Trouble on Olympus

The twelve Greek gods who lived on Mount Olympus under the aegis of father Zeus, a serial rapist, must surely rank as both the most powerful and the most dysfunctional family in history, real or imagined. Constantly squabbling or worse, they were vain, jealous, self-absorbed, easily offended, short - tempered and vindictive both towards each other, their many illegitimate relatives and the mortals whose lives they affected. They used their extraordinary powers to protect their favourites and persecute those who offended them.

This polytheistic view of the divine as a warring family of gods has always seemed to me to explain human fortunes, good and bad, better than the tortuous theologies of our more familiar monotheisms. Kenneth Grahame seems to have shared this view, at least in part, as witnessed by the strange chapter 'The Piper at the Gates of Dawn', which contains a mystical vision of the demi-god Pan rescuing Otter's infant son Portly.

Odysseus was advised, aided and finally actively supported by Zeus' daughter Athena. But when he blinded the one-eyed giant Polyphemus, he made a bitter enemy of Zeus' brother Poseidon, the lord of the oceans, who happened to be Polyphemus' father. Given that Odysseus was trying to get home by sea this was a spectacularly bad choice of god to offend. Poseidon used storms and shipwrecks to delay Odysseus, right up to the point at which he reaches Ithaca, only to have Poseidon destroy his ships and blow his raft away to the island ruled by the witch Circe, where he was stuck for a year. Not to mention Poseidon's trident, which as you see from the picture above was not for use as a toothpick. Not a guy to mess with.

I don't know which of the Big Twelve on Olympus has got it in for me, but I am beginning to feel like Odysseus, thrown up on the shores of yet another island when seemingly close to home.

Having been out of hospital for about three weeks I was feeling fine until a restless night with some bouts of nausea. We had a dinner date with some friends in London the next evening so booked ourselves into a hotel for the night. When we got to the hotel in the afternoon I felt weak and very tired, so we rang the hospital hotline. They told us to get me seen asap.

We went to a private walk-in clinic for a diagnosis and within half an hour I was in the back of an ambulance once more, this time with a bottle of oxygen and on the way to the nearest A&E, which was at St Mary's in Paddington. I went straight in without delay, got an ECG and cannulas fitted, was put on a drip and then wheeled up to the Intensive Care Unit. My blood pressure was low, blood oxygen level very low and the risk was sepsis which could lead to organ failure, so they were not taking it lightly. The ICU had a special device which feeds a very rich mix of 90% oxygen right into the lungs at quite high pressure and hooked me up on that to keep the organs working. The doctors analysed everything going in and coming out of me to try to work out what was happening. This time, my old friend the infection indicator CRP had hit 400. Not good.

Odysseus stayed on Circe's island for a year, but I only had five days in the ICU. Interestingly, Homer describes Circe as 'polypharmakos' - 'knowing many drugs'. At first she used her knowledge to turn Odysseus' men into pigs, but Odysseus got some helpful advice from Hermes about how to handle her, and in time the two of them got on rather well. She ended up turning his crew back into men and helping them all get back on their journey. In the ICU I was surrounded by drug connoisseurs of various kinds, and just as well. Just as Odysseus settled down with Circe, I began to actually enjoy my time in the ICU. It was effectively a private ward, sealed off with double doors to avoid infection getting in or out, with my own nurse 24/7. The main problem was the fact that I was tied down like Gulliver in Lilliput with wires or tubes coming out of every limb, so I could barely move. The other problem was the food. I decided to more or less live off porridge for a while, supplemented by goodies supplied by my numerous kind visitors.

After a few days, the CRP went down, and I no longer needed rich, high pressure oxygen, so I was moved to another ward for patients with general respiratory problems. On arrival I had a chat with a clever infectious diseases specialist who was certainly polypharmakos, and she told me she was pretty sure the trouble maker was not PCP or Poseidon but something called pneumococcus, a strain of pneumonia belonging to the well-known streptococcus family of ill-repute. This little bugger is in the air all around us and we all carry it, usually to no effect. However, if our immune system is compromised it can go rogue, growing uncontrollably and leading to sepsis. So my polypharmakos friend was going to get my mix of anti-biotics changed to go after pneumococcus in particular. I thought this was a much better idea than being turned into a pig.

So that is what they did, and we watched the markers, from the heart rate to blood oxygen levels gradually improve. The care provided was still intensive in many ways. I saw every polypharmakos doctor, registrar and consultant I could imagine, from medical tribes ranging from respiratory, infectious diseases, lung, cardiology, dietary, physiology through to the ones actually called pharmacists. In the end they concluded that they had dealt with the trouble-makers they could identify and there was more chance of my picking up new infections in hospital than at home, so they gave a me a few extra tablets and let me go.

So I am now at home keeping my head down and re-building some strength, which will take some time. The only people not directly involved in this, my longest ever hospital stay, were the oncologists at my home base, the Marsden. All this trouble has been about secondary infections caused by bugs I am already carrying which have become a problem because of my compromised immune system. There are no signs that the lymphoma is reactivating but we cannot be sure until the next PET scan and a consultation at the end of the month.

In the meantime I remain grateful for the efforts of all those who are polypharmakos and am hoping that Athena can keep her uncle's temper under control so that I have calm seas and a smooth landfall.