miraculous reprieve from death but my own death loomed increasingly closer.

I was not complaining.  If the universe wanted me to die so Margaret could live, that was an extremely fair swap, but the universe did seem to want my own death to take the maximum possible time and inflict as much suffering on me in the process as it possibly could.

As for me, I kept going because I knew Margaret wanted me to stay in her life.

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Margaret was not simply my wife.  She was the only woman who had loved me completely even though she knew every fault I had.  Margaret was my lover.  I wanted her to recover from her cancer and I wanted her have a life filled with joy.  She needed me, so I kept struggling through the daily episodes of coughing, stomach bloat, dismaying weight loss and increasing physical weakness.

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This Table sets out the rapid, significant decline in my health in March 2021.  I drew ever closer to death as “I circled the drain”.  My body made significant progress along Death Row.  My weight loss was caused by an inability to eat.  These are the meals I was unable to eat in March 2021.

 

Date	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Friday 5 March		None
Saturday 6 March		None
Saturday 13 March		None
Sunday 14 March		None	None
Monday 15 March			None
Thursday 18 March		1 banana	3 gluten free crisp bread wafers with vegemite
Saturday 20 March			None
Sunday 21 March		None	Bowl soup
Thursday 25 March		Bowl ice cream
Friday 26 March		None	None
Saturday 27 March		None
Sunday 28 March			None
Monday 29 March			None
Tuesday 30 March		1 orange and 1 apple

 

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Apart from being increasingly unable to eat, I kept getting physically weaker.  This Table summarises the exercise I was unable to do in March 2021.

 

Date	Scheduled Exercise	Actual Exercise
Tuesday 2 March	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga	Nil
Wednesday 3 March	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga	Nil
Thursday 4 March	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga	1 hour walking at home; yoga nil
Friday 5 March	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga	1 hour walking at home; yoga nil
Saturday 6 March	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga	1 hour 15 minutes walking at home; yoga nil
Monday 8 March	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga	1 hour walking at home; yoga nil
Tuesday 9 March	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga	1 hour walking at home; yoga nil
Wednesday 10 March	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga	1 hour walking at home; yoga nil
Thursday 11 March	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga	1 hour walking at home; yoga nil
Sunday 21 March 2021	3 ½ hours at Morialta	1 ½ hours at Morialta
Monday 22 March	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga	30 minutes walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga
Thursday 25 March	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga	30 minutes walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga
Friday 26 March	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga	30 minutes walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga
Sunday 28 March	3 ½ hours at Morialta	1 ½ hours at Morialta
Tuesday 30 March	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga	1 hour walking at home; yoga nil
Wednesday 31 March 2021	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga

 

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The exercise I did manage, required massive willpower.  When I did not do scheduled exercise, this was because no amount of willpower could force my weakened body to do what I demanded.

My body was in deep trouble while Margaret was apparently cured of cancer.