A Cockney's Journey

by Eddie Allen

  After another two trinitrate tablets, my heart rate understandably quickened, so the doctors decided I was having a heart attack. The next thing I remember was being rushed to the resuscitation room and pumped full of more drugs. I lay there, convinced I was going to die. My eyes were open, but I couldn’t see anything, only darkness. Now, what happened next can only be described as an out-of-body experience. I actually looked down on myself, noticing that there was someone else in the resuscitation room lying on a trolley next to me. Suddenly, I heard a girl’s voice scream to God, asking him angrily why he had taken her father from her.

  It was at this point that I realised my time hadn’t come yet and returned to my body. The next thing I remember is waking up on a bed in a rather crowded ward, my upper body covered in electronic leads attached to some sort of monitoring machine, with tubes sticking out of my arms and nose and my face covered with an oxygen mask. I looked around the ward, feeling shocked and distressed, my mind in turmoil. What the fuck had just happened to me? I actually felt like I had died and come back, however the reality was that I never. The pain in my chest was ever-present and just wouldn’t fuck off. My head buzzing and thumping, I could have quite easily given up and gone back to the dark void I came from, however I was made of sterner stuff. Never say die had always been my motto in life; along with the law of averages; if at first you don’t succeed try, try and try again, but never give up, never! I lay there, half asleep and half awake, in a daze; my body wanted to sleep but my brain wouldn’t let it. I needed answers to my thoughts; am I finished, or what and, most of all, what the hell was wrong with me? Incompetent doctors and a male nurse would answer those questions the following morning.

  After visiting time was over, Sue and the boys left me alone in a ward full of pensioners. Well, I was the youngest by thirty-plus bloody years. The ward smelt of old age and death, which I might hasten to add, depressed me even more.

  I was just dropping off to sleep when one of the night staff gently shook my shoulder.

  “It’s time for your tablets, and I must check your blood pressure,” she informed me. “You had a lucky escape, Eddie, at least you’re still here to count your blessings.” She smiled gently.

  “Lucky? In what way am I lucky?” I sighed.

  “Well, Eddie, not everyone survives a heart attack, you know,” she whispered while puffing up my pillows and gazing into my eyes as if looking to see if anyone’s at home.

  “Heart attack? What you talking about? I haven’t had a heart attack! There’s sod all wrong with my heart. There must be some sort of mistake,” I insisted.

  “Heart attack victims are often in denial for a while. The doctor will explain everything in the morning,” she assured me. She left my bedside to administer drugs to the old boy opposite. My eyes started to get heavy, the pain in my chest and back slowly getting blocked out by the morphine as I drifted off into a deep sleep…

  ***

  “Hello Eddie! Haven’t seen you in a while. What brings you here, my old friend?” the voice said cheerfully.

  “I’m looking for Candy, is she here?” I asked.

  “No, haven’t seen her for some time,” the voice reckoned.

  “She still comes here though, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes, Candy does and I should imagine she will pass by at some point on her travels,” the voice said confidently.

  “Can you tell her that I was looking for her, and tell her that I’m trying to find her.”

  “Of course,” the voice said. “The last time I saw her she spoke very highly of you, Eddie. She too has searched high and low for you, unfortunately your paths haven’t crossed yet, but I’m sure they will.”

  “I need to tell her I am sorry. I made a mistake many years ago. I let my head rule my heart and I am so, so sorry,” I said dejectedly.

  “Don’t worry. She knows and understands,” the voice assured me.

  “Even though you call me ‘old friend’, who are you?” I asked.

  “Ah, that would be telling, wouldn’t it, Eddie? Let’s just say I’ve got your best interests at heart and I will make sure you and Candy bump into each other and rekindle your love. However, this might take considerable time and planning, so it might not be during this mortal life,” the voice said. “Anyway Eddie, there is someone else here who wishes to speak to you. He’s over there, behind you.”

  I glanced over my shoulder to see a figure in the distance; his outstretched arm gesturing me over. “Who is it?” I asked.

  No response came my way. “Are you still with me?” I asked, nothing; not even a murmur. It was perfectly clear to me that the voice had gone.

