The God Squad (27 page)

Sister Catherine came to shave my head, a task I’m certain she disliked intensely but had to do. Each time she shaved it there was an extra wound to be careful of where the skin was still delicate and tender.

‘Now,’ she asked as she finished, ‘are you not going to give me a smile?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Are you still going to marry me?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know,’ I replied and asked if she would come to the theatre. Gently, she held my face in her hands and promised to be with me as I was brought down and by my bed when I emerged from the anaesthetic.

I was given a higher than usual dose of drugs on the morning of my operation as well as a pre-med injection which sent me into a deep sleep. I have only the vaguest memories of being changed into a green robe and taken from the ward to the operating theatre. One thing I remember vividly, though, is the number of people that touched me as the trolley passed down the corridor – a series of blurred images on which I tried to focus but couldn’t. I felt their hands touching my cheeks or the light pressure of a palm on my forehead. It seemed as though they were in sympathy with me and aware of how serious the surgery about to be performed was.

The scenes within the operating theatre were familiar, eyes gazing down from the strip of skin between the mask-tops and the green cloth caps, each person indistinguishable from the others. I was less nervous than usual due to heavy sedation. Some medical checks were carried out before the surgeon about to perform the operation spoke to me. I ignored him.

A needle pierced my arm and a male voice asked me to
count to ten. Instead of doing so aloud as I usually did, I counted silently. Unconsciously or consciously, I decided to defy the anaesthetic, and by the time I reached eight my eyes were still open and fixed firmly on the bright circular light overhead. Then I felt the needle being withdrawn, and the rubber band on my arm tightened. Fingers slapped on the veins in my forearm, to make them more prominent and easier to inject. The needle was reinserted and, without bothering to count, I passed out.

Years later, one night on BBC radio, I heard an actual recording of a neurological procedure similar to that which I underwent. Naturally I cannot describe the operation I was involved in in 1961 and am not attempting to do so. But it was with an extraordinary sense of terror and fascination that I sat listening to the voice of the surgeon, identifying with the aid of carefully marked X-rays, the area of brain he wanted to deal with. The patient’s head was completely daubed and then marked where incisions were to be made before being covered with a sort of artificial skin, a strong, stretchy plastic which clung tightly to his scalp. Cuts were made in it, giving access to the skull and eventually the brain itself. Incisions were held open by surgical clips known as retractors, and dressings were inserted into wounds to absorb any bleeding that occurred before veins could be tied off. The microphones picked up the surgeon and anaesthetist in constant conversation, checking pulse rate and blood pressure as well as deciding when the level of anaesthesia needed to be deepened or reduced. Gradually the hard bone of the skull was exposed as the openings became wide and deep.

For the surgeon to reach the brain it was necessary to cut and drill through the skull. It is a manoeuvre requiring great skill and dexterity. As the drill sank deeper, the patient’s head vibrated and had to be held steady. The sound of the
drill boring its way deep into the skull was shrill and piercing. As one drill bit became less effective it was replaced by another resembling a tiny rose, each petal a small spike. Any bone that could not be removed using a drill was cut out with a fine-toothed saw which made a screeching sound as it cut. Bone filings dispersed during the excavation process were collected and mixed with silicone for replacement on completion of the operation. Veins and arteries close to the site where the surgeon wished to extirpate tissue considered responsible for the patient’s condition were carefully closed off, and the utmost care taken in the removal of the tissue. There are many complications to this type of surgery, some of which include anxiety, depression, apathy and bronchial pneumonia.

Listening to the programme brought back the most traumatic event of my own operation, when I woke while apparently still being operated on. Absolute confirmation of this is difficult to obtain, but my memory of the event is sharp and clear. I was conscious of everything that was going on around me. The overhead light hurt my eyes momentarily and I could see the surgeon and other theatre staff looking at me. I was aware of various pieces of equipment close at hand and, most clearly, I remember that awful parched feeling in my mouth. ‘Water,’ I managed to say before being put back to sleep.

