Berwick Thought for the Week: Lessons from a hospital ward

I must learn to relax, remember to drink lots of water and, since I’m hirsute (hairy), shave the bits that have sticky plasters applied afterwards (it makes a difference). Then there’s the discipline of taking daily pills and when tiredness comes, taking time to rest or sleep – even when I don’t want to.

Visiting hospital for treatment provides more learning opportunities. There’s a lot of sitting around for hours, plugged into machines administering the necessary medications (the staff are magnificent, by the way).

As I become a regular out-patient, appointments come and go and medications change. My diary keeps stock of it all.

Morale matters when handling natural worries. Will all this treatment ‘work’ at putting my cancer into remission? Will the side-effects worsen? Is the sudden tiredness or discomfort part of the illness, or the cure that slows it down?

Some questions can be answered, whilst others can’t.

I have to learn to live with uncertainty whilst keeping a positive outlook that’s realistic too. Glass half-full, or half-empty? Perhaps I should admire the fact that the glass exists at all.

In a pagan temple, Jesus encountered a sick man lying by the ‘healing pool’ hoping for a miracle and asked an apparently foolish question… ‘Do you want to be healed?’

The man was fixated on a solution for his problem that hadn’t ‘worked’ for decades, but encountered something different with Jesus.

Although ‘Healing’ takes many forms, I want to get back to doing the things I did before – but for now, do I have to learn instead, to just ‘be’, resting from day to day in the goodness of God? That would be the hardest lesson of all.

Chris Hudson is a Licenced Reader in the Benefice of Scremerson, Spittal and Tweedmouth, host of Holy Island’s ‘Lindisfarne Tales’ walking tour, an ex-primary school teacher and teacher-trainer, and author of over 20 books for teachers and pupils.