  “Get over here, now!” another voice in the distance bellowed.

  “Why should I? Who the hell are you shouting at?” I said angrily.

  “If you don’t get your arse over here, I’ll come and fucking drag you over by your throat,” it screamed belligerently.

  I know that voice. Yes, it’s fucking him, the bastard.

  “Piss off! You can’t hurt me anymore; I’m nothing to do with you. It sickens me that I came from your evil loins,” I shouted at him.

  My father rushed over and grabbed my throat and punched me in the face. My nose split and started pouring with blood. He then kneed me in the stomach and, as I bent over in agony, his knee followed up into my face. My heart was thumping like mad, the fear had returned again. I fell to the floor, doubled up in agony.

  “Hope you fucking die, you bastard,” he screamed while he kicked me in the head.

  I felt this strange sensation, like someone was trying to pull something out of my body. I knew I had to wake up or I was done for. I used all my strength to pull myself back into the waking world. Whoever it was after me, was extremely strong and pulled me back, the battle lasted for ages. Just as I burst back into the waking world, I caught a glimpse of my assailant.

  Fucking hell.

  “Tyzak!” I screamed and jerked awake, shaking and sweating. I lay in the dark ward feeling sick, the pain in my chest had returned and my breathing was erratic and fast. Suddenly, a continuous bleeping sound filled the quiet ward. Two nurses came rushing over to my bedside, sighing with relief at the sight of my movements in the bed.

  “You OK, Eddie?” the blonde nurse asked.

  “Yeah, thanks, just had a nightmare that’s all. Sorry,” I said sheepishly. “My chest is killing me, though. Can I have some more tablets, please?”

  After taking my pills, I laid there till morning, too scared to go back to sleep. I wondered how the hell I was going to explain how a thirty-eight year old man had pissed himself during the night! Everyone had breakfast, except me; the sign nil-by-mouth really pissed me off. I was bloody starving. It was soon 9 a.m. and doctor’s round started. At the end of the ward, I could see three white-coated doctors and a guy in a black suit, who were accompanied by the ward sister; all five of them carried clipboards with their notes. While I waited for the doctors, my mind started asking questions again. Was Tyzak my father, or was my father Tyzak? And who the bloody hell is Terry? And why, after all these years, does Candy suddenly appear in my dreams to make me even unhappier. I know the mistake I made and that I’ll have to live with it, period.

  I was dragged from my thoughts by a very quiet low voice.

  “How are you feeling this morning, Eddie?” the doctor smiled.

  “Well, where shall I begin? My chest hurts and so does my back. My stomach thinks my throat’s been cut and my right leg is painful. I feel as if there’s something moving about my body, hurting strategic points as it travels around my system and to top it all I pissed myself last night.”

  “That was a bit graphic, Eddie!” the ward sister grinned.

  “I can understand your anger. It’s not nice when our bodies decide not to function properly,” Doctor Jackson said. He stood looking at my chart, scribbling down his recommendations on my treatment.

  “Well, Eddie, you’ve had a myocardial infarction and I suggest that you sh
ould have an echo-cardiogram so we can find out the extent of damage that your heart sustained during the attack,” he added.

  “Listen, Doc, I’m 38 and fit. Last week, for instance, I spent the whole week carrying cement bags on my shoulder up ladders three floors high. Now, I’m telling you I haven’t had a heart attack. It’s something else. I can feel something moving around my body, from my neck down to my legs, causing me grief.”

  “Play it my way first, Eddie. I want to do more tests on you so we can eliminate certain aspects,” Doctor Jackson said.

  Well, what could I say? He had me by the balls, so I reluctantly agreed to his demands. Over the next few days I had several blood tests and more bloody tablets. Three days! Three bloody days on nil-by-mouth. I could have eaten a bloody scabby horse I was so hungry! The next day my starvation was ended and, after lunch, I was wheeled down to have an echo-cardiogram. I lay on the bed next to a monitor screen, while Nurse Brown covered my chest in gel; she then started to move this object around my chest, which then sent images of my heart onto the screen.

