Tag: NHS

This is the follow-up to My Fight for Truth — Part One, where I shared how a misdiagnosis and a botched procedure destroyed my lungs and the NHS refused to acknowledge it. This part is about the aftermath — and how Christ sustains me in it.

How Christ Sustains Me Through the Day-to-Day Aftermath.

Part One of “My Fight for Truth” ended with the damage already done. I had a simple blood test and a healthy pair of lungs, and with one misdiagnosis and one botched EBUS bronchoscopy, which is now a permanent disability.

My months of fighting for accountability and truth with the NHS complaints department was swept under the rug, signed by the NHS County executive.
The verdict was “no misdiagnosis, no malpractice.”
And there was nothing more I could legally do. My healthy lungs were destroyed, but they say, they did nothing wrong. It’s what they always say to every life the NHS destroy.

I had to accept their truth, the NHS had broken both my lungs, and the system had buried the real truth and changed their evidence to cover-up something that should stay in urban myths and horror movies. It should never have happened!

So, I tried to move forward. I had no choice. I needed to try and find a way to accept this and not give up completely and finish the job the NHS started.

The next month’s hit hard — the aftermath, the slow realisation and collapse into a new way of surviving physically alone, and the deeper truth I discovered in it all: Christ is still the One who carries me when my body and circumstances cannot.

Before the Lung Damage.

I must say at this point, I was already coping with the bad news that I have cervical multi-level disc degeneration and spinal fracturing, Nerve damage, bilateral tennis elbow, a history of bilateral Bell’s Palsy, diffused chronic back axial neck and shoulder,  and bilateral upper and lower limb pain, bilateral carpel tunnel syndrome, and degenerative osteoporosis. Because of all this,  I have lost three inches in height so far, I was 6ft 3 inches tall ten years ago and I was told after two years of pushing for MRI and CT scans it was caused by wear and tear.

At fourteen I worked as a scaffolders apprentice, at the weekend and holidays for one year, working above 100ft loading out for the scaffolders, walking on one nine-inch-wide scaffold board, at fourteen that was pretty hair-raising, but I loved the views. I went and passed my UK City and Guilds in advance carpentry and joinery and  four decades on site as a chippy, as we say in the UK. Also, five years building bridges and tunnels, this was when health and safety didn’t exist. I was a rescue diver, or shepherd as we were called, every weekend for roughly two decades. The trauma and orthopaedics specialist calmly told me that my work had caused all these life changing illnesses, and I was unlucky to get it all earlier in life than most people.

Living with the consequences, day after day.

The aftermath didn’t arrive all at once.
It unfolded over months — a quiet dismantling of normal life.

Breathing while lying flat became impossible.
The orthopaedic bed I had bought for my back pain — a substantial expense — was suddenly useless.
My large sofa  became the only place where sleep didn’t suffocate me.

I had an idea and ordered specialist foam from a company who made to measure pieces, basically they could make anything out of different specialty foams at any length, width, depth, and shape. After receiving my instructions, they created exactly what I needed to add to my large sofa, and to my exact measurements, curved where I needed, and the foam company in the UK covered them for me as well to be washable.
Eventually I had to move to a medical chair on wheels which was a considerable expense, so I could rest partly upright and move through the bungalow without collapsing. I used my feet and walking cane to row myself around my bungalow.

Practically, everything changed in my day-to-day survival.

Washing myself became impossible with showering, as it is situated in the bath area.

Cooking became exhausting and painful.

Standing became dangerous, even with a new walking cane.

Cleaning anything became unrealistic.

Bending down became a risk to my lungs.

My home slowly turned into a system of survival tools,

grabbers to reach clothes, utensils, or anything on the floor.

disposable trays, spoons, and utensils

wipes — boxes upon boxes — for washing myself, cleaning, surviving.

Disposable plates of every size I need, everything replaced with the disposable versions, everything I found I needed and could think of and purchase. I have it organised now, subscribed to everything disposable through the Amazon.uk website, it just turns up just before I run out.

I found pure rubber hot water bottles with fleece covers and kangaroo pouches, these are my feet and lung warmers, which help somehow.

My recycling bags that pile up because the “simple task” of sorting and taking out two weeks of recycling is now a military operation, especially due to my tap water being undrinkable, which if you’ve read this far, you know it caused my original symptoms of hypercalcemia, high creatinine, and kidney dysfunction. Not Cancer!

It’s not a lifestyle; it’s triage.
And every day requires discipline just to get through the basics.

But here’s the truth:
None of these things keep me going.
They only help me cope.
Christ is the One who keeps me alive.

Then the letter arrived — seven months after the damage.

