Yes ! 7 hours sleep, more or less in one go. That’s a first for ages. Hopefully I’m getting my body clock more or less sorted?

Breathing was ok during the night too – if I can’t breathe properly I can’t sleep. 

Wanna thank the multitude of people who came to France to see me. Some I’d not seen for years, which makes it all the more touching. 

My Mum and Dad were there for 5 weeks as was Jenni, my Mum in law, my 2 brothers (Dumb and Dumber) came, and duly entertained everyone with stories of our growing up..

                                   Lisa and Andrew came, Debs Watson, Emma A-F

James and Bev, Chrissie, Nick Teasdale ,Helen and Sel, Beana from blimmin Scotland, Melissa, Samantha ( my amazing Sisters in Law), doctor Al and Wendy, my ‘special’ mate Gerry,and Karena who flew in from Ireland, Mad Nicola came, as did Olly, Sian James, Tele and Nicola, obviously Larry and Sarah, Mac and Laura, and others that I can’t recall , through being in a coma to be fair….

The award for most visits goes to my very special friend, Dan White (and his wife Saskia) who I hear came SEVEN times..!

I feel truly honoured to have attracted so much attention just from falling off my bike…..

Yours,

Russ
Sent from my iPhone 7 prototype. 

Aug 2nd 2013 London Bridge Hostpital 23.12

STILL ALIVE

The pic shows me with big teeth and a gingery tache. Things are bad, but not that bad!

Where do I start?

My name’s Russ Dawkins and until June 14th 2013 everybody who knew me knew me as a pretty physical guy, never missing exercise for a single day.
Now, today, this iPhone weighs a tonne.

1. I can’t remember anything at all pre crash for maybe 2 weeks? I’ve looked in my diary, to no avail, for prompts, but all blank.. Forgive me too if these posts are short
2. I understand though that the love and care of the Dawkins/Kingdon family combo has essentially saved my life
   My wife, Dani, I hear, has been a rock,(no surprises)  Every man needs a rock of a wife I’ve concluded
3. My mum in law, Jenni, and S IN LAW, Melissa started this blog and somehow got 30000 hits. Sounds like a lot!
4. Now I’m back in a London hospital on a ventilator still, with a trachetomy so unable to speak above a whisper. I’ve lost the use of everything below the navel, tho I don’t know if that’s just how it will be from now on.

   What I can say though is that I’ve packed so much into the last 46 yrs though
5. ….that I’m pretty satisfied with my lot.
   I’ve got the 2 most exquisitely beautiful daughters, both real personalities too, that living life thro them will be a delight.

Tonight (very late), after celebrating Dani’s birthday, I got back to receive a very welcome email….from Russ! ….referring to me as blogetter…
Russ wants to know how to send blogs himself…..be prepared……:-D.
Mx

Russ arrived safely back to the UK earlier this evening and is now safely tucked up in intensive care at the London Bridge Hospital.

One positive step in the right direction completed.

Dani and the girls have joined him there this evening.

Visiting times at the hospital are very flexible and are 1000-2200.  I have been advised that space is a little limited and that there is not much room for waiting if there are already visitors in Russ’s room.

As most of you know I made a calendar for visiting in Toulon.  It might be a good idea to keep to the same system?  If you want to have access to the calender to see when might be a good time/day to visit, please email me; melissa.leach@iagoft.com   I will then send you an email to invite you and then you can annotate yourself in as and when then ‘bobs your uncle’…or your daddy as in Russ’s case!

Russ, a beautiful evening to welcome you back to London.  The sun is shining for you and your beautiful family today. xxxx

I lived with Dani and Russ for a whole brilliant year back in 1998.  At this time I was an ‘International’ Air Hostess(!).  Russ and Dani invented various nick names for me such as;
Valerie (Singleton) – as I was the only single sister!
Spartacus – as I was often requested to earn my keep by performing slave type activities such as cleaning the skirting boards, etc!
I also had another nick name which I won’t mention to you very polite lovely peeps.
Dani, Russ and I used to have nightly competitions to see who could come home the most drunk and the latest…. Russ invariably won.  We have carried this forward to 2013. (Although Russ you have a little bit of catching up to do these last few weeks).
Sometimes I would come home exhausted after flying home overnight from the U.S or Caribbean. I used to bore Russ that the reason I needed to sleep so much after an inbound long haul flight was due to having walked my way across the Atlantic when I should have been asleep and in addition because of the effects of the cabin air pressure on the body.

Air pressure has effects on the human body.  If you take a bottle of water onto a flight, you will notice within an hour of air travel it is swollen and ‘puffy’.  The same happens to our bodies. Any
air we have internally tries to escape to equalize with the changing air pressure of the cabin.  Our ears pop and we often ‘trump’ a little more.  The air that can’t escape increases in volume and makes us swell. In addition the air on board is usually pressurized to 8,000ft.  This is the same air that you might find 8,000ft up a mountain, i.e. a little less oxygen which causes us to breath faster and has a tiring effect on the body.  This is why air travel makes us feel jet lagged.