  “Hmm, strange,” she said, slowly moving the sensor around my chest. “Nothing! Nothing to indicate that you’ve had a heart attack. In fact your heart is really strong, Eddie,” she said smiling. “This will keep you going for years, although there’s slight damage to your left ventricle, which could have been caused by a virus, but not a heart attack. The valve will repair itself after a while with constant exercise.”

  Afterwards, I was wheeled back to the ward, feeling totally confused with the whole situation. As I lay in bed, another nurse came over and informed me that after breakfast, well about mid-morning tomorrow, I had to do a fit test on a treadmill and a bike. My mind now started to think about Eltham United’s game on Sunday; this would be the first time in ten years that I actually missed a game. I used the ward’s pay phone and informed Antonio that he would be in charge of Sunday’s game. I then picked the team and gave him all the relevant information. The following morning, I went through the motions of the treadmill test and bike test, wired up to a rather complicated looking machine.

  “Nothing wrong with your heart, Eddie. In fact it’s in pretty good shape,” the nurse reckoned. Well, music to my ears, not that I didn’t know that anyway.

  When I left hospital I was told I couldn’t drive or even mow the lawn; the pain in my chest persisted and generally I felt like shit; the tablets Doctor Jackson prescribed had no effect whatsoever. It would be safe to say they made me worse. It was during this period that I finally realised Sue hated me, taking the piss out of me and calling me a hypochondriac. These attacks on me started to rub off on Daniel and Stephen and it wasn’t long before they started on me. The tablets and spray I was given created massive headaches. The only person who actually cared about me was my Edward, ‘love him’.

  Over the next two weeks, my condition deteriorated. I’ve never in my life felt so lifeless and tired all the time. I couldn’t even walk up the stairs without feeling like I was going to collapse. I didn’t know what was happening to me and I actually felt like I was slowly dying and nobody gave a fuck. My hand gestures at rubbing my chest were ridiculed by Sue and my two eldest sons. Two weeks before Eltham United’s cup final at the Valley, the team played their final league game at the Butterfly Club. Eltham were 3-0 up and cruising. I stood watching, but I didn’t even have the energy to shout or even cheer them on. Suddenly, I felt sick and dizzy and my feet were killing me. Roy ran into the clubhouse and brought me out a chair to sit on. While I sat there watching the match, I decided to take my trainers off to give my feet a rest. What happened next frightened the life out of me; both my feet blew up like massive balloons. I then threw up all over the side of the pitch. An ambulance was called and I found myself being rushed to Lewisham Hospital’s observation ward.

  It took nearly three days to drain the fluid from my heart and lungs. I’ll try and explain: the drugs I was on were for someone with a fucked heart, which mine wasn’t, and the tablets slowed my heart down so much it couldn’t pump the fluid around my body. Doctor Jackson came to visit me with a bunch of student doctors, declaring I now had fucking Dressler’s Syndrome. He went on to explain that it was rare and that he’s never come across it before. Well, if that’s the case, how the fuck did he know? He then went on to tell me that he was making arrangements with Guy’s Hospital so that I could have an angiogram and that I should stop taking the tablets. I then told him about the pains in my throat and chest. He reckoned it was my subconscious playing back the pain from the very first day it happened. What he said next made me so angry, I wanted to throttle him.

  “I’ve made you an appointment to see Doctor Evans in three weeks’ time. She’s a psychiatrist.”

  Fuck me, if I haven’t been through enough, I’ve now gotta see a bloody shrink. This is just not happening.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Over the next few months, Eltham United won the final at the valley 4-2, Daniel scoring two great goals; his second was screened on TV’s Thames Sport, which was one of the highlights of my life, seeing my son on the box. My health slowly, very slowly, started to improve; however I still had major pain in my chest and throat, so I decided to get a second opinion and made an appointment to see a specialist at Blackheath private hospital. You can imagine the shock I got when I entered his consulting room. Sitting looking at me was none other than Dr. Jackson. Well, I just turned round and walked straight out of the hospital, feeling completely frustrated and pissed off.

