For quite a few years now, the word “Becoming” has been popular in various creative endeavours. It’s been used in documentaries about Michelle Obama and Katharine Graham, a song by Pantera, an album by Stacey Barthe, a 2003 a book about Jane Austen (Becoming Jane Austen by Jon Hunter Spence) and a 2007 film about Jane Austen (Becoming Jane starring Anne Hathaway). You can see why people choose it; it sounds dynamic, the feeling of someone turning into what they were always meant to be.
Regrettably, surveying my life 18 months into my spinal operation, a title not so full of future promise comes to mind: “Becoming Sox”. Sox was the last pet I ever had, a lovely little tabby cat, who towards the end of his life took the sobriquet “Pillhead” because he was on so much medication to ease the various ailments which, when I glimpsed him from the corner of my eye, made me wonder why a striped tea towel had been thrown onto the sofa.
I kept him alive far longer than I should have done, because I loved him so and didn’t want to see him go. Sometimes I feel that I am becoming my husband’s very own Sox, indeed, his Pillhead, considering the long list of medications he is forever nipping out to the pharmacy for.
Most disabled people will report that there are good days and bad days, and I’ve just come through a particularly “bad patch” (love that English understatement) due to a combination of recurrent UTIs (the joy of an indwelling catheter) and a halt to my tottering practice (two pressure sores in a row on my feet making it impossible to wear my walking aids.)
I can tell it’s been a bad time because instead of greeting the day with the first light of dawn at 5am, getting straight onto my wheels and making strong black coffee in readiness for work, I’ve been pulling the duvet over my head and rotting in my pit until 7. Seven o’clock! For a “super-lark” like me, that’s indicative of an off-the-scale moral collapse. During this time, the Becoming Sox feeling has increased greatly; indeed, when I’ve said to my husband, “If you really loved me, you’d put a pillow over my face” he often says, “I can’t, because I want to keep you with me.” Which is exactly how I felt about my stripy little sweetheart.
It’s no joke being someone’s Pillhead when none of the pills ever really make you feel at home in your own body, but rather like a lonely tenant being menaced by goons. The husband of a dying woman in the brilliant Lionel Shriver novel I’m reading, So Much For That, reflects that past a certain point in illness, “no pain” becomes a foreign concept and only “less pain” is a possibility.
I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t fantasise about “easeful death” just a little bit; the problem is that none of the options are there. The doc doesn’t let me have sleeping pills anymore since I swallowed a load of tablets in one go shortly after leaving hospital last year (a few hours nap and woke up feeling fresh as a daisy – old drug tolerances die hard) and while I do have certain medications left in my repertoire which might induce torpor, what if I failed again and then I wasn’t allowed to have them either? I’d end up on a spoonful of Calpol twice a day!
There’s a balcony I could throw myself off – but what if I didn’t die, and ended up not being able to move my hands, and I couldn’t work? Then I’d really feel suicidal.
“And another thing,” my medical friend reminded me with some relish, “if you DO try that stunt again, and if you fail again, it’s very likely they’ll put you in” – and here she mentioned the name of a psychiatric hospital which strikes fear into the otherwise frivolous hearts of those who reside in Brighton and Hove. “You certainly won’t be having a good time THERE; it makes the Royal Sussex look like the Savoy.”
Trudging onwards through this mortal coil was seemingly more attractive by the minute. But what has really turned me around is my faith. This kind of carry-on would be all very well from an atheist, but how can a Believer be in favour of attempting to take the decision to end their life out of the hands of the One who gave them that life? The best I can do is look on the bright side, which is that I’m home (I really like my flat) and that I can work (I really love to write). I know able-bodied people who live lives of complete leisure and never stop moaning; I can’t envisage a time that I’ll ever be like them and often, knowing what you don’t want to be can help you – yes! – in “becoming” what you want to be.
It’s funny how life turns out, though. When I was a little girl and read Valley of the Dolls. I know it’s awful, but a part of me thought that it would be thrillingly glamorous to live on a cocktail of Nembutal, Seconal and diet pills. It’s not quite as dramatic to be reliant on Senna, Laxido and Anusol. Unlike Anne, Neely and Jennifer, I don’t have some showbiz-adjacent Doctor Feelgood to write me scripts for any high-falutin’ pharmaceutical I may fancy.
But I do have faith, and for me, that’s more than enough to be going on with.
If you are struggling, Samaritans can be contacted for free 24 hours a day, seven days a week, on 116 123.
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