In the Midst of Life

1953 AN UNNATURAL DEATH

It is rare to predict one’s own death, or to meet anyone who has done so. But occasionally it happens, and I knew such a lady.

Mrs Ratski was Latvian, born in the 1880s, and virtually her whole life had been lived under the shadow of military conflict. She was a simple peasant woman, and she was immensely strong, both physically and morally.

In 1941, the German armies marched into Latvia and brutally crushed the resistance. Her husband and four sons were forcibly drafted into the German army, and they all died except Slavek, her youngest child. Slavek survived because he was taken prisoner of war by the British. It was the luckiest day of his life. In England he was a free man, and he worked on a farm, which is where he met Karen. Slavek was a good-looking boy with wide blue eyes, blond curling hair, and an infectious joie de vivre that made everyone he met feel good. Karen was a Land Army girl, and the work was hard, the day long, and she was often exhausted at the end of it; but not too exhausted for assignations with Slavek.

After the war, in 1947, they married. He worked as a garage mechanic and she as a hairdresser, and between them they saved up enough money to put a deposit on a terrace cottage and take out a mortgage. They were proud and happy property owners, and they had two little daughters who were six and seven at the time this story begins.

One day Slavek received a letter from his sister Olga, in Latvia, saying that their mother had suddenly announced that she was going to die, and that she must see her only surviving son first. Accordingly, she had applied for a visa to leave the country.

Nothing more was heard for fourteen weeks and Slavek supposed that the whole thing had been forgotten. He had not reckoned with the resolution of a determined old lady! Alone, and with only a spare pair of boots and an extra shawl, Mrs Ratski had set out to walk across northern Europe, to reach the French coast, and find a boat that would take her over the channel to England.

This sounds a fanciful story, but at that time it was not. Millions of people trekked thousands of miles across the length and breadth of war-torn Europe, to reach a destination they thought might be home, or at least a haven from persecution and danger.

The first that Slavek knew about it was a policeman at the door, saying that his colleagues in Reading had received a phone message from the police in Dover, informing them that an old lady, who spoke no English, had been referred to them by the port authorities. Her only identification was a piece of paper that bore Slavek’s name and address. The old lady was his mother.

The following day, the police brought her to his house. The meeting between mother and son was deeply emotional. She clung to him and wept, and blessed him in the name of the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ and all the Saints in Heaven. ‘You are my only son left, my youngest, my fairest, my swan, my hope. To see you again has been my dearest wish. Now I will die happy.’ And she blessed him again.

‘But you can’t be dying. You are not ill!’ he protested.

‘No, but I am old, and I can see the figure of death, the Reaper. I hear the swish of his scythe that cuts down the old grass so that new may grow. It is the way of life. I am content now, and I ask God for nothing more than to die peacefully under my son’s roof.

Four days later Mrs Ratski developed acute intestinal obstruction. Suddenly, and unaccountably, a loop of bowel twisted on itself, a condition that, if untreated, is fatal. Slavek was the first up that morning, and found his mother in great pain on the sofa in the living room where she had been sleeping. She was leaning forwards, clutching her stomach, moaning and rocking herself. She looked up when he entered, and her face was grey with pain, her lips pressed back over her gums and her eyes dull. He went over to her and took her in his arms.

‘Oh, my son, my jewel! It has been a long night, but the morning brings my Slavek, praise be to God.’

Slavek felt himself panicking, and ran to the bottom of the stairs. ‘Karen,’ he called. ‘Come quickly. Something terrible’s happened.’

‘I must give my blessing to your wife and your children before I go,’ said the stricken old lady.

‘We must get the doctor,’ said Karen.

The doctor arrived and examined Mrs Ratski as best he could, but she was rigid and he could barely move her. He noted her pain and sweat and rapid pulse. Her temperature was very high. ‘I will give her an injection of morphine, and then I will order an ambulance to take her to hospital,’ he said.

I was a first-year student nurse at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading, when Mrs Ratski was admitted. The year was 1953 and I was eighteen years old. We had been told to prepare for a woman with an abdominal obstruction of unknown origin, possibly a perforation, and peritonitis. The ward sister told the staff nurse to take me with her and to instruct me in preparation for an emergency abdominal exploration.

We made ready a bed, a surgical trolley for the examination, an injection tray for drugs and infusions, a trolley for gastric intubation and suction, and a drip stand for glucose and saline infusion. Our patient arrived and the staff nurse took her temperature, which was high, and blood pressure, which was subnormal. Her pulse was thin and racing, and her skin was white and sweating. Her mouth and tongue were dry, her eyes glazed, and she was deeply asleep, breathing slowly – only about six to eight breaths per minute. Our patient was obviously in a state of shock. I was told to undress her.