  During the closed season, my appointment from Guy’s arrived and it wasn’t long before I was on my way to the hospital. I arrived at Guy’s at around 7 a.m. and was promptly shown to my bed, where I waited to have my angiogram. After a couple of hours of consultations and blood tests, I was wheeled into theatre. If only I knew that what I was just about to go through was for nothing, I would have gone home. I lay there surrounded by this large rotating machine; there were doctors and nurses all around me. Monitors and screens picked up everything. I lay and watched this doctor make an incision with a scalpel into my main artery at the top of my right leg and then insert a probe with a camera attached to it; remarkable. I watched in amazement as the camera sent images back to the monitor, which recorded everything. I could feel the probe enter my heart, which caused slight palpitations. Then, as I was told, the doctor flushed my arteries and heart with warm liquid; from my balls to my heart I felt a tingling warm sensation.

  The machine continued to rotate, taking images from all angles of my chest. After they had finished, the doctor retrieved the probe and pushed down hard on the incision; after fifteen minutes or so my blood started to knit the wound. I was then taken back to the ward and told that it was imperative not to move a muscle for quite a few hours, otherwise I could bleed to death. So I lay there for hours like a statue, waiting for the doctor to come back with the results. In the ward with me were five other patients, all in their sixties and seventies. We just stared at each other, occasionally managing a slight smile, faces fraught with fear and uncertainty over the results.

  At around five o’clock, a group of doctors in white coats entered the ward. I remembered the tall guy; he came from Greece - Athens, actually. He was the one who performed my angiogram, really nice bloke and extremely clever. They went from bed to bed explaining to individual patients the outcome of their angiograms. The guy opposite to me was informed that he’d have to have triple heart surgery in the next few days. I’ll never forget his hauntingly shocked expression as the doctors started to explain the procedure to him. His ashen face trying to come to terms with his plight, his eyes told me he wasn’t listening to a word.

  “Will I live?” he asked nervously.

  “There’s a 50-50 chance of success; it’s a delicate and tricky operation,” the doctor said honestly. I was straining my ears, listening to the remainder of the conversation, when they turned round and strolled over to my bed. One of the doctors pulled the curtains around me; I looked at him, thinking why. They n
ever pulled the curtains on the other patients, so why me? Am I about to receive even more bad news than the rest of the patients?

  “Evening, Eddie, How you feeling?” the doctor asked.

  “Fine, I suppose. Still feel unwell; the pain in my chest and throat just won’t budge,” I answered apprehensively.

  “Well, the good news is there’s nothing wrong with your heart and all your arteries are normal. However, there is a foreign body in your blood. Now, first of all, Eddie, have you been in contact with pigeons over the last six months, or so?”

  “Yeah, the day all this happened to me. I vividly recall cutting both my hands while fitting doors in a tank room which was covered in pigeon crap,” I informed him.

  “Your blood test results show that you have contracted a bacterial infection caused by pigeon excrement. I’ll prescribe a course of antibiotics for you. Also, I am going to write to Lewisham Hospital recommending that you have a barium meal, followed by an endoscopy,” he said. After the doctor’s consultation the nurse informed me I could return home.

  Over the next few weeks, my relationship with Sue worsened; we were continually rowing over the silliest things. Her attitude towards me had changed dramatically, having my past thrown in my face at every opportunity. It was during these trying times that I buried myself into Eltham United Football Club. My only ambition now was to secure a new ground and push my dream forward. It was June 1994 when I got a break; I found a nice private ground to rent for the 94/95 season; the club was Castaways Sports in New Eltham. The place was in a serious state of disrepair, however, I loved the way the club was situated and spent a lot of my spare time repairing the dressing rooms and shower areas, at no cost to the club’s committee. What I didn’t know at the time was that it was on the verge of bankruptcy; owing back rent and other bills. The bar area in itself was horrendous. I don’t think the beer lines were cleaned once a month, let alone on a weekly basis; the glasses were filthy and hygiene never existed. Consequently, after games, the players, officials and supporters would go to the local boozer instead of staying.