‘Hey Russ it was great to see you on Tues with Trudy and to see that twinkle in your eye. You were happy, funny & positive. A pleasure to see your old self, back’

Thank you to Lily, my daughter, for visiting, pre flight, and as usual pre packing her suitcase …
I did manage to donate half a suitcase of milky bars… lovely to see her , and to Jack ( the lad ) AF, my Godson, ‘tache and all (?!) and hear his uni rugby club beer drinking exploits ( sounded very familiar, but without a single ban to his name thus far…Jack do try harder…)

The uni rugby club new player ‘ initiations’ sounded pretty extreme and humiliating ( well of course, they’re not supposed to be fun, other than to those NOT being initiated.. man to fellow man cruelty, for the fun of it, being the overriding principle )

Good, well possibly, that initiations are now the form in schools too, for the boys breaking into the senior rugby squads ( Ziggy, I saw some photo evidence – and the introduction of Bush Tucker Trial type food humiliation )

I remember it so well ( or think I do??) having been on both the receiving and giving end, in rugby clubs and stag nights – my own included ( where I remember virtually nothing of what befell me – even after seeing the photos, the contents of which are way too ‘wrong’ to write about here – but I wouldn’t have had it any other way )

The Welsh are unsurpassed when it comes to socially unacceptable cruelty for the good of the victim.
I found when I moved to England that pity and sensitivity stood in the way far too much – though I remember an English mate being strapped sadistically with a belt, by a female stripper at 11am in a room in Waterloo railway station, that really wasn’t that funny after a while.

Ahhh the fond recollections…

I’ve been here so long that I need a ( second ) haircut, and a push to get there, obviously, before I turn back into Ken Dodd.

Bowel – wise, there is progress, and my stomach is on its’ way to being flat again, though still swollen from the large and deep incision running diagonally across it. Coughing is now something that I do deliberately, but still painful enough to regret, straight after.

Two days ago the nurse asked if I was in much pain and I said how much when I coughed, she looked at my drug chart and said ‘ well, no wonder, you’re only on paracetamol, would you like some codeine?’ Christ, what on earth where all those pills I’ve been taking, without any of them being painkillers, and how was that overlooked?!’

Never mind, I’m almost past it and it didn’t kill me.

I am now questioning the extent of the metalwork that has rendered me so unable to move, and once the screws have bedded in, the removal of some of it, to restore some ability to bend. I can’t go another 30 years being this ‘ unable’ .

I have also sent a few texts to longstanding friends, who despite living just up the road, relatively speaking, haven’t paid me a visit in the 55 days I’ve been here.
Seems fair to me, to enquire.
No point in being shy about it..

What’s the worst that can happen?
I mean surely someone could give me a push up The Shard, it being next door?
I’ll pay !
Having just looked online, I get in at a discount, and it’s free for the ‘ carer’ giving me a push. See, not all bad, right?
For clarity – THAT’S 2 OF US FOR £20, RATHER THAN 2 FOR £52
No limit on how many times I can go, either!

Lots of leg spadms/ jerks this morning. Four operations definitely haven’t eliminated those, but the next hospital may well do a lot more.

Thanks to Cherie, for coming yet again, and gifting me some coconut cream/ lotion which has already worked to reduce the scales that I seemed to be growing whilst in here.
And I’m aware that I smell much better, too.
Can’t be a bad thing?

Back to just the 4 hours sleep.
But yesterday I got 10 hours!

At 6 am Mr Lucas burst in and turned on all the lights ( but this time my spasms had already woken me up ) to tell me what I already knew , that being a referral to The Wellington hospital in St John’s Woo, in a week or so, for 4 weeks of practising to move a fixed plank (me) by myself.

It’s very good news though, as I want to reduce the burden on those from whom I need help.
I’ll need to pay for help with dressing and washing etc going forward, so want to learn if strategies are possible to allow me independence, or at least not total reliance.

Hoping I’ll see Lily this morning too, before they go away for a week.

Looks like being my first day without any visitors at all.

School holidays and all that – completely understandable.

Wishing my own a happy holiday.

X

*** BREAKING NEWS****

Just had an hour long phone call with my community ( Hounslow ) psychiatrist, Dr ******+, who has declared me so rational, logical, stable and sane, that he’s bloody discharged me from needing any support!

