Acts 9 v 39

I don’t really know how to describe what happened; there are important aspects of patient confidentiality but also unfathomable layers of physiology and pathology and spirituality.

The bullet points are everything and nothing.


Twice in January a persons heart stopped in front of me, a team gathered, shocks were given, they survived, they were taken to another hospital place to recover and then they went home.


Death then life.



Dusky bowel

Unblinking eyes

The flush of colour

The gasp of breath


When I slow down enough I get jolts similar to what I recognise is an element of PTSD- but instead of a stabs of fear and pain or sadness, it’s astonishment. 

A hyper-awareness of breath. 

My own. 

Others’. 

The colour of warm hands.

The capacity to be heard and understood.

The capacity to speak.


I don’t really know how to describe what happened.


We had lost two other people in December. And then there was M, who I last saw leaning over his hospital bed to put on his shoes.


Trying to figure out why good things happen is just as baffling as trying to figure out the bad things.


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