Many hours later I was taken from the operating theatre and put into intensive care. A nurse kept vigilance at my bedside and I remember her being instructed not to leave me alone for a minute and to ensure that I didn’t sneeze or become distressed in any way.

I was kept asleep for nearly two days before being moved back to one of the rooms off the ward. I heard Sister Catherine’s voice telling me that everything was fine. Slowly and painfully I emerged from the anaesthetic to discover my
arm tied down while I was given a blood transfusion. I tried to lift my head to take the water being offered me, but it was too painful to do so. Sister Catherine dipped a cloth in the glass and I sucked on it instead.

During the next days I suffered great pain in my head and also developed the severest pain I have ever experienced in my chest. I gasped and screamed, convinced that I was about to die. I begged Sister Catherine not to let me and she promised she wouldn’t.

She looked at me with great anxiety as she damped my flushed face with a cloth, suggesting in desperation that I try to think of nice things. She said the doctor would come soon and everything was going to be fine.

‘I don’t want to die,’ I screamed again.

‘You’re not going to die,’ she said, her voice trembling. When the doctor came into the ward, I was still distressed and screaming. He listened to my chest and placed his hand on my forehead before prescribing medication and stressed the need to keep me under constant observation.

I have a very vivid memory of a woman standing in the doorway. I looked at her as she stared pitifully back and, despite the severity of the pain, I clearly remember her walking towards my bed and asking Sister Catherine if it would be all right for her to stay and say a few prayers.

They both knelt and continued to pray even when the neurosurgeon returned briefly to the room. Sister Catherine rose and listened to him as he spoke quietly. The woman moved away and leaning against the wall, prayed continuously, running her fingers along black Rosary beads. After the doctor left she handed a brown scapular to Sister Catherine and insisted that she put it around my neck.

I do not know who this woman was, whether she was even real or just the ghost of a fevered imagination, nor do I know the significance of the brown scapular, apart from
its reputed curative abilities. I can say with absolute certainty that following this event I went into a deep sleep and when I woke the excruciating pain in my chest was gone.

After about a week, I was taken back into the main ward. It must have been obvious to the doctors and nurses that the operation which they expected so much from was a failure. My toes twitched relentlessly and the degree of spasm in my body had greatly increased. I had no control whatever over the movement of either leg and most of the time they were contracted tightly against my chest. My toes bent so much and the spasms in my feet were so intense that they badly strained the tendons in my ankles which added greatly to my discomfort.

In August 1961, I was taken from Mother of Mercy Ward and returned to St Patrick’s from where I had been taken nine months previously. The impact of this move on me was devastating and distressed me more than any previous one.

Sister Catherine’s attempts to console and reassure me were futile. I screamed in protest as she carried me from the ward, unable to believe her when she told me I would be back. Under such stress, the ferocity of my spasm was so great that Sister Catherine had to protect herself from being injured by the uncontrollable kicking action of my legs. When I was put to bed in St Patrick’s Ward, steel rails were erected on each side of it to prevent me falling out. It was the final indignity.

As she left the ward I shouted after Sister Catherine not to go. She returned to my bed and promised she would do everything possible to ensure I wouldn’t have to stay in there.

In March 1962, I was taken back to Mother of Mercy Ward, for what the hospital records describe as ‘possible
basal ganglion surgery’. The record goes on: ‘A small abscess had formed around one of the previous markers and therefore no surgery could be done, but the marker was removed’.

By now Sister Catherine had left to work as a missionary nun in Kenya. I couldn’t understand why, though I accepted the inevitability of her departure from my life. There was no nurse in the ward that I recognized and the only familiar face was the neurosurgeon passing through. My biggest worry was that I would have to undergo more surgery and every time I saw him I could feel my entire body tense. He often came to the end of my bed but said very little to me. He had even given up twisting my nose.

I no longer bothered trying to get out of bed and became so withdrawn that I took little notice of anything going on around me. The excitement and fun of Margaret Duffy and Sister Catherine had left an enormous gap in my life. Now the days seemed longer, and though the nurses were kind and caring there was a distance between me and them which I had no desire to remove.

