Another Saturday night in… though now they’re not so common ( and tbh I needed one ). This time though, they’re all out, except for me. It’s 11.30 and there’s no one here. The girls are old enough to be on sleepovers, or in Lily s case to be out actually making money for herself, babysitting ( for ) our former neighbours – Hi Fiona, if you’re reading.

I’ve bloody excelled myself by actually wrapping up a lot of presents that I had actually bought myself.  That’s no small feat, and I’m quite proud of my achievements.

There is no tree ( as yet ) to put em under, but I put them in the place which will be under the tree, once the tree is there… that’s forward thinking for you .

I put on a playlist that I’d done the other night for a dinner party music quiz – it s not necessarily representative of my own musical taste, and I was thinking that if someone had come in and seen me gift wrapping to Shania Twain and Status Quo, they’d have wondered what the f*** had happened to me as I’d lain in that coma.

The definite highlight of this week was seeing Placebo play in Wembley ( cheers Billy for the tickets – finally after 7 years… ). They were pretty big a while back, but obviously have a dedicated fan base, as there must have been 20,000 people there, and most of them were going crazy by the end..  If a loud band on a massive stage, with great lights and sound can’t whip their audience into a frenzy,  then they’re doomed..

Pia and I had a right laugh, her saying ‘ excuse me’ possibly a thousand times as we made our way to our bit through the crowds.  The wheelie section is quite close to the front, so we were pretty chuffed with that.

Also I’ve been pushed round High Street Ken, by Jo,  caught lots of buses, been out with Catherine, met Anna ( after thinking she was an imaginary figure  in the life of Miles Watson ), had too many drinks on too many nights, been crammed into wheelchair taxis, caught a black cab that was DEFINITELY not being driven by the licensed driver ( and I refused to pay the full fare, as he kept going the wrong way ) but stopped short of reporting him to the cops – I should have done, as he wouldn’t have been insured to drive that car.

If you get picked up by a Somalian guy in a black cab, who can’t really speak English, and whose only ‘ Knowledge ‘ will be of downtown Mogadishu…. then that’s him, and don’t get in.

My stomach continues to swell up and then flatten again, with no obvious cause, and I’m learning to sort of reluctantly accept it… I definitely seem to retain large quantities of water, which exits my body via my catheter at night – ah it’s an odd life I lead…

Tomorrow is the Pantomime in the Lyric in Hammersmiff. It’s ‘ all edgy’ in its delivery – last year  Cinderella was a short ‘ well built ‘ black girl, who rapped her way through the fairytale in a crop top and Converse .

The girls love it, and it’s a refreshing alternative to watching Christopher Biggins ham it up in the posh  ( but very good ) Richmond  theatre, and the tickets, the  drinks and the sweets are a lot cheaper.

I continue to get fairly regular changes of Carers – there can’t be many people left in London who’ve not helped to wash my nuts  ? by now .

Thanks to PegLeg Watson, and Debs for their fun night, last night – it was great to see a few old mates and especially to see Dorothy looking so well.

Everyone keeps saying how well I look. Does that mean I look chubby?

Lets face it though, I should look better than I did a couple of months ago, after the physical beatings my body has taken, being sliced from neck to arse hole every other weekend..

So it’s all relative.

See below for evidence of my wrapping ‘ skills’ ?

If the bloody cat gets at those presents, he’s had it.

Big ❤️ to Cherie for coming with me to the hospital today.

No good news, but no bad really- other than no vigorous activity ( sit skiing or anything that puts me in danger of trauma ) for about a year.

I cant try to bend ( can’t anyway ) until I’m given clearance to