I became very ill during the trip through North Africa —a stomach bug that commonly afflicted
tourists through these provinces. Unfortunately, I suffered with a severe case
of it, making the remainder of the tour extremely difficult although,
thankfully, we were near the end. As there were no other doctors or medical
facilities available to me, I had to join the sick line with the soldiers. The
only thing they could give me, however, and in the mistaken belief that it was
a ‘cure-all’, was a penicillin injection, administered with a frighteningly
thick needle.
Suffice to say, this had no effect and my condition continued to
worsen. Amazingly, I was able to get through the stage shows without incident.
I could hear my mother’s voice in my head saying “The show must go on,” and
could almost feel her hand on my shoulder blades as she gently pushed me toward
the stage. I recalled suffering through that excruciating earache as a child,
but still managing to please her as I smiled my way through the performance.
Thinking back, I don’t know how I managed to get through the
remainder of the tour and yet still perform every night. It was terrible. As
soon as my segment was over I’d discreetly run off the stage. The mind, I
think, is a very powerful thing. It’s as if my bowel would say ‘Look, we can’t
do anything right now—she’s on stage!’
The day before we were to leave for our next tour stop, a long bus
trip on the edge of the desert, the military doctor prescribed a sleeping
tablet. With the intention of getting a good, solid and restful night’s sleep
before we were due to leave, I took the proffered tablet and had almost nodded
off when Alistair appeared beside the bed. He said “I’ve got a tablet that will
make you feel better.” He handed me a glass of water with the tablet and waited
for me to pass the glass back. I thanked him and, before long, I was in a deep
slumber.
“We’re here. Can you wake up or do you want us to carry you
again?” It was Paul’s voice. I opened my eyes to see him smiling down at me.
Moving my head and awkwardly getting one arm out from under me, I saw that I
was lying across a narrow bus seat. As it had transpired, Alistair had given me
another sleeping pill without knowing that I’d already taken one. The following
morning, Alistair and Paul had bundled me onto the bus and I’d slept on—a total
of 12 hours, plus I’d managed to wipe out the entire desert trip.
I was so thin when I got back to England
Later that day, Dad visited and I told him that I was to have an
operation and asked if he knew what a colostomy involved. He didn’t, but said
he’d find the doctor and ask. The doctor told him that my bowel would be shut
off permanently and I would have a bag to collect the bile.
Once told, he said “No! You’re not doing that operation on my
daughter.” The doctor explained that I wasn’t responding and the bowel wasn’t
healing.
“No,” dad said again. “My daughter’s going to get better without
having a bag hanging from her side.”
The doctor sighed and said, “Well, we’ll move her from the
surgical ward then. I’m going on holidays tomorrow. We’ll put her into another
ward.”
It turned out that this was the best thing he could have done. In
his place, I had a marvelous Indian doctor who looked at alternative remedies.
In the end, it was a simple solution—a change of diet and a medicine that would
stay in my system while it healed. Before long, I had my strength back and was
able to step out into a cold, Autumn afternoon, feeling eternally grateful and
with a huge sense of freedom after what had seemed like an incarceration.
The illness would continue to dog me throughout my life but I was
never again grounded by it as long as I stuck to the Indian doctor’s
guidelines.
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