Norman Maclean - The Lepers Bell: The Autobiography of a Changeling

Monday 10 March 2008

The Crock-Pot, as my wife Peigi persists in calling this implement of gleaming stainless steel, has finally arrived at my door. Its really a slow-cooker out of Tesco in Oban, and I am about to christen it. A crock-pot for an old crock.

Three gigot chops, a whole onion, two carrots, garlic, one Oxo cube, salt and pepper. Everything ready. Looks simple enough. All I have to do is throw everything into the cooking pan, add two cupfuls of water umh, maybe three I have some macaroni handy, and the pasta, I had been warned, would suck up a lot of liquid.

Now, Norman, I lecture myself. Theres no need to get into a frenzy over the preparation of stew. Women all over the Highlands and Lowlands do this every day. Yes, and have been doing so throughout the ages. My late mother, Peigi Bheag, Wee Peggy, my various wives and girlfriends, all did this without thinking about it. That is the problem . I have to think about it. Seventy-one years of age, no womenfolk around, and none likely to be either in the immediate future. The shameful truth is: I have never cooked a meal in my entire life.

Firstly, I have to wash and slice the vegetables. This will take some time. A severed nerve in my right forearm has left three fingers of my right hand paralyzed. I know I wont be able to grip the knife firmly. For that matter, I was unable to sign my application for Attendance Allowance last week without using both hands. Not that the left hand is in much better nick. Since the operation last autumn for a broken humerus, when Dr Levi down in the Southern General Hospital had inserted pins in my upper left arm, I havent been able to raise my left arm above shoulder level. The little consultant confessed to me before I went into the operating theatre that he was having second thoughts about the complexity of the procedure after looking at the X-rays. Since then Ive had a hundred thoughts that I ought to have had the operation done in a BUPA hospital. It could be worse, he consoled me afterwards. Although the limb would never be as supple as it was, at least there would be no more pain. With a snout full of morphine, I had to agree with him.

The pain I felt when I took the drunken tumble into a wrought-iron gate was truly excruciating. I had been returning to my tiny studio flat in Lora Drive with a cargo of booze one Sunday evening last summer, when I felt dizzy and thought Id better take a rest on the steps of a path in the front garden of a neighbour. I never made it. As I pushed the gate open I fell with my arms extended through the vertical iron bars. A bone from my upper left arm was actually protruding from the skin. I felt it in my right arm too: a sharp, stabbing pain in the elbow.

A couple out walking their dog discovered me lying on my stomach on the wet pavement, both arms entwined in the gates bars. They promptly telephoned for an ambulance. The paramedics administered oxygen on the way to the Accident and Emergency department.

Unfortunately, there was an unprecedented press of patients waiting to go under the knife for hip, knee, foot and arm operations, so that I was confined to bed until a window presented itself. The harrowing ordeal over the next three weeks or so was compounded of morphine, co-codamol and bed rest. There had been perhaps too much of the latter. I developed bed sores. I lusted for tobacco. I was unable to read to pass the weary hours. I had no reading glasses on my person when I fell.

Eventually, the day of the operation dawned. Levi painted a line on my arm where he was going to make an incision. Somebody injected something in the back of my hand. In a short time I passed out.

When I came round, I experienced a warm, drowsy feeling of well-being. Despite having been warned that Id probably be sick after the general anaesthetic, I hoovered up the toast and Marmite I was offered. Later on, I enjoyed the first deep sleep Id had in months.

Unfortunately, my appetite severely diminished after that, and by the time I was discharged my weight was down to just over eight stones. For a person of my height I used to be a six-footer, though Ive shrunk with advancing years this weight loss was a source of worry. My fertile imagination projected all kinds of uninformed diagnoses : cancer, MS, motor-neurone disease.

I was at my GPs only last Friday and Im just over the ten-stone mark now.

Well? I said.

Well, honestly, Mr Maclean, Im delighted for you, Dr Russell said.

Hmmph, I snorted. I weighed around thirteen stone when I was boxing for the university.