My friend  and partner, Selcuk Arslan, died this morning.

He was only 46, and leaves his widow, Christy, and devoted brother, Tanju, in devastation, as well as his many dedicated staff and friends .

We knew this was coming, but had always hoped for some reversal of the disease process.

The pictures above were both taken a little over a year ago.

I’m tired of the monotony of being ill, or at least having new things wrong with me.

My urine now has all sorts of discharge and blood in it. That’s obviously not a sign of anything good.

My spasms plague me most nights, most of the night.

It’s not easy to be very positive about my future. It makes me think thoughts such as ‘ maybe the urine test will flag up some fatal condition, and I’ve only got a month to put up with this existence ‘  I’d be personally quite content with that.

Maybe not a whole month, though.

It’s perhaps the first time that I’ve felt lucky since my accident.

I visited my partner, Selcuk, in his home. As expected I couldn’t see him face to face as he was in bed, upstairs. I used FaceTime on my phone to see his face and speak to him, telling him how I felt and how many people are praying for him ( religious or not )

Now that his tumour has grown back with alarming speed and filled the void left after its last excision, he is paralysed down his right side and cannot speak. His left eye is closed. The visiting nurse told me that  he cannot swallow very well anymore, and that he is no longer being fed. He is kept hydrated ( to a degree )  by injection and bodily functions have virtually ceased.

His brother, Tanju, assured me that Sel’s slight reaction did indicate that he was aware of what I ( and my/his friends Irfan and Sheila who both came with me  ) were saying to him, and Sel did appear to be trying to speak, but how much he actually understood I’ll never know. Sheila’s tears were a reaction to the shock of seeing Selcuk’s emaciated and still body, having last seen him arguably at his physical and mental peak, 5-6 years ago.

I will encourage his staff and colleagues to go and visit him as soon as possible, it being in all likelihood a now or never scenario.

I had intended to go to work after my visit, but decided  that being alone with my thoughts was my only option.

I’m happy to say that my brother would appear to have been ‘ lucky’ in that his injury could have been so much worse. A narrow diameter cylindrical pole, with an open end, could have gouged his unprotected eye completely out, or even entered his brain.

As it is, it cut into his upper cheek and his upper eyelid, ‘merely’ compressing his eye into its’ socket with enough force to blow out the soft bone upon which the bottom of one’s eyeball sits – a so called ‘blow out fracture’

Thankfully eyeballs are pretty robust so don’t just go pop, otherwise an awful lot of us would have been blinded in childhood or minor accidents/ fights.

Hes been told that he should recover, but given he can’t open the eye yet, that can’t be a definite prognosis.

What will happen is that at first, because the eye will be slightly lower in the orbit, and looking in a different direction to the other eye, he will have double vision ( 2 images, one above the other ) treated by wearing an eye patch or specs with one lens fogged.  Hopefully it’ll get better by itself, or he may need specs with prism in them, or need surgery, or both .

The other problem with an impact injury is that ( especially in short sighted people – and he is ) the retina can detach at a later date, sometimes years later.  Also traumatic cataract is fairly likely, and although that can be removed it increases the risk of retinal detachment further.

I pray that luck is on his side again though. I think that he’ll never forget to wear his goggles again, and neither should anyone reading this ..

Tomorrow morning I visit my very ill partner, Selculk, who is now at home and bed-bound.

As he is upstairs I won’t be able to see him face to face.

As he is no longer speaking only one way conversations are possible . I hope that my buddy, Irfan, who is coming with me can hold an ipad close to him so that at least I can see him and say what I want to say.

I hope he can understand me, at least.

His devoted wife, Christy, will be there too, and I do very much want to talk to her too .

Life isn’t very fair, too often.

Today my fantastic older brother, Alwyn, was injured in a very unlikely way

He’s a ski ( race ) instructor in his spare time and was hit in the left eye by a slalom race pole that rebounded at high speed.

His wife, Nadia,  called me from the hospital in America, myself being the only family member working in the eye profession.