All of the above will have been taken into consideration to allow Russ and his ventilated lungs to fly home.

Today Russ will be flying to North Holt (an RAF airfield close to LHR) whilst Dani has to suffer ‘coach’ on BA MRS-LHR.  Dani will make a brief ‘tech stop’ at W4 to pick up the girls so that the 3 of them can welcome Russ back to the UK on arrival at London Bridge Hospital.

Russ, I hope you have a safe, comfortable flight home.  Welcome back to London. xxxx

P.S I have arranged for my old crew to bring you back (James jumped at the chance of earning a day off payment):

Its 1st August, the sun is shining and all arrangements are in place to transfer Russ home 🙂

The travel insurance medical assist team have been great and have confirmed the timetable as follows:

Lear jet with medics and equipment will land at Toulon airport at 11.45am. There will be a road ambulance waiting air side which will transport the medics to St. Anne’s Hospital with an ETA of 12.15pm.

Myself and Russ will then meet with the medics, Dr Jonathan Warwick (the Company’s Chief Medical Director apparently) and ITU nurse Tina Kauhanen.

They will then leave with Russ at 1pm, straight back to Toulon airport and transfer him directly from the road ambulance to the plane. The plane will then take off at 1415 and land at RAF Northolt at 1515 (UK time). There will be a road ambulance waiting at Northolt which will then transfer Russ, with the medics, to London Bridge Hospital with an ETA of 1615.

There is not room on the plane for me so I’m following on a commercial flight from Marseilles, due to land at LHR at about 1800. The insurers have arranged for a taxi to pick me up and take me straight to London Bridge Hospital (sweeping Lily and Amber up en route) so that we should arrive about 1930 by which time Russ will hopefully be fully settled in.

So, that’s our plans for the day. What’s everyone else up to, eh…..?!!

Oh yes, by the way, we managed to sort Russ’s mad hair too. Christophe, one of our favourite nurses, bought his clippers in and hey presto…..(see photo below).

Love from Toulon xxxx

Dear all
As you may remember, I sent a penultimate e mail before leaving Toulon but failed to send the ultimate one. Now seems a good time to do so as we are all hoping that Russ will be repatriated tomorrow.  Saying “goodbye” to Russ on the evening before I left Toulon was very sad and the next day was even more emotional saying ‘goodbye” to Dani.  I feel as if we have all been on a long journey with Russ, the inevitable ups and downs during the nearly seven weeks since he was admitted to ‘Hopital ste. Anne”.  His recovery from his most terrible injuries have, in part, been due to his strength and fortitude and to the unwavering, dedicated care he has received by doctors and nurses alike.  Also I think the love and enduring support of his family and friends have gone a very  long way in determining his recovery. Russ has been cocooned in love by his parents, brothers, in laws and many fantastic friends.
Now, Dani!  Danielle has behaved with enormous courage, dignity and and unwavering strength, in what must be every wife’s worst nightmare.  She has been amazing with their beautiful daughters, finding the strength, during the worst moments, to talk to them nightly on the phone, keeping their spirits raised whilst gently, little by little expressing the seriousness of their Daddy’s injuries.  When each in turn arrived to visit, they were both quite amazing with Russ, a true testament to their mother’s strength.
So now we shall have a new chapter when Russ is repatriated to London Bridge Hospital and I. for one, believe with all my heart that Russ will continue to amaze us all.  Bon courage, Russ, we all love you.
Lastly, for Stuart’s eyes only!!! Please note that this e mail was written mid morning hence no errors or over exuberance!!!!
Dear love to you all
Jenni xxx

The departures hall at Marseille's airport is a fairly sterile, unprepossessing 'environ' in stark contrast to the warmth of the Toulon sea breezes and the warmth of Monsieur R's smile.
Over the last 2 days I have enjoyed the company of this extraordinary man, his superhuman, peerless wife Dani and stoic Dan and Saskia White ....who have quite possibly the most adorable 3 children in history.

Not forgetting a delightful new acquaintance; Oliver Smallman- who I bumped into on my arrival at the Holiday Inn. Oliver is a good friend of Dan Whites and we visited Russ together which caused R much circumspect musings and raised eyebrows. Now;whilst we are on the subject of eyebrows; how many of you have noticed what an impressive , 'Healy-esque' bushy set that Russ has?? At R's bidding I gave them a quick trim-they almost needed their own scaffolding beforehand - with Dani perfecting my work this morning.

M.Rousselle himself was on good form yesterday and we covered a wide variety of zany subjects as he is 80% coherent with his raspy mouthings with the other 20% made up of very legible inscribing.

Russ educated me on the fact that people's ears and noses keep growing throughout their lifetimes. I seriously did not know this. He informed me that the best playlist on spotify is 'Topsify' ; he expressed surprise that there was a shop in the hospital and quickly took Oliver up on his generous offer to purchase an I-phone from there to replace his 'Shite' temporary one.....then twinkled his eyes and said he was only joking!