Slavek was hovering in the background, so the staff nurse took a medical history from him. He did not know his mother’s age, but thought she was between seventy-five and eighty years old. He informed us that she had been a peasant, uneducated, and had worked on the land since she was about seven. She had married, and borne (he thought) nine children. ‘Had there been any miscarriages?’ He did not know. ‘Had she ever been ill?’ He thought not – at least, he had never been told of any illnesses. ‘Had she ever had an operation?’ He didn’t think so. ‘Was her husband with her?’ No, he had died many years ago.

I was still taking off all her black clothes, revealing an emaciated body. Staff nurse was a thoughtful girl, and remarked, ‘She looks half-starved, as though she has hardly had a good meal in her life. How did she come to be with you?’

Then Slavek told us the story of her astonishing lone journey across Europe to England. Staff nurse wrote it all up in the notes. ‘Amazing,’ she said, ‘hardly credible. But she is here, so she must have done it. Why did she come?’

‘She told my sister, Olga, that she was going to die, and that she must see me first.’ Slavek could scarcely get the words out, his voice catching as he choked back the tears.

‘Her dying wish, eh?’

‘I suppose so. She told me that she was happy to go now that she had seen me.’

Staff nurse was kind and optimistic. ‘Don’t worry. Your mother is in the right place. We can treat this sort of thing. She will soon be well again.’

‘Thank you so much. You are wonderful.’

The house surgeon arrived. He was very young, about twenty-four, and this was his first house job. Like me, he was nervous and a bit hesitant. He checked Mrs Ratski’s heart and lungs, looked into her eyes, ears and throat, and checked all her involuntary reflexes. He took blood for crossmatching, set up a glucose/saline drip, and put the gastric suction machine in readiness, but he did not insert the gastric tube. He examined the abdomen, which was hard and distended, and applied his stethoscope to listen for abdominal sounds. ‘Hmmm,’ he said, looking very wise, ‘I will call the registrar.’ With that, he left.

I was told to give the old lady a blanket bath, and to put a surgical gown on her. She was so thin, I thought she might break if I moved her. She could scarcely have weighed more than seven stone. Her distended abdomen, hard and shiny, contrasted strangely with the rest of her. I wondered what kind of life she had had back in Latvia.

The registrar came, accompanied by the houseman. The registrar was only about thirty, perhaps less, but five years’ experience in medicine can make a great deal of difference. There was no careful hesitation in him. He was quick, confident, and arrogant. He tapped the abdomen and listened.

‘What do you make of it?’ he demanded of his junior.

‘Well, em, I, er, could hear abdominal sounds.’

‘And what did you make of them?’

‘Well, I found, er …’

‘Can’t hear a damned thing that means anything. We’ll have to open it up to see what’s going on. Go and book theatre. Laparotomy, with exploration. Possible gastrectomy, resection, won’t know till we get in there. I’ll go and talk to Carter. See if he wants to do it, or if I should.’ They left.

Mr Carter, the consultant, arrived with an anaesthetist. He examined Mrs Ratski and read the notes. The anaesthetist was concerned about the patient’s emaciation and her state of shock. He ordered a gastric tube to be passed and suction to be commenced immediately. He commented that she would not need a pre-med, because she had had morphine. He said, ‘We must have a consent form, and she can’t sign it. Is there anyone here who can?’

‘Her son is with her,’ replied the staff nurse.

‘Get him to sign, will you, Staff?’

The two consultants left, and Staff took a consent form to Slavek. ‘Your mother must go to theatre for an abdominal exploration. Would you sign the consent form for her, please.’

‘Of course,’ said Slavek, and signed.

There had been no discussion with Slavek about his mother’s condition; no mention of what an exploratory laparotomy means, still less of what a gastrectomy or resection could entail, nor of the post-operative complications that can so easily arise in old people after major surgery. There had been no hint that perhaps the surgery could lead to a death more agonising, and certainly more prolonged, than the abdominal crisis that had occurred in the early hours of the morning. Neither the doctor nor the nurse discussed with Slavek his mother’s dying wishes, nor her certainty of her impending demise, her astonishing resolution to get to England to see him, and her acceptance of death once she had achieved this. No one asked him, quietly and sympathetically, if he could project what his mother might want. Whilst all the decisions were made about and around her, Mrs Ratski was in a deep, morphine-induced, sleep. But no one suggested waiting until she roused so that she could speak for herself.

That was when, at the age of eighteen, I started to contemplate death.