Fergus Finlay: Insane political moments kept me going through months of pain

Former US President Donald Trump. Thank goodness for politics. Not our politics this time, but throughout the entire period that I was awake, night after night, two huge psychodramas were playing out in the UK and the States.

It came at me out of the blue and was completely inexplicable. For a little while, I almost thought it was going to do me in. But it hasn’t.

It was early in April, and I suddenly woke up. When I looked at my watch, it was 4.20am. I was woozy for a minute — you know that way — wondering what had woken me up. It dawned on me slowly enough that I had a really severe pain in my leg, across the shin bone. When I tried to stand on it, I gave a little shriek of pain. But I couldn’t make myself comfortable lying down either.

It felt exactly as if someone had hit me on the leg — hard — with a hammer. And the feeling stayed with me for several days, until eventually I went down to my doctor. Although he thought it unlikely, he wanted me to go to the Emergency Department in the local hospital to get an ultrasound examination, to eliminate a possible blood clot in the leg. After the usual statutory several hours wait, they were able to tell me no blood clot, but I begged for an Xray, because I was certain there was a fracture in the leg.

But there wasn’t. As far as the trained eye and technology could see, there was absolutely nothing wrong with my leg. What I was getting — and I had real difficulty understanding this — was referred pain from my back. Eventually, after more weeks in every available queue, and with help I can never repay from friends, I had a series of MRIs on my back.

The summary of the report of the MRIs said: “Multilevel lumbar degenerative change as described, with associated spinal canal and foraminal stenosis, and with compression of multiple exiting and descending nerve roots.” 

I can’t explain what that means any more than to say that bulging discs in several parts of my back were compressing nerves to my leg. What caused the discs to bulge I have no idea. But mother of sweet divine the consequences of that bulging!

I can go no further without an apology. I regard myself as an empathetic person. If you’ve ever come to me in pain or fear, I hope I’ve been at the very least a good listener. 

Unless it was back pain you were talking about. If you were suffering back pain, you’ve probably seen my eyes glaze over, and that expression develop that tells you I want you to get over yourself. But never again

Mind you, I stopped telling people I had back pain, and started saying (truthfully) that I had nerve damage. Everyone’s eyes, I have discovered, glaze over when you talk about back pain!

Eventually, after begging and pleading with everyone I knew, I found myself in the hands of a spinal surgeon. I won’t tell you his name, but so far I regard him as a miracle worker. He recommended something called a caudal injection. I had to google it because I didn’t know what it meant — it’s an injection into the tail bone (there you are, I never knew I had a tail bone!).

The night after I had it I had a full night’s sleep, for the first time in over a month, and I’m now making slow and steady progress in the hands of a brilliant physiotherapist. I still haven’t fully recovered what little hand-eye coordination I used to have (watching me try to hit a golf ball would make you weep), but I’ll get there.

But that three months or so, from when it began to when it started to resolve, was revelatory. Not so much the pain and discomfort, more the transition. For weeks on end the only way I could get any rest was sitting in an armchair, leaning as far forward as possible, and trying to rest my head on a pillow on my knees. That way I would nod off for an hour or so, before waking with a jerk.

But night after night I saw the dawn break through my sitting room window at 5am. And it’s no way to be — it introduced me to that phrase “the dark night of the soul”. Little by little I convinced myself that I had made an awful leap — from what I see as jolly and productive late middle age right into helpless and incompetent old age. Almost, it seemed to me, overnight.

Lifesavers

Three things saved me. The first, and simply the best, was the woman I’m married to, who steadfastly refused to allow me to give in to myself, and simply carried me on her back.

The second was a friend whose name I’m not allowed to mention, because although he is a qualified (and as I discovered, very wise) psychotherapist, we met as friends and not professionally. He came to the house and we talked for a couple of hours. Well, I talked and he listened, probing gently now and again. I’m not sure I can even remember all the ramblings that came out of me, but I’ll be forever in his debt. Because after he left, I began to realise that what was happening was physical, nothing more, and that when it was treated there was no reason to believe I wouldn’t find purpose again.

What's your view on this issue?

You can tell us here

And then there was politics. Thank goodness for politics. Not our politics this time, but throughout the entire period that I was awake, night after night, two huge psychodramas were playing out in the UK and the States. Night after night it was possible, through the night, to watch immense political battles being waged on CNN (which on our side of the water only start getting interesting when Erin Burnett goes “out front” at midnight). And there’s the late night chat show hosts — Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers — whose acerbic take, especially on Donald Trump, has been an antidote to whatever ails you.

And when there wasn’t television, I had a string of podcasts to keep me going — The Rest is Politics, The News Agents, Rachel Maddows, and more. I stayed up right through the night of the British general election (never mind the pain, enjoy what’s happening to the Tories). And I watched every bit of the Biden/Trump debate (nobody could sleep after that) and the Republican Convention, albeit with a sinking feeling that if something didn’t change soon I could be witnessing a harbinger of the end of the world.

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.

But then, because I was awake anyway, I was able to follow Joe Biden’s gutsy but necessary decision to stand aside in real time, and I’ve been glued to the rise of Kamala Harris ever since. Now I have the dilemma that I can sleep normally again, but there’s a Democratic Convention to watch all this week.

Throughout my life I’ve always seen politics as central. But I’ve never regarded it as therapy. For the last couple of months though, watching Tories and Republicans slowly going insane has kept me sane. It’s also helped me to write, a privilege for which I am immensely grateful. And it has taught me one thing above all. There’s never a reason to lose hope.