Transformed

The rush of relief, the immediate 

Surge of energy overwhelms me!

The will to start anew, to face the world,

 Has given me new strength.

Slowness is replaced by a spring in my step,

My once bent body is now a being tall.

The mask like glare has become a smile,

The whole is a new person set to face the world.

The moulding of bodies now able to merge:

Turning, reposing, entwining: as one.

What were memories of the way things were

Return, giving peace through he night.

The twisting has gone, torture is banished,

The writhing which imprisoned me is dead.

No more do I fear the contortions that consumed me: 

They have been exorcised and left my body clean.

Peace, at last, that longed for peace s here!! 

Peace fills my being with life.

No longer afraid to be seen by the world,

I show myself and hold my head erect.

Written on March 3 1996, following brain surgera at Frenchay Hospitall, Bristol.The horrific symptoms that had consumed me had disappeared, leaving me a new woman.

I felt I had been reborn: but it was not to last much more than a fortnight when the symptoms returned, this time in my right side.

Ten years later, again on my birthday, I returned to Southmead, Bristol, to have surgery called DBS, which was much more successful.b and