I’ve turned on the telly, to have to look at that woman, Nigella Lawson, smiling and looking and talking into the camera, non stop whilst putting various things into a frying pan.

As I’m not into anything culinary, in even the smallest way, I absolutely cannot see why she and all the other cooks are currently so in vogue.
Cookery programmes were popular when I was a small child, I think, and then they began to make proper programmes and the cookery stuff stopped.
Now the cookery stuff is the highbrow, clever stuff, compared to all the other crap that’s on… is that a fair assessment?

I just can’t watch anymore of her grinning into the camera, so have turned her off.

Also she walked past me once, ages ago, in a restaurant ( where I didn’t want to be ) and blimey, she did have a fat a***.

Of course that’s now in vogue too, as personified by that other non talented in every way person, Kim Kardashian – correct spelling?

I do know that the Kardashians were the baddies in one of the Star Trek episodes.

Now that was PROPER telly…

Aside from that, thanks to Emma, Cherie and Rick for visiting.
Rick, the nurses thought you looked like a TV star.
I suggested Les Dawson? But they said not him, so I gave up…

Just tried coughing.
The 5 cough unstoppable reflex, made me regret trying in the first place. Still extremely unpleasant – tho downgraded to being hit by a metal bar, rather than stabbed.

Social media makes it so easy to not being lonely whilst you’re wide awake into the early hours. Last night in was ‘ in conversation ‘ until 3 am.

Then I turned off my phone and tired, I went to sleep.
Sadly at 7am my doctor bursts in, whilst I am very much asleep, puts on all the lights, puts his very cold hands on my torso, and starts pressing in multiple places, plus asking me detailed questions at the same time.
As I’m used to it, I don’t mind. Worse things happen to me, every hour of every day, on balance.

Anyway, today I can get into my wheel chair using a hoist ( my own suggestion, rather than his ) and also go onto a tilt table, where they stand me up ( my suggestion too – as gravity helps my bowel function – and it’s been 5 days now without any action…despite lots of figs, fruit, laxatives and water. When it comes, it could be big… and going out to a nice cafe, probably isn’t the best plan….

He said having a hoist screwed to the bedroom ceiling would be the best plan too, so obviously that can be enquiries about, rather than a return home followed by a broken metal fixation through trying too hard to move myself using my (considerable) arm power.

Progression in a timely and sensible manner this time, I feel!

Still too painful to cough- now it feels like I’m getting a screwdriver poked into my rib cage.

I had a proper wash tho, with real soap, by lovely nurse.

It is a shame that I can’t feel a thing, it really is.

Definitely no ‘ happy ending’ for me, that’s for sure.

Which wasn’t intended to be controversial, yet would seem to be.
Always the best types of posts, right?

1.

Very philosophical.
The Nazis started with mentally ill people first by getting affected adults sterilised. Then they progressed through deformed and disabled, sending them to ‘camps’ where they developed the notorious gas chambers. Thankfully radar was discovered in time to defeat the Luftewaffe and eventually the Nazi regime. With a lot of help from the Russians and U.S. of course. Have you read Stalingrad by Anthony Bevor? I’ll lend you it.
M

2.

That was a tough read. Don’t feel like that. It’s usually the other way around…everyone is concerned about the person who is unwell or with the greater need. Usually the “carer is overlooked”. Russ I know this is true because I know husbands and wives who have found themselves in this situation and almost imploded with the pressure of dealing with the outside worlds expectation of them. I really believe that people’s perceptions of people with disability have changed, what is wrong is that with all of these things , people are people…the only judgement should be made is whether people are decent and good….nothing else .

Please don’t have a downer on some of your loved ones, they have suffered with you. I was there at the beginning and saw the love for you.

I hope you understand what I am trying to say and I really hope that you know it’s all said with affection. The last thing I want to do is add to any upset. Forgive me for sticking my oar in but I would hate it if you fostered these thoughts.

( the second comment got it completely wrong – I’ve not ‘ had a downer on my family’

I have observed, and seen how people react though.

Understanding what I’ve seen has been very enlightening, for sure.
The last emotion I feel is a negative.

I left all those behind me a month ago.
?

Another view:

Good food for thought. Those posts are exactly the reason you might consider a becoming a disability ambassador. They are of course the every day prejudices people with disabilities encounter and many are nowhere near as articulate as you.
It can also be awkward for the family as they similarly do not see that they are doing anything particularly special – just doing what families do for each other. It further exacerbate the whole cycle. X

Bloody hell, I just had to cough and want to a lot more, but it still hurts so bloody much, so I desperately try to resist the urge to.
Once you’ve coughed once, there’s a reflex that kicks in which makes you cough 3 or 4 more times… so for me a multiple stabbing.

