It’s What Killed Michael Jackson

As I lay on the hospital operating table I was trying not to think too much about what was about to be done to me. I tried to occupy my mind with thoughts of how times have changed, especially in the world of medicine. How little did I know, that at some point in the following hour I would die.

At the age of fifty nine my father passed away. Fifty nine is not too old, but at that time I saw my father as old, very old. Here's a sobering thought. I am now almost ten years older than my father was when he passed away. Yesterday I spent the day climbing a Japanese mountain !

I am not as fast climbing as I used to be and my wife, who was with me, was worried about me. She's twenty years younger than me, and I still got to the top before her ! Then again, I didn't spend four of the best years of my life in a prisoner of war camp, as my father had to.

I don't know what it is about me and mountains, but I seem to have spent an inordinate amount of my life climbing them. Not always were they earth or rock mountains. Indeed, the vast majority have been mountains of shit in my personal life. But whichever kind of mountain, I always get to the top.

This last twelve months have been somewhat eventful to say the least. A lot of it to do with health matters. Cataract operations, heart operation, PMR/GCA, plus the loss of my work as a teacher and as a musician and live performer. Thank the lord, or whoever, I am now in recovery and doing ok.

I think one of the things that helps me to keep going is my black sense of humour, which I got from my mother. Many was the time, when things were not going well for her, she would say something like "Thank god for my bad luck, if it wasn't for that I wouldn't have any luck at all."

Other things my inspirational mother used to say were things like, "A good soldier never looks back." to which I would reply "Yes mother, and that's how I keep getting my arse kicked."

Another gem she used to trundle out was "Hard work never killed anybody." I wasted no time in pointing out to her that the cemetery was full to bursting with the corpses of those who had died from working too bloody hard.

I think this dark humour in the face of adversity is an Irish thing to be honest. One of my favourite Irishmen was Spike Milligan. Spike once said "I fell off my bike, thank god the pavement was there to break my fall."

When I was having my heart operation I had an intravenous drip connected to the back of my hand, I asked the nurse, what was being dripped into my veins.

"It's the same thing that killed Michael Jackson." She told me. "Not quite as high a dose, but it's what saw him off all the same" I roared out laughing. I swear that nurse must have been Irish, or at the very least she had some Irish in her blood.

At one point during the operation my heart stopped beating and I effectively died. Fortunately, I was brought back to life and remember nothing at all about what had happened. I'm philosophical about it in a very matter of fact kind of way. Shit happens, and believe me I know plenty about shit happening. My final thought on the matter was, and still is, if you are going to kill me, at least have the sense of decency to send me off to heaven with a laugh and a smile. Above all I want to die a happy and healthy man. The last thing I want in this life is to die as ill and miserable as sin itself.