Months passed after the NHS brushed everything under the carpet.
I had accepted their refusal to admit wrongdoing.
I had accepted that no solicitor would touch the case.
I had accepted that no newspaper wanted to publish anything negative against the local hospital.

I had accepted that this was my new life.

Then, in late November, a new letter dropped through the door.

Same executive.
Same signature.
Same verdict.

But this time, it claimed the months of repeated biopsy procedure and CT appointment letters I had received weren’t sent by the doctor who pressured me —
they were “automated.”
A system error.
Nothing personal.

And then the sentence that revealed everything:

“Other consultants have agreed with Dr Lok’s approach.”

This made me furious all over again. Dr Lok never met me in person, not once, he went on the SDEC staff gossip which could possibly been about a different patient, which Dr Lok admitted on the phone call I recorded., he never listened to my healthy lungs, but other consultants agreed with the approach of never doing a physical inspection on any  patient before ordering an extremely invasive procedure.

Of course, the NHS claimed others agreed with Dr Lok’s approach from his desk, never on the same day emergency unit ward.
That’s how institutions defend themselves.

The letter wasn’t about truth.
It wasn’t about answers.
It wasn’t about accountability.

It was about posturing — a defensive manoeuvre, a way to cover themselves again and rewrite history:

Ignoring the biopsy that proved there was no cancer or sarcoidosis.

Ignoring the fact that the EBUS bronchoscopy was unnecessary.

Ignoring that the junior registrar was not under supervision.

Ignoring my tap water tests, which proved my tap water was the reason for my original blood results and symptoms, which all normalised in seven days drinking British spring water.

Ignoring their own notes.

Ignoring the reality that those repeated appointment letters were attempts to pressure me into another EBUS procedure that could have destroyed what remained of my lungs.

Ignoring the main fact that Dr Lok never once met me or listened to my healthy lungs.

That letter reopened everything, I was planning, organising, and buying survival kit for this new life forced on me.
The injustice, The procedure, which was completely unnecessary.
The memory of one hour that was torture.
The harm that they all got away with by the cover-up by the NHS
The loneliness of standing against a system that refuses truth.

It took the wound I had tried to live with and tore it back open.

And that’s exactly why I pray in His name, my Lord Jesus, the Christ.

Christ in the collapse.

This is the part that matters most.

When the anger and grief resurfaced,
when the memory of being ignored, pressured, and harmed hit me again,
when the physical struggle of each day pressed down even harder —
Christ held me.

Not in a sentimental way.
Not in a poetic way.
In His way of faith, hope and love, all gifts to me.

Christ steadied my mind when the letter tried to drag me backwards.
Christ stopped my thoughts from spiralling into hopelessness.
Christ reminded me that the world may refuse to acknowledge the truth,
but God sees all things clearly.

Christ carried the weight that my lungs and my heart could not.

This is not positive thinking.
This is not self-help.
This is not “finding the strength within.”

This is grace.
This is the Spirit at work.
This is what it means when Scripture says His power is made perfect in weakness.

My strength ended months ago.
Christ’s strength never has.

The small hours no one sees.

There are nights where the isolation is louder than the breathlessness. There are times when the physical, emotional, and mental pain is overwhelming.
There are moments where the physical limitations feel endless.
There are times where I scroll through every streaming service, unable to find a single thing that speaks to the human condition, to truth, to reality, to anything with meaning.

I still listen to music. I enjoy my daily bread, but entertainment means nothing now.
Distractions take a lot of effort. Christ means everything. Only truth matters. Only grace sustains. Only faith carries weight.

Everything else is just the mechanics of surviving the day.

Is this still life?

It’s a question that rises sometimes.
Is this living or just existing?
Is this survival or purpose?

But every time the question comes, the answer comes with it:

“My grace is sufficient for you.”

If His power is made perfect in weakness,
then even this life — broken, restricted, painful, limited —
is still a place where His glory is at work.

I don’t have the life I had before.
But I have Christ.
And that is the life that cannot be taken from me.

If Christ can carry me, He can carry you.

I’m writing Part Two because so many people are suffering so much more than me, because someone else is fighting to breathe —
physically, emotionally, spiritually.

Someone else feels forgotten.
Someone else feels crushed.
Someone else feels like their world is falling apart and nobody sees it.

To every person going through any personal storm, I say:

Christ sees you, Call on His name.
Christ sustains you, Pray in His name.
Christ is enough, Thank Him by name.
Christ can carry you through the storm and the  aftermath.

My fight for truth continues.
But thanks to Him,
I am still here.
Still breathing, though only about half as much as I could before.
Still writing and reading more of other people’s writing through WordPress reader.
Still held by His Glorious Grace.

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