On Mortality (and Sandwiches)

Some of you may recall that a while ago I wrote about "My Beautiful Left Arm", reflecting upon the experience of being viewed objectively and medically, stripped of the various layers that protect my slender (or not so slender) dignity. All of this was in order to understand a hitherto unexplained weakness in my left arm. The upshot of which was  not, as I then suspected, a sports injury, but a rare inflammatory nerve condition, requiring and responding to treatment, that you do not want to read about, and frankly, I do not want to write about. Anyway, the symptoms of the condition, progressive weakness in the arm, of the kind I experienced, crudely mimic those of the much more serious, incurable and fatal, motor neurone disease.

So, prior to the outcomes of tests and a proper diagnosis, with the relief that follows. I spent a fortnight thinking there was a good chance I might die. Now obviously, I know that a black-sailed ship is seeking me, but frankly, I did not expect it to have an outboard motor.

It is perhaps a reasonable expectation, or at any rate a culturally warranted one, that an experience of this form should make you wiser. You should take the measure of your days, and so on. Of course, I did oscillate between a recognition of the inevitability of my own mortality and some form of resignation and an angry sense that I really had things to do and was not ready. I did, briefly, contemplate the manner of my death and determined that the approach taken by my late father who sought and benefited from medical treatment but died in a hospice with palliative care, was sensible and humane.

Now however, I must confess that for the entire 'death row' period I was much more occupied with the immediate annoyances and minor pleasures of work and life in general. I particularly recall walking back from Queen Square, where I had undergone some test or other, and was thinking distractedly about pain and lingering illness, when I recalled, as if the thoughts were concurrent, that I would be passing Pret a Manger, a favoured sandwich shop. Having had needles stuck in me was surely ample justification for an inordinately expensive tuna baguette or perhaps soup, or maybe soup -and- a baguette. Even at the time, and certainly on reflection, I am aware of the bizarre way in which the immediate possibility of a nice sandwich so easily ousted my thoughts on the prospect of death. I am wholly uncertain whether this reflects on my shallowness or whether the sandwich stands for something more profound. I am inclined to the view that it is just a sandwich.