During my final days in that hospital preparations were made for a visit by an East German Cardinal. Every time the nurses tucked me into bed I climbed back out. I couldn’t bear the feel of the sheets on my feet and when the prince of the church arrived I was outside the bedcovers.

Perhaps because I was the only child in the ward, he came directly to my bed and extended his hand for me to kiss his ring. Press photographers followed, taking pictures that would be included in the following day’s papers.

A photograph from one shows his thumb making the sign of the cross on my forehead. My feet are clearly visible, deformed and obviously in spasm and my newly grown hair is sticking up. What the photographs do not show is the sudden, vivid memory I had, when his ringed hand touched
my skin, of the day six years before when my uncle’s car halted with a jerk at the door of the school and the hands of Mother Paul, white against the blackness of her habit, beckoned me slowly into her care.

Shortly afterwards, on 25 April 1962, I was discharged from there. After many enquiries from doctors on my behalf the only medical records I have been able to obtain are three single pages. On the two of them that give details of surgery the column for ‘Next-of-kin or Responsible person’ has been left blank. The section of the record referring to where I was discharged to reads: ‘—FD/SH Home’.

I was in fact sent to another hospital.

I was moved to St Mary’s Hospital Baldoyle also known as ‘The Little Willie Hospital’. The first thing I noticed on entering the hospital was a poster of ‘Little Willie’; a small boy, his legs in calipers and his body supported on crutches. The image of this child, who was a patient there, was used extensively to raise funds.

I was put into a ward where the other patients were all about the same age as I was. The hospital at Baldoyle was situated near the seafront close to the racecourse and when the weather was fine ‘walks’ were organized there. Because of my condition and the extent of my involuntary movement I had to be strapped into my wheelchair. I enjoyed these outings, especially when I was allowed to roll around on the grass. It reminded me that the thing I missed most about being unable to walk was the feel of cool grass under my bare feet. I was not used to sandy beaches and disliked the feel of sand, especially when it got anywhere near my toes.

Two things in particular pleased me about St Mary’s in Baldoyle; it had no operating theatre and there was an obvious absence of doctors. A consultant did visit the hospital once a month and anyone requiring surgery would
be transferred to another hospital. I was taken to the physiotherapy department every day where efforts were made to straighten out my legs. Often my spasms were so violent that the physiotherapist had to enlist the help of other people to help her hold my legs down. The discomfort I endured during this process was great and I often begged them to let me go. ‘Just another few seconds, it’s all for your own good,’ was the inevitable reply. This effort they put into trying to get me to walk was the worst aspect of my stay there. My legs had to be forcibly straightened, before iron calipers and heavy black boots could be put on me. I was then brought to the walking bars and made to stand between them and look at myself in a full-length mirror. All their efforts were pointless and eventually I was put into a wheelchair and given just the lightest of physiotherapy. Once a week I was allowed into the swimming pool where I was less tense and could feel my muscles relax. However, every time I was instructed to ‘kick’ I could not. I desperately wanted to but the more I willed my limbs to respond, the more difficult the task became. The frustration was so great that at times I cried.

While in this hospital, I was prepared for confirmation and brought to the local parish church where Archbishop John Charles McQuaid of Dublin confirmed me a ‘Soldier of Jesus Christ’. During the ceremony I paid more attention to the altar boys than to anything else. They were moving silently and elegantly around the altar just as I had done five or six years previously. Now I was seated in a wheelchair outside the altar rails, trying to restrain my legs from banging against its metal frame. I had not been in a church since I was admitted to hospital, now the smell of incense, the sounds of the organ and the Latin prayers I had so often responded to brought me back to Cappoquin. I remembered the day I tripped while carrying the missal and coming to in
the sacristy, having fainted during Mass. Unbelievably, Mother Paul’s voice sounded in my ear as though she was standing beside me. ‘You will never set foot inside the rails of an altar again.’ Her prophecy had become a reality.