Surgical success so far

After I'd finished writing last night, I scanned my Twitter account before turning in, and found the first chilling report of the German Wings Airbus 320 black box voice record, indicating that one of the pilots had been locked out of the cockpit as the descent of the aircraft began. So unless the pilot locked in way unconscious or incapacitated, the crash was due to malicious intent. But what sort of malice? I fretted as I tried to sleep, thinking about the ramifications of discovering that the pilot was a secret jihadi, much more far reaching than if he was a loner, minded to do evil. What would morning bring? 

Well, morning meant another early rise and a trip to Llandough Hospital with Clare by seven for her shoulder repair job. I learned from the seven o'clock TV news as we arrived at the surgical unit reception area, that the pilot who locked himself in the cockpit  and caused the death of 149 others as well as his own, was a young German. It was a terrible kind of relief. It could have been even worse than it already is, if he'd been a non European or had an Arabic name. There'll be a lot more to come out regarding his motives in due course, and much breast beating. How could no-one have noticed his state of mind? etc etc.

For Clare it was third time lucky. Infection free, and no urgent jobs to push her back down the list, so we parted company just after eight. I recognised her surgeon Alex Roberts entering as I was leaving. I doubt if he recognised me, but I was pleased to know he'd arrived to get on with the job that his team were preparing for him to do and I wished him a good day in my heart. I killed time, going home, having lunch, returning to the hospital to check when I couldn't get through on the phone. By one she was out of theater and in the recovery ward, so I went for a drive to kill time until she was ready to go home, and by five I was cooking her a post-op meal.

Learning to cope with many routine everyday tasks with one shoulder bound up and an arm bound in a protective sling is all going to take her a good deal of time to get used to. There are all sorts of tasks I can do, but many essential ones which she must master left handed to be able to support herself and her recovery as best as possible.  By bed time she was already commenting critically on the clarity of the instruction leaflet provided by the surgical time. She's good at making better sense of things, so I imagine a re-write will be offered to them in appreciation of their excellent care.

The surgeon declared that her shoulder internally was 'a right mess', but that he'd been able to effect all the repairs he'd intended to carry out. She and he agreed that in the end it was a very good thing she'd persisted with the operation, even at a later stage than desirable for best effect. As Clare is pretty fit, recovery and rehabilitation, although demanding on her should be fairly straightforward. Altogether, well worth the risk. 

Before keyhole surgical technology, an operation like this would have had far more impact, and involved a week if not longer stay in hospital. To be in an out in half a day, able to recover in the comfort and security of one's own home is an amazing kind of progress. Yesterday I was listening to a radio programme about health service statistics, attempting to explain how the NHS got so much more done with fewer beds, and despite complaints about empty and closed wards which seem to beset the service in some places, the fact that in some areas beds are averagely occupied more than 100% a day. It's not damned lies type statistics, but an abstraction of the reality into numbers. There will be surgery days, when two patients will have keyhole procedures and recover using the same bed within the 24 hour defined period, so efficient is the use of resources. 

You only realise how impressive it is when you have the direct experience for yourself.

   

A coincidence, a funeral and a tragedy

I celebrated the Eucharist at St James' Taff's Well this morning. We used the Church in Wales 1984 Prayer Book readings for Passion Sunday, which included the passage from 2 Corinthians 4 which begins  

"For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake." (2 Cor 4:5)

What a co-incidence! The first time I ever preached at St James, I was a student at St Michael's in 1968. This chapter was the second lesson at Evensong, and this was the text I quoted to begin my journey as a preacher. I enjoyed telling this to the congregation of nearly a dozen. I kept the sermon in my box of type-written texts for many years, until Clare was on a clearance mission prior to having loft insulation installed. I looked at some of my efforts, and found them rather embarrassing to read twenty odd years down the line. As by that time I'd started storing digital texts, I ditched all of them. But I do recall seeing the paper version of my first one, although not its content. Perhaps just as well. 

I returned home for lunch and was then picked up and delivered to St David's Ely to officiate at a funeral. One of West Cardiff's West Indian matriarchs had died, a grand lady from St Kitts, and the church was full, by her own daughter's reckoning, half of them were her descendents. She was buried in an American style casket, quite unusual for these parts in my experience. After the committal to a grave in Western Cemetery, a crew of mostly West Indian men got out their shovels and spades and filled in the grave in customary manner. As someone observed, the older rather than the younger men performed this ritual. I wondered why, but felt unable to ask.

News of the German Wings Airbus 320 crash with loss of 150 lives in the French Alps Maritime had just started to arrive before lunch. My funeral chauffeur used to be a commercial pilot, and so it was natural to discuss this en route. He agreed with media experts on how safe Airbuses are to fly, and how if need be, they can fly up to two hundred miles from altitude, gliding with little or no engine power by virtue of their design. In the absence of an explosion or decompression taking out the pilots, such a rapid descent would be hard to explain - unless it was a suicidal pilot act - he said grimly. This has happened in the past. Until 'black boxes' are retrieved and decoded, nothing can be known. It's going to be a worrying wait for thousands in the travel industry, as well as travellers. The whole world needs to know what happened, and given the problems to be faced in retrieving the wreckage, this may take some time. Meanwhile, all we can do is pray for the victims and those left behind.