I was lying in bed. I was in hospital. It had all happened so suddenly. X-rays on the Thursday, called back to the hospital on the Friday for many more. Being told to wait whilst the Consultant was called and then him telling me I was lucky to be alive. Could this be happening to me? Yes, sadly it was. I had been telling my doctors something was wrong. They had been treating me for "nerves" for a few years. I had collapsed at work and my boss had taken me straight to my doctors' surgery. As it happened there was a new lady doctor who was there on a temporary basis. She actually listened to me and she was the first one to suggest an X-ray. My regular doctors had never thought of that!
So on the Friday the Consultant gave me the bad news. The following Monday I was admitted to hospital. They put me in a little side room on my own. My parents were with me as I was unpacking my things. The Consultant arrived with his Houseman. They wanted to talk to me. They had been studying my X-rays and discussing me. Their first idea of using plastic bone in my cervical spine, would not work they had decided. They had come to tell me I would have two operations, one to remove bone from my hip and the second to insert that bone into my neck in the hope that it would grow naturally and fuse with the other bones. I had been walking around with a broken neck. I was told that there were risks, that I could wake up paralysed or with some impaired movement. There was a slim chance I might not wake up at all. Afterwards, all being well, I would have to wear a brace for four months and, when it was removed, I would have to have intensive physiotherapy. I was numb with shock. My parents were numb with shock.
I went to the window and stared out at the hospital grounds and the car park. A feeling came over me that this was the end. I was not going to make it. I told my parents there were some letters I wanted to write and asked them to go and get themselves a cup of tea. I wrote to several friends saying my farewells. I made a list of how I wanted my belongings to be disposed of. When my parents came back I handed them the letters and the list, I hugged them both and told them I loved them. They were distraught at my behaviour. They were in tears. I was in tears They agreed to abide by my wishes.
Eventually they had to leave. I watched them depart from my window. I looked at the late sun, drinking in the glow, the warmth and thinking how sad I would never be able to enjoy it again. Night fell. I had my nightcap - what I wanted most, a last cup of tea. The nurse came and asked me if I wanted a sleeping pill in order to get through the night. I told her no, this was my last night on earth and although I could do little but lay and watch the sky, that is what I wanted to do. She argued with me. I was adamant. I told her my reasons. She hurried away.
Dark. The other patients were sleeping. I lay watching the stars out of my window, really appreciating just how beautiful they are. All was silent. My door was open. The corridor lights had been dimmed for the sake of the patients. There was only just enough illumination for the night staff to go about their business. How long before morning? At that moment I had never felt more alive and never more awake. With the light of the moon and the stars and, peering very hard, I was just about able to make out the time on the travel clock I had brought in. Two minutes to one. I lay back on the pillow once more turning my head to the stars.
Suddenly it was as if all the lights in the hospital had been put on, such a brightness and it annoyed me. I could no longer see from the window properly. I thought of the other patients being awoken. I decided it must be a medical emergency and they had been forced to turn the lights full on. I turned to the door. I could not see the corridor at all, only this ultra-bright light.
Out of the light there suddenly appeared a Nun. She wore the same habit as in the picture above except that it was all white. No black. She also wore a heavy gold cruxifix. She walked to the end of my bed and stood there. She smiled. I was flummoxed. I am not Catholic. Why was she here and more importantly, why was she here at this late hour? There must be a mistake. She had come to the wrong room. Thoughts of Last Rites ran through my mind but then I decided only a priest could undertake those.
The light had dimmed once again in the corridor and all had returned to normal. The brightness had left the corridor but seemed to surround her but to a lesser degree. She stood at the end of the bed, both hands on the iron rail of the bed end. She smiled. I spoke. "I am sorry, Sister, but I think you have the wrong room, I am not Catholic". She smiled but did not move. "Sister, I did not send for you, I think there has been a mistake." She still smiled. I studied her for a few seconds whilst trying to think what to say next. She was not a young woman, somewhere about her fifties I would say. She was on the plump side, whilst not fat. She had the most beautiful eyes, I still cannot describe them. They were just beautiful. She smiled. I could not help it - I smiled back.
