Sleep evades me. For three whole weeks this has been my dilemma.
I’m twenty-eight years old and he has always been here. To clarify – ‘he’ is the man of my dreams, and yes, he only exists in my dreams.
For the most part this statement is true. Only once in my life was there an exception to this rule, and that was the first time I had come into contact with him.
I shudder as the memory of my first meeting floods back. Again, to clarify, it’s not that meeting him repulsed me, quite the opposite in fact. I was eight years old, and my most vivid memory of that night was the pain that wrecked my body. It was a burning, searing type of pain which caused me to convulse.
“Keep still”, my mother had whispered. “The nice doctor will make the pain go away, I promise” – and, he had. I’ve no recollection as to how he made it happen. I only know that when I awoke in my hospital bed, it was so.
The only evidence of my illness is a crescent moon shaped scar on my right arm. I’ve often examined the scar, wondering tirelessly how it came to be there in the first place, but the truth evades me.
As I got older, I had questioned my mother, but she would not be drawn. Then, on her deathbed while she hallucinated, she whispered to me – “The scar was the kiss of life. It’s the reason you never get sick, the reason Elizabeth Rose, you shall never die. I couldn’t let you die.” Then she was gone.
So here I lie at 4.30 in the morning, tangled, twisted and torn, suffering from sleep deprivation, and still there are no answers. The man of my dreams has visited me for 20 years, and all of a sudden, with no explanation, he’s gone.
I call him the man of my dreams because I don’t know his name and he has never once offered it up. One thing I am certain of though, he is the doctor who made the pain go away. I’m drawn to him pretty much like a moth to a flame. I am totally and irrevocably in love with him. He is the centre of my universe, the reason I live and breathe and without him I am nothing.
The man of my dreams has shaped my life. He is the reason I became a pain doctor. That one life-changing experience at the tender age of eight is the reason I dedicated my life to making the pain go away for others. Unlike my heroic doctor, whilst I have the ability to make immediate pain go away, my treatment doesn’t last. My patients return for pain relief on a daily basis, for them there has never been life-long release from their suffering. This is why the man of my dreams, my doctor, is unique. When he took the pain away, it stayed away for life.
I’ve often wondered how I would react if one day he came back to see me. In my dreams he is just not my doctor, he is the man who loves and adores me as much as I do him. The man of my dreams has spent the last 20 years watching over me – protecting me from harm.
Never once have I questioned his presence. I’ve been content in my own private little world – happy, to be left alone, with the man of my dreams. Happy, that was, until three weeks ago, when he disappeared from my life. Three long, arduous weeks, during which I have not slept or even eaten and during which I have been able to come up with no logical explanation for his absence.
I smile now. There is nothing logical about a man who only visits you after dark and then not even in the flesh! I close my eyes, willing myself to sleep, but nothing.
Sitting up in bed, I shout into the darkness of my room. “Where are you? Why have you left me? Have I done something wrong?”
No-one answers.
I stare at the clock – 5.00 am. Giving up all thoughts of sleep, I toss the covers aside and wander downstairs to the kitchen. Sleep is needed, and so drastic measures are called for. For me, drastic measures come in the form of hot chocolate and Nytol.
Back upstairs in my bedroom, I pull the covers right up over my ears and wait for the herbal remedy to send me off to slumber-land ....... eventually, it works.
As sleep claims me, I search in the deep recesses of my mind for the man of my dreams, but he’s no-where to be found.
Morning dawns all too soon. The sound of my alarm pierces the silence of my room. I pull the covers over my head wishing it would go away.
It takes all of my willpower to drag myself out of bed. I stand in the bathroom staring at my reflection. God I look like something dragged from beyond the grave. Is it natural to look as pale as I do? My skin is almost transparent and my eyes are sunk deep in my head. A shed load of make-up will be required if I’m not to scare my patients.
Coffee ...... loads of caffeine, that’s what’s needed.
I glance out of the bedroom window. It’s winter in Ireland – typical wet, windy, miserable weather – a trouser suit is required for sure. Anyway, I’m in theatre most of the day, so I’ll be changing into greens, hardly matters what I wear.
I drink enough coffee to sink a battleship and I’m good to go. My dilemma is put to one side as my working day takes over my mind.
Cork General Hospital looms up ahead. I’m on auto pilot now. My car negotiates its way through the car park and soon I’m breezing through the doors of the hospital and into my other world.
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