It sounded very serious to me, and shook me a lot. I can’t bear the thought of my family members being hurt now and I cried after I’d put the phone down –  I just couldn’t help it.

He looks a mess and it’s far from certain whether he’ll be back to normal any time soon.

Thinking of you, Alwyn.

During his rugby playing days….Russ was a well above average centre/fullback/wing, who went on to play representative school boy rugby and also to play for Pontypool during their high flying best rugby club days during the 1980’s…..but I thought I’d take this opportunity to share this story from one of our school boy matches between West Mon School Pontypool and Bassaleg School Newport (any Newport v Pontypool rugby match contained many a brawl and scraps)….both of the schools didn’t get on that well and this often showed on the field with many fights ensuing during the game…..for our age group…..Bassaleg had one Jon Callard at fullback, he was the current Welsh School Boys fullback who went on to play for Newport, Bath and subsequently win 5 caps (or a few more) for England (famous for his end of time place kick to win the Calcutta Cup for England)…..I think it would be fair to say that Jon had somewhat of a big ego…strutting around the field….in fact it was huge and I think Russ didn’t take to Jon that much (I could be wrong here)…….but during one of the all in scraps….Russ playing fullback or wing took the opportunity to sprint most of the length of the pitch with his arm and fist out towards poor Jon Callard who must have been thinking what the hell?  Well Russ dropped Callard on this butt and bought Callard’s ego down a fair few pegs ….I was playing in the game….and it was amusing to see Russ taking the opportunity not to get involved in the main scrap going on…but to make sure Callard knew that Dawks was on pitch and his opposing number…Mike Jenkins and I still get a laugh out of this today.

Jeff.

( I think Jeff’s recollection is pretty accurate …)

He didn’t really ‘ do ‘ a lot ; got me on the couch and felt my abdomen for a bit – I can’t really tell when I’m being touched there, other than a vague sensation.

He was certain that I didn’t have anything horrible, and spent a lot of time talking about my injury and my diet.
It turns out that most major traumas, or long’ish periods spent lying down, result in intestinal/ gut side effects. He said that my injury, the passing of 2 and a half years, my altered digestion and generally buggered internal processes all added up to internal fermentation of food, extra production of gas and therefore bloating and side effects. As I am also on antibiotics pretty much all the time, my natural gut bacterial balance is compromised too.

As I can’t actually fart anymore, there is no option to let one free, so to speak ….another simple pleasure that is taken for granted.
I’ve been given yet more pills and told to have pro biotic drinks every day, and see a nutritionist – as my pre injury diet may not suit my post injury body.

Why was I not warned about this whilst in hospital? So many paraplegics complain of intestinal problems, yet we are not told anything… That’s a bit cruel at best, and grossly negligent at worst.

Today, after work, I have a scan in hospital, of my stomach region, in the hope that the reason for my spasms becomes apparent.

One of the dangerous consequences is that my legs shoot out and hit the brake pedal of my hand controlled car.

That’s not very safe, is it?

Thanks in advance to Jayney C for coming with me to help.

As Dani has injured her shoulder and is in a lot of pain, both parents of our girls are now compromised.

Some families get all the luck.

Thanks to Larry and Glenn for their company last night, too.

From midnight til 5 am my spasms continued. After that I fell asleep, which has to happen at some point. Poor Dani was kept awake too .

It’s now 1pm and my legs are still jerking

It makes going to work very difficult, so I haven’t.

I recall reading an article about sleep deprivation on rats.  The poor lil’ buggers were kept awake all the time.  They found that contrary to expectations they remained really active, and were physically I’m great shape, compared to the ‘normally sleeping control group ‘

Then, one by one, they all just dropped dead.

Today I have an appointment with my psychiatrist – what a mess I’m in overall.

As I feared, strange back to the usual Torture of spasms and jerking at night.

Compared to being paralysed, no sleep is insignificant – I’d live for a sleepless 1000 years just to have this injury reversed –  but no sleep as well as paralysis isn’t helpful at all.