That wasn’t exactly what I was expecting to hear, as in the last bit wasn’t anyway.

But for the avoidance of doubt, I’m once again ‘ all there’ after 3 years of not being there much.

( now it’s the the rest of you that need checking …? )

As I am so bloody fixed in one position now, I can’t take off my T shirt whilst lying down, as I can’t wriggle about at all.
I end up with it stuck over my face, and then slightly panicking when I can’t do anything about it.
The obvious solution is to take it off before I transfer into bed ( and God, that’s a lot harder now too ) or I’ll have to just sweat in it for the night.

Transferring has to be via a slide board, though as I can’t bend over to pick it up, I’ll have to keep one on the bed all of the time, as well as one on the car seat ( if driving proves possible ) And it takes 2 people to help me. Once I start falling, if I’m not able to grab something solid, I’ve had it.

Coughing still hurts massively, though I’ve no doubt it’ll ease over the next few days.

There’s been a stay of execution ref just throwing me back into the community, without much support, as I’ll get another month of help to adjust to being like a plank of wood.

I hope I’ll still get visitors, as for sure they’re my lifeblood.

Thank you to Russ and Jeremy today.
And to Dr Lisa, the psychologist, for very much reassuring me that I’m not mad, or even slightly crazy come to that.

She didn’t say I was normal tho, thankfully…

It’s 1 am and I’ll go to sleep soon I hope. My usual 4 hours or so can’t really be enough.

Hoping for visits tomorrow from certain people before they go away on holiday.
Fingers crossed.

WALES TARGETS FARTING IN CARS

A campaign to stop people farting in cars when carrying children is being launched today. Wales’s chief medical officer explained that breathing in farts in enclosed spaces was harmful to children. ”Green-faced children can often be seen with their eyes watering, gagging as they breathe in the noxious fumes,’ he said.

However, the Welsh Institution for Freedom to Flatulate (WIFF) is about to launch its own ‘Better Out Than In’ campaign with a short film clled ‘Live And Let Fly’, which warns that buttock-clenching to hold in anal acoustics while driving has, in extreme cases, led to loss of control of the vehicle.

‘Silent But Deadly is bang on,’ said a WIFF spokesperson for WIFF. ‘Where would you rather have skid marks – the road or your undercrackers?’ Meanwhile, the AA has told drivers that trumping at the wheel is perfectly safe ‘so long as you open a window, keep both hands on the wheel and don’t ask passengers to pull your finger’.

http://www.skinnerandhyde.co.uk/items.php?category=Anatomical

Stuck for Xmas present ideas?

Look no further. ..

If you get a spare 5 mins check out the weird and wonderful items for sale on www.skinnerandhyde.co.uk
Especially in the Medical section.
M

From a friend I was in Cardiff Uni with:

‘Just googled your balloon man – Brian Stephenson? Sounds like something we’d have done…’

Me:

‘I think that’s exactly why I keep thinking about it’

Found a link to the story.
Brian fell 300 feet to his death.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/scot-killed-in-freak-us-ballooning-accident-1-547888

As I’ve had a bad evening, I thought I’d not write about it, but about something that affected me quite a bit at the time I heard, and ever since.

Some friends of mine had gone on a ‘ work jolly’ – a corporate team event that included drinking and stuff to do, that you wouldn’t normally do.
One of them was going up in a hot air balloon, 6 people at a time in the basket.

This particular flight was in the afternoon, and the ( mostly male ) invitees were mostly a bit/ 0r a lot pissed.
When one fella in a suit held on to the bottom end of one of the ropes,that had secured the balloon to the ground and it pulled him up into the air, most guys clapped and cheered as he rose up with the balloon.

Except within seconds the hot air from the burners had taken him up a hundred feet, and he had the choice of trying to climb the rope ( which most people can’t do ) or clinging on until they got the balloon back to the ground ( a long time, as it would have gone up a lot higher before they realised they had a man suspended beneath them and expelled enough hot air to get the craft to sink again safely, and he couldn’t have held on that long anyway ) or his last option, which was to just let go and fall, before it was definitely too late.

As it was, it was too late anyway, and he let go and fell to his death, after doing something for a joke to impress his mates just a few seconds earlier.

A good ten years on, and I still think about it.

A woman would never die that way.