Chapter 9 - The Ceiling Tile

Chapter Nine – The Ceiling Tile

In 2009, Drew found himself lying on a hospital trolley, staring at a cracked ceiling tile and wondering if it might be the last thing he would ever see.

It wasn't.

In this deeply personal chapter, he reflects on illness, recovery, second chances and the unexpected gift of what he now thinks of as bonus time.
A story about survival, gratitude and discovering that life can become richer when you realise it was never guaranteed in the first place.

This chapter includes reflections on serious illness and a heart attack.

Transcript

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Hello and welcome. Each week I'll be sharing stories. Stories drawn from real life. From people I've met and from the many moments I've witnessed. And sometimes they're remembered exactly as they were, on other occasions softened by time, but always brought to you with kindness and care. Welcome to Big Skies and Small Ponds. Chapter 9. The Ceiling Tile. Across so many of the stories we've shared, there are small moments which, when I've noticed them, have helped me change direction, or at least point out that I had a choice to make. But equally there are large moments which don't leave you much choice at all. A complete mental breakdown in 1997 was one of those. And I'm not ashamed to talk about my mental health. I think the stigma of such things deserves to be banished. And after all, I recovered, although not entirely. There are still the residual companions of anxiety, panic attacks, and depression. I've become quite adept at managing them. You find a way to live with them tucked away behind a curtain of functionality. A thin curtain, but one that suffices ninety-nine per cent of the time. I have the occasional blips, as I call them, and I can become more irritable and less focused on the positives. You know, you get angry for making mistakes. And these are things you'd usually laugh off or let go because you have to, you have to let go of the things you cannot control. And I know this is true because it was trying to take ownership of things beyond my control that led me to have the breakdown in the first place. Anyway, I survived. So the heart attack didn't suddenly force me to change paths. It did cause me, though, to pause, if you will, and prevent me from travelling the path I was wanting to follow. But it's a path I rejoined and still happily and heavily tread to this day. Well, until retirement, which draws ever nearer. But there are things I've done since that I might not have done before, but for that heart attack. Just before it happened, I'd spent a couple of days at Rick Stein's cooking school in Padstow. I had learned how to cook squid, amongst other things. The drive back from Cornwall to Nottinghamshire takes about five hours, and all the way home I was nursing what I thought was a really bad back. I put it down to sleeping in a strange bed for a couple of nights. I don't know about you, but I'm never quite as comfortable away from my own bed, unless I'm on a cruise ship. Anyway, I eventually arrived home to be welcomed by Mrs B and my two Weimaranas, Jake and Danny, long now since departed. They were lovely boys. The wild bananas, as we affectionately knew them, and their brother Sam. Anyway, they greeted me upon my return, and Mrs. B had prepared a lovely meal, boiled bacon and cabbage. It was a favourite, was being the operative word. It is one Mrs. Beer's banned, in case it caused, what is about to be described. So I had eaten what might have been my last supper, but the backache was still there. In fact, it was getting worse, much worse. So bad that I felt so ill that I collapsed. Mrs. B. called an ambulance. She was told that if we had dogs, they needed to be shut away. Even through my pain, I told her quite emphatically, you must not do that. If I was dying, and the thought had crossed my mind, I wanted no, I needed her and my dogs with me. The ambulance arrived, they hooked me up to their machines, and one of them said you're having a heart attack. Well that quite takes your breath away. Breath I was already struggling for. Blue lights flashing, I was taken to hospital, and then at some point I found myself alone, lying on a trolley, just staring at the ceiling. The nurse looking after me gave me something for the pain, and you do notice a little relief almost straight away. But then she leaned in and said quietly, You have a blood clot in your heart. We need to inject a clot busting drug. But you have to give us permission because there's a chance it could cause a stroke. It took all of a few seconds to do it. The nurse stepped back and I returned my gaze to the ceiling. One of the tiles was cracked. I stared at it and thought, I wonder if that cracked ceiling tile will be the last thing I ever see. It wasn't. And gradually, over six weeks or so, you begin to recover. Your energy levels are low. Emotionally, you're low too, but of course, you put on a brave face. After all, you're alive. Big skies and small ponds with Drew Baxter. When recovery finally came, something had changed. Small but significant, if that makes sense. Not in a way you'd notice from the outside, but quietly. A sense that time had been handed back, not guaranteed, not given, a kind of bonus. And perhaps because of that, I started saying yes to things. I booked tickets to my first ever Star Trek convention and found myself over time meeting people I'd only ever seen on a television or film screen. I auditioned for and then was cast and appeared in a professional musical. I took chances. I made choices, not because they were always sensible, but because they were there and because I was there. And of course, I got to see Polly arrive and then begin to grow. And that, more than anything, felt like this was time that mattered. I'm now in my seventeenth year of bonus time. As much as I've enjoyed my Star Trek conventions, later this year I'm taking Polly to a Stranger Things convention. Seeing her happy makes my heart sing. And I'm very aware that there was a moment when I might not have been here to see any of it at all. But as my great hero, Stephen Sontyne put it, I'm still here for the good times and the bum times, and for the chances you are given to tell a few good stories about your life and about the lives of others. If you've enjoyed what you've heard, then may I gently invite you to subscribe to the podcast and maybe even share this and future chapters. Bring your family and friends along, they'd be very welcome, as you will be, to the next time we meet and share the next chapter of Big Skies and Small Ponds. Until then, enjoy writing and living your own story.