Yesterday I had cause to talk with a surgeon, who I had never met, but who knew from reading about it, my medical history, from my accident, through my paralysis, through my depression, through my further ( disastrous for me ) surgery, through my stoma and catheter procedures, through my proper suicide attempt, through my further major spine surgery, along with my divorce and loss of home and business and children all happening concurrently, to then meet me in person, expecting to meet someone who looked like they’d been through all that… but instead, he said met ‘ such a positive, well adjusted and smiling man ‘, so surprised was he that he strongly felt the need to tell me as much.

I thanked him for his kind words and said that 5/6 years is ‘ the standard time’ to ‘ begin to accept and cope and come to terms with ‘ paralysis, so actually I just slotted in to the usual hole.

He said ‘ I don’t know if you realise that if you hadn’t had the accident and injuries you had in France, near a specialist hospital, with advanced air response services to get you there, instead having had your crash in England, then you would have died that day for sure ‘
I didn’t know that, no, I said, in fact experiencing mixed feelings at that moment, but certainly being aware that those feelings were at least now mixed, rather than feelings of ‘ Jesus, what a shame I hadn’t crashed in England then ‘ …

So it seems that I’ve brushed ever so closely with certain death twice so far, along with brushing with possible death quite a few times more..

I would seem to be like the proverbial cat then, in terms of number of chances I’ve had, and used up….
I wonder what’ll happen to me next? I can’t imagine it’ll be plain sailing from here, as my condition does lead to ‘ complications ‘ further down the line once you are 60 plus.

I have to get as far as 60 first, I thought, what are the chances of that?!

Last night I saw the incomparable Dido ( she’s a singer ) in north london with Pia. We had all sorts of ‘ fun’ trying to get to a place in the venue from where I could actually see Dido, rather than just see the backs of people standing up in front of me, but we did manage it, and she really was brilliant. I’m not the type to have a thing about famous people/ ‘ stars’ but Dido, and er Rachel Riley ( from Countdown ) well those 2 are the exception to my Indifferent Rule.

Wendy and I are on an Easyjet flight to Portugal as I write. A ‘ holiday ‘… it’s been a while since I’ve had one of those, but yes, this is actually feeling like one! Blimey, watch this space..

( in 15 days it’ll be exactly 6 years since I had my accident. Last year I completely fell apart on my ‘anniversary ‘ and sobbed like I never have before. This time around I don’t think it’ll be that way actually, but then again who knows? I didn’t expect to react how I did last year, at all )