I drink water to suppress my cough reflex, but sometimes I don’t make it to the glass in time, as it’s not within arm’s reach for me ( so it may as well be on the moon )

Why is out of arm’s reach ?
Because somebody else moved it, without thinking… of the consequences.
That’s been a recurring thing, these last 3 years plus.
I don’t expect that to change ?

Ongoing thanks to Rahel, Pedro, Sheku and Mario for their nursing care, and to Jenny ( the only person with a strong Geordie accent that I’ve met, who hasn’t ever been to Newcastle… having been born to a Spanish father, in Spain, and grown up in Spain, but with a mother from Newcastle….

I remember examining the eyes of a 75 year old man, who’d been moved to Staines, not far from London, just after the War – that’ll be the First One, not the Second.
He had a Welsh accent so strong that I asked if he’d driven up for the day.
He told me that he’d not ever been back to Wales, since being relocated to England at the age of 7.

Yes, no word of a lie.

As they don’t use soap in private hospitals ( private because I was covered under medical insurance when I had my accident, and have been since, to a degree ) – infection controls/ they get to charge for the wipes etc etc, they insist that they can only use baby wipes typa wipes.
Well in the same way that you can’t only use baby wipes to clean a baby – you have to bathe them daily…. well so it is for me! They default to wipes until I persuade them with logic to use actual soap and water.
I can’t just get up and have a shower, can I ? I’m not supposed to move at all..
And guys, you try an in-bed wet shave, using baby wipes, my electric shaver having packed up.

I’ve had some interesting thoughts today, borne of a conversation with someone who has a relative with a ‘physical impairment’ who has never married. What came from this conversation is that society is prejudiced against disability, to the extent that even my own family are applauded for ‘coping’ with my disability, as in … they’ve not rejected me, it being a human instinct to not include abnormality very easily.
Well it’s easier to exclude the abnormal, than it is to welcome them in… right?
Wouldn’t it have been easier to have put me in a care home, and come to visit me once a week, than to ‘ have to struggle with helping me to do things?’ You family are amazing, for sticking by him, and letting him live with you in the house that he was half responsible for you all to be living in ..

There was someone in history, a small guy with an even smaller black moustache, who had the same philosophy about the non perfect, all those physically different people, black people, gay people, and the Jews.

The thing is, that he tapped into society’s Pre existing prejudice, and found that most agreed with him..
And he very nearly got away with it, too.

It’s ironic that I used to be Aryan in appearance, with blue eyes, fair hair, and good stature – all the way until June 2013… but now I’m not, except for the blue eyes.
It mattered not that the Jews were highly intelligent and commercially extremely adept – those traits were resented, deeply resented.

If the Second World War had secured victory for the Nazis, I’d possibly have prospered right up until the time of my paralysis, at which point I’d have been put to sleep.
Professor Stephen Hawking would never have lived beyond 20 years old….

If your parents, partners or children have accidents/ medical conditions that make them imperfect, then the relatives ‘left behind to deal with it’, to carry on bravely…..are applauded far more than the afflicted person… the person who really, really has to cope with it, for the rest of their life.

I don’t imagine my ( correct, but perhaps uncomfortable to read ) analysis of this stuff will change the minds of those conditioned to prejudice, which surely can’t be any readers of this diary…but if it does, then it’ll have been worth writing it down.

Russ ?

Ive stopped pressing the painkiller button, after being practically addicted to it yesterday ( even though it made no difference when I did press it )
My 10 inch diagonal wound across my stomach is hurting less, though not so much that I can cough, so I’m doing a sort of half cough that they taught me – like when you go ‘ huh ‘ to steam up a window.
It’s not very effective at coughing up chest secretions til you’ve huh’Ed about 20 times, and even then a bit crap.

And it’s just gone into bloody overdrive and I can hardly breath due to the pain.

Right, 50 mins later and I’m back. That was bad, another nebuliser, just out of the blue. Chest completely congested and crackling very loudly. More blood taken, more needles etc etc

Didn’t move much today, I’m not allowed.
Thanks to Jeremy Day, Toby Strauss, Lalbag, Cherie Howe and Clair Mason for coming.

There’s uncertainty as to the provision of rehab. My Desai, he in charge of it, says it’s essential for me to relearn my chair stuff with the new inflexible spine, which’ll make everything harder, but my insurance are contesting that, which he isn’t impressed by.

I slept for 2 hours, then woke up and watched the fireworks in America from 2am til 4am.
Then I slept on and off til 6.30, when the nurse yet again woke me up for ‘ observations’ – that’s taking my blood pressure, pulse rate and temperature, it taking about 10 minutes, with all the lights on, and I have to swallow approximately 7 tablets each time and drink a sachet of various supplements/ drugs. It does wake me up fully, every time.

The bed has been on a tilt all night to help my lungs drain, and I’ve had the nasal oxygen supply all the time.

As per my re- ermergence, I remain upbeat.

To that end, I only want visitors who can demonstrate positivity.
If I can, then surely they can? But you’d be surprised!