We reminisced away about Russell's fall out of a tree in Chiswick on his 30th/35th?? birthday; leading me to ask a long awaited question of mine which was why he had felt the need to email pictures of his brutalised face to his entire contact list at the time. Russell positively lit up at this and asked asked with glee whether said photos had been posted on 'his' blog; my emphatic 'NO' rendered him very crestfallen.

Mr.R expressed sadness that he wasn't actually coming 'home' on Thursday(fingers crossed he is flying home then) but to 'another hospital' in the UK.

I believe that both Russ and Lily are allergic to animals and Russ to his chagrin has always  discredited my passion for animals. However; i am shocked and delighted to report that even Russ showed(feigned) interest as I chattered on about a wheelchair-bound friend's 'carer dog'.
He could not believe that these dogs get their own seats on planes......so I attach proof...just for you Russ.



Indeed Mr.R's enthusiasm for having a 'carer dog' stretched to his asking me whether the soleros(that he is currently feasting on in hospital) could be delivered to him by the dog(well at least I think that's what his lascivious licking motions meant).
It was a pleasure to share my 3 hours of visiting time with Oliver Smallman; he was immensely upbeat, positive and reassuring to the great man himself and I am sure; raised his spirits no end plus I think we made a good double act.

I am almost sad to be leaving but they are calling my flight and I am looking forward to visiting as often as possible in the Uk

Love you so so much Russ
Love you so so much Dani(but less of the 'mad Nicola' title)
You are both truly inspirational 

Signing off from ..the 'not so mad and ever so slightly boring now...' Nicola

Xxxxx

Still looking good for repatriation on Thursday. Lots of boxes to tick for everything to completely fall into place; hospital in Toulon have to be happy Russ is safe to fly, insurers have to sort all the logistics including, most importantly, having a jet with the appropriate equipment and medical team and then London Bridge Hospital has to also be (independently) satisfied that Russ is safe to travel and that they have sufficient information properly to prepare for his arrival into ICU. There is no obvious “connect” between these various channels, only me: as such, there is an awful lot of admin stuff to be sorted. In fact, it makes the Legal profession’s “Work Acceptance” Money Laundering processes look like a walk in the park (all lawyer mates will sympathise….:-s).

So, what else is new today? Various medical staff in Intensive Care are about to start their summer holidays. So, a few goodbyes to some really amazing people. They’ve all been invited to stay with us whenever they come to England and all seem very keen to accept our invitation – so look out for lots of lovely French people in London W4!

Tele and Nicola arrived today and, like most people who have seen Russ in the last week or so, have found it a very uplifting and positive experience. Russ loves seeing everyone and always puts in a maximum effort; although tiring, I think the stimulus of seeing different people each day is particularly important given that his days are otherwise governed by unwavering monotonous routine (same walls, same treatment, same interrupted sleep etc). He’s heard all about the blog and is dying to see it but no WiFi in the hospital in Toulon so he’ll have to wait till he gets to the 5 star accommodation at London Bridge Hospital for access to the blog. Mind you, he was amazed when I told him that Melissa says there have been 30,000 hits so far… At that rate, we should think about doing some advertising on the blog! :-s

So, fingers’ crossed for all to go according to plan for Thursday. I know everything is very scary for Russ at the moment but repatriation to London will be quite a significant step in a positive direction.

Nigh night, all xxxx

All progressing well in Toulon and the medical staff here (plus the insurers) are preparing Russ for air repatriation either tomorrow or Thursday. Russ will be flown back on a private medical jet from Toulon straight to an airport nearest to the London Bridge Hospital that they can get clearance to land at. I’m hoping to accompany him on that flight but it will depend on how big the accompanying medical team will be and the size of the particular jet that they have available for the transfer. Fingers’ crossed on that front (especially as it just won’t be fair if Russ has flown on a private jet and I haven’t! :-s ).

Russ is very keen to have all comms in place for when he arrives in London so with the undisputed talents of Andy Richards, we are making sure he has his iPhone, IPad and Mac linked up, upgraded and in super-functioning order. So, get ready for onslaught of texts and emails from the man himself….

Andy recently sent me the brilliant photo of Russ below under the strap line “Typical bonkers Russ”. Poor Andy popped over to pick up some glasses from our house earlier this year and was confronted by Russ looking like that!!!

Peeps out here with me at the moment are Dan, Saskia (and kiddies), Oli Smallman and Mad Nicola. Oli and Nicola saw Russ for the first time (post accident) last night and Oli described it as completely “uplifting” to see him and, in particular, to witness how amazing he is doing given where he was only 6 weeks ago.

Oh, and we’ve managed to engineer a haircut for Russ later today. One of the nurses is going to bring in some clippers. He’ll probably look like a jar head after but definitely preferable to looking like he was the inspiration for the male figure in the “Joy of Sex” books that were published in the 80s. Who remembers those………….? :-s

Love Dani xxxx

The photo I took of the dear boy just after Xmas. Classic bonkers Russ.