Ok so now I’m not going home today after all.

As the other three on this ward have been dangled the carrot of leaving, and then it been taken away, I was realistic about it happening to me too.

Sorry to Jo Fleet for not making her thing tonight – I don’t think I’d have trousers to fit in any case, having gotten rid of my Hammer Pants a long time ago.

Saturday nights ain’t what they used to be, that’s for sure.

They’ve cleaned the floor!

The tennis playing recording artist is now with his  fiancé.

He is looking at his phone, she is looking out the window.

If you’re this bored with eachother before you’re married, what are the prospects for your future?

The lorry driver is bemoaning another night in hospital to come ( more opportunities for the doctors to kill him, I imagine )

The young Latino is back from surgery and looks tired.

I was advised that I’d go home today and am taking that with a pinch of salt.

Either way I’ll watch the English and Scottish minnows play eachother in the Six Nations this evening, with the main event on tomorrow.

..for coming to see me in hospital. 

I don’t know why the first line now appears in italics?

But thanks to Dani and my girls, to Dan, to John and Marta, to Pia, to Alison Evans, to Cliff and Holl’s and to my mother too.

My mother told me today that she’s been practicing doing things since the age of 7 with her left hand, just in case something ever happens to her right arm… having once seen a war film where someone got his right arm shot off.

I think that she needs a hobby.

I’ve been in hospital now for almost 3 days. 

As yet no one has come to tidy up, clean or disinfect in any way at all. Is it any wonder MRSA is almost standard in ‘modern’ wards?

There are 4/5 men in here. I’m not sure how many  as they keep pulling the curtains around the beds so that I can’t see anything.

On my right there is someone with a strong Scottish accent, who tells anyone who passes by that he’s a recording artist, and plays tennis.

As he’s Scottish and he’s not Rod Stewart, Sheena Easton or Andy Murray, I’m pretty sure he’s not famous.

Whenever ‘food’ is offered he asks ‘ to see the menu’ as though he were at the Ritz

Then invariably he chooses whatever there is with strawberry jam in it .

Opposite I think is a lorry driver in his 60’s , who is prone to talking about medical things with his daughter. They’re obviously experts on anatomy. Yesterday they were discussing/ wondering what a tricep was.

He just said that he’s worse off now than when he came in, and blames all the medical personnel that have seen him. He does seem to know all the medications that he takes, and there are a lot of them. I get the impression that he’s quite proud of taking so many drugs for so many things .           A few minutes ago he said that he’d end up with RSA . He either missed out the M or he belongs to the Royal Society of Arts  – who am I to say?

A regular is ‘ if I had my bike outside, I’d be off ‘ I don’t think so though  Someone  said they’d be showing the rugby in the room next door, and 3 times I’ve heard him say ‘ if I was at home, I’d watch it ‘. As he’s perfectly mobile and cant be arsed to go 20 feet to the next room, I can’t see him escaping from here on a motorbike any time soon.

Another young fella has something gastric wrong with him and sounds Latino. He is going to have surgery today, so I imagine it’s not nice.

What they all have in common is that they all sound semi cheerful in the day, yet as soon as the lights go out there is a chorus of painful groaning,  invariably involving buzzers being pressed and lights being turned on.

I think that sleep is an important part of the healing process for most things?

No chance in here – I’ll never leave at this  rate.

To my great surprise, if I gently squeeze  ‘ the affected area ‘ I feel pain. The same specific type of  pain that all men and schoolboys that get kicked in the nuts will feel.

Its the  only sensation that I’ve felt below my injury in 3 years.

So I can’t walk, can’t balance, can’t have a pee, but if I get kicked in the bollocks I’m just like all the other guys..

It’s not the first time I’ve had an injury below the waist.

Twenty five years ago someone took the below picture ( when I wasn’t looking…. Obvs )

Whilst playing rugby I got an accidental kick in the balls, and they swelled so much that they came right out of my shorts .

I went to hospital and whilst in a cubicle about 20 people came in, one after one, all with very serious expressions .

It soon dawned on me that I could hear laughter after most of them left the exam area .

In the end a doctor stuck a massive syringe in there, and after trying to pull out the plunger with all his might , gave up,  nothing in the way of fluid or blood having come out.

He then gave up and sent me home, only for Dani to find it highly entertaining to invite most of her girlfriends around for a look.

The picture below was how they still looked 3 weeks later.

I’ll be here for at least another 24 hours.

My life is so unpredictable these days

In This hospital I’d seen Sel ( when he could still walk and talk ) for the last time, not too long ago.

I keep thinking about that, here in this bed, during a long and disturbed night. I was taken back, mentally, to Stoke Mandeville – constant taking of my blood pressure and the various needles in my right arm, feeding me intravenous antibiotics and saline.

Ive grown to dislike hospitals.

Again I find myself in Charing Cross hospital.

After an unpleasant morning  I felt suddenly cold and began to shake. My temperature rose to 39 degrees C whilst in the hospital waiting area.

If this post isn’t very literate I’m sorry.

Almost – 3 miles from the Chapel of Rest, Dani turned back, seeing I couldn’t speak and my head down

Ive been denied the chance to say goodbye to Selcuk. I never got to give him my and his loyal friend Arti’s messages.

im sorry Sel it’s just not fair  why do I seem cursed at every turn

I felt a dread that I’d not see my daughters again, and cried when they eventually came

how much more can go wrong to one person  the problem is an infected testicle   There’s no reason I’d have that except my long running UTI – the fault of being given the wrong drug for the last 2 months , making my crap life worse

the ward is so hot and I’m burning up  the nurses seem to find it funny? My SCI makes my body unable to regulate my temperature  and I am alone

I’m so sorry Sel

I feel helpless and weak