Deep Thoughts, But No Words

In the mid 1950's James Westwood, a young father from Alloa, in Central Scotland,  left his wife and three year old son, and set sail on assignment with a merchant shipping company. Thousands of miles from home, on the Atlantic ocean, he fell seriously ill. It would be three days until his ship reached inhabited land, with a resident Doctor.

On the 1st of May 2012 at shortly after 10am in the morning, the man's granddaughter, me, a young nurse serving at an orphanage in Haiti's Kenscoff suddenly felt unwell. Over the afternoon, I developed a set of vague symptoms; a migraine, slight discomfort in my upper abdomen, along with nausea  and lightheadedness. By 10pm that night, the pain had moved to my lower abdomen. I spiked a fever and began vomiting. A busy orphanage schedule, and torrential rain prevented me from receiving medical treatment urgently. Three days after the pain started, the grand-daughter was admitted to a Port-au-Prince hospital.

Details of James' condition at the time of surgery are scant, but I, having developed a severe intra-abdominal infection, was suffering from peritonitis. I had been in septic shock for 24 hours when I underwent surgery for removal of a perforated appendix.

James Westwood died shortly after his surgery. He was 29 years old. He died, and I survived and I am somewhat awestruck, and humbled beyond belief, thinking deep thoughts that over the next few days, I will try to put into words. Somehow.