St Cuthbert, The I Ching And A Minor Christmas Miracle

In September, I visited Bellingham, Northumberland with Mason, my German Shepherd. We visited St Cuthbert’s church and well (Cuddy’s Well) and walked up Hareshaw Linn.

The water from the well is reputed to have healing and protective properties, so I baptised Mason there and then, figuring he could do with some protection from evil spirits. St Cuthbert’s is one of a very few stone arched churches in England, basically because the locals got fed up with rebuilding the wooden roof trusses every time the Reivers raided across the Scottish border and burned the church down!

On December 13th, I booked Mason in to the vets for an eye operation to remove a growth from his upper eyelid, in defiance of any triskaidekaphobic misgivings I might have harboured. It went well, but poor Mason was not a happy bunny for the first 24 hours recovering from the general anaesthetic and having to wear a buster collar. He was the most miserable I’ve ever seen him, poor lad. Then, a few days later, the lower part of the eyelid (where they don’t stitch because it would irritate the eye too much) came apart and he was left with quite a wide gap on his eyelid which would not have healed. So back to the vets. As Mason is relatively young, they recommended a second operation to re-suture the eyelid. Had he been a bit older, they would have said just leave the eye to heal as it is and he would have been left with an eyelid which didn’t quite close properly because of the gap. I agreed to a second op.

On the night of the 18th, I was having second thoughts about whether to take him in the next morning, so I consulted the I Ching online, asking the simple question, should I or shouldn’t I? I think I got Hexagram 16 changing to 42, but the text is what I remember: “Hesitation: perseverance brings good fortune”. No kidding. Uncanny.

So on the 19th, 6 days before Christmas, protected by St Cuthbert, and on the advice of the ancient I Ching and my trusty vet, Mason went in for a second operation. The vets were brilliant; they only charged for the drugs, not the op. They also fell in love with Mason - well, I mean, who wouldn’t!? The op went very well and the stitches looked much better and Mason, unlike the first time recovering from the anaesthetic, was full of beans and looking very pleased with himself from the minute I picked him up later in the day. I could hardly believe he’d had a second operation. He strolled out of there like nothing had happened. It seemed the Gods were on our side.

Alas, a few days later again, I noticed a slight parting of the bottom lid and his eye started to become more inflamed and began weeping pus. This got progressively worse and Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day, his eye really looked an absolute bloody mess, much worse than what it had before. I cursed myself for not following my instincts and relying instead upon the advice of the vet as well as some superstitious mumbo jumbo. It was a very stressful Christmas seeing his eye in the state it was, all crusted and weeping and terribly red and bloodshot.

I took Mason back to the vets on the 27th and they were brilliant and reassuring as usual - no charge for the consultation. Vicky said the gap looked a lot less than it was the first time, which was a relief because I thought it looked as bad if not worse. We got some antibiotic eye drops to clear up any infection.

This morning, the last black crust dropped off from around his eye and it looks much better than I could have dared to believe. The inflammation around the lid has gone right down, no longer looking raw and bloody, his eye is no longer bloodshot and there is only a small gap where the surgery wound parted, much less than before. Seems like the ancient Chinese Book of Changes and St Cuthbert were right all along and I was wrong to lose faith. Mason’s healing eye is my very own Christmas miracle and it seems not everything in this world comes down to rational judgement and unerring instinct.