I’ve always liked the old Winston Churchill maxim ‘Never stand up when you can sit down, and never sit down when you can lie down’. After a month lying down in hospital, contemplating life without the use of my legs, I now utter a laugh which I hope is suitably hollow. O, my lovely legs! By the time I was 14, they were the longest in my class; by the time I was 17 they had embarked on the merry dance that has been my ‘journey’, propelling me forever onwards towards enough fun, love and money for nine lifetimes. Now I feel like a mermaid – without the sexiness – and my shameless gams are but a floppy old mono-thing. I do not comb my hair alluringly and make eyes at sailors from my hospital window by the sea but instead hack at my matted bed-lock and wait patiently for painkillers.
I hate the modern habit of calling a disability a ‘superpower’ but it’s not in my nature to despair
My husband comes in every day and my mates visit; it’s solitude I miss. As an only child, being alone is a lifelong hunger for me. It’s the main reason why I turned down a six-figure sum from Celebrity Big Brother some years back. For a month, I’ve had to live with other people 24/7. Something had to give. There are four women on our ward: three of us are bed-bound, one can walk. One morning the latter decides to blast Celine Dion loudly, the song on repeat being ‘Falling into You’ of all things, which seems somewhat insensitive. I go ape, retaliating with The Magic Flute on Radio 3, to the horror of everyone on the ward, including myself. Then the yelling starts up, a full-on Peggy/Pat EastEnders barney: ‘You shut up!’ ‘No, you shut up!’ I am told that I am ‘trying to control the ward’, which sounds somewhat thrilling and Machiavellian. I’ve already had a slight feeling that reading books and listening to discussions of politics on the radio sets me apart somewhat – but I chose my weapons when still a teenager, in order to break beyond the narrow parameters set for working-class women, and I won’t be surrendering them. Eventually a young nurse comes in and breaks it up. My opponent and I are both in our sixties; imagine trying to make an aged and infirm punk generation behave! After a few days I apologise sincerely and we all get along again. She is a brave and funny woman, which I appreciate here. At last, I have achieved maturity!
I was admitted to hospital for an emergency operation on an abscess on my spine on Friday the 13th of December. I had spent the previous week trying to convince myself that I was suffering from nothing worse than a festive hangover. I had a few nights in intensive care with more drips going in and coming out of me than 10 Downing Street. Since then I’ve incidentally detoxed from alcohol abuse by being given chlordiazepoxide, during which I hallucinated a succession of nurses with knitted heads – not as much fun as it sounds – as well as being convinced that several doctors were out to kill me. ‘You wish to slay me as I am here to do the Lord’s work,’ I repeated tediously for 24 hours – absolute and utter cringe, as the youngsters say. It’s weird not drinking for a month and never thinking of it. For the final few months of last year, the only days I didn’t drink were when I was too hungover from the night before to go out. So I finally made it to rehab – albeit by the scenic route – after all those decades of saying no, no, no!
My favourite film as a child was The Red Shoes, in which the apparently unacceptably ambitious heroine dances herself to death. I do think of it occasionally. I’m aware of how serious my situation is. But even as I face the future in a wheelchair, I’m planning the biggest, baddest one imaginable in which I will creep about like a Bond villain, my laptop purring malevolently on my lap. It’s not in my nature to despair, due to faith and Stoicism, but I hope this column doesn’t read too smugly. I hate the modern habit of calling a disability a ‘superpower’ but I am by nature a perky person and I can’t pretend to experience a tragedy I don’t feel. Of course I want to be walking on my lovely legs again more than anything. ‘A bit of bad luck,’ said one doctor when I asked him why this happened to me. But, looking back at my lush, louche, lovely life and looking forward to the great changes and challenges ahead – and, miraculously, still able to do the work I love – I somehow can’t help but still feel very lucky indeed. Here’s to 2025!
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