As soon as I smiled she turned and walked across the rest of the small room - and out through the window!! How could she do that? I could feel the hair on my neck stand on end. How could she walk through solid glass and metal frame. Not only that, I was on the second floor, a good twenty feet above the ground. I jumped out of bed and raced to the window. Had she fallen? No, nothing was below. Plain concrete. I scanned all around. No Nun, in fact nobody at all. Just the dim glow of lights from other wards, shadows from scattered trees and the moonlight and starlight.
The strange thing was, I was not scared. In fact, just the opposite. I suddenly felt so calm, so peaceful and with a certainty that I was going to come through, that everything was going to be alright. I climbed back into bed, lay facing the stars and fell into a deep sleep.
The following morning the nurses found me bright and chatty. Apprehensive about the surgery - yes, who would not be? A little afraid of it, yes, but nothing to how I had been the day before. They were amazed because it had been reported what I had said the night before and why I had refused sleeping tablets. They had expected to find me in a bad state.
The procedure went well . Several hours in the theatre and the skill and dedication of my surgeon had seen to that. Now it was only a matter of time. I had to lie flat on my back for the next seven days so eating was difficult. I was in terrible pain from the operation. Nevertheless ten days later I was allowed home provided I stayed in bed with the doctor and the nurse making daily visits. I was not to remove my brace and was to be very careful in all I did. My mother had picked me up in a taxi. I remember it so well because it was pouring with rain. My mother felt sorry it was raining for my homecoming. I told her I would never mind rain again because I was here and alive to see it.
After ten days in bed at home I was allowed to get up and sit in an armchair. They were gradually reducing my pain medication which, until then, had left me very groggy and half asleep all the time. In fact I slept most of the time. So it was not until about two weeks after my return home that I was able to fully talk to my mother. She sat in her armchair and I in mine. I had not forgotten my strange visitor. I decided to tell my mother.
Something strange happened to me the night before my operation I started to relate. She interrupted me. She asked me if I had seen something. I replied that I had. She did not ask what. She asked had it been around one a.m. I said yes, it would have been exactly round one a.m. Then we both blurted out we had seen a nun. Yes, my mother had seen one as well, at exactly the same time as me. She had been unable to go to bed, so distressed at the letters I had written and how I had told both my parents I would not see them again. She decided to sit up all night as she knew sleep would elude her. She had the radio on softly, sitting in the light of just one small lamp and she was praying very hard. She noticed a bright light in the hall and then in the doorway of the room stood a nun, just smiling. Mum said she then knew herself that I would be alright and she was able to go to bed and sleep, knowing I was safe. She came to my chair and hugged me so hard. Neither of us could explain it.
A few months later my brace came off, I was x-rayed again. The bone had "taken". I had even been well enough, whilst still wearing the brace, to go on holiday which is where I got engaged to my beloved. I even managed to swim with the neck brace on. When it was removed and all tests done, the Consultant said he would now arrange for a course of intensive therapy to help me regain the movement in my neck. "What, you mean like this" I asked, turning my head completely right, then completely left, letting my head fall onto my chest and tilting it backwards. He was amazed. He asked if I had taken the brace off against his orders and been doing my own exercises. I told him definitely no. He was intrigued by it because this had not occured in a patient before. Fearing he would laugh, I told him about my strange visitor. He did not laugh. He said he had been told many strange things during his career and no longer closed his mind to anything. Well, he said, "I think your nun must have brought you a little miracle," He was a lovely man and a great surgeon who has since passed away.
It happened. It happened in 1970. I have never forgotten it. It is as clear in my mind now as it was then. I cannot explain it. I am not Catholic although my great-grandmother was. I was not asleep, I was alert and wide-awake. I had taken no medication.
Some of you reading this might be sceptical. I can only say that I have written the truth. Where she came from I do not know, who sent her - I do not know. I only know she gave me calmness of spirit, she gave me strength and she gave me healing. I thank the Lord she came to me that night. I thank the Lord that my mother was visited that night.
I still look at the stars. I think they are now more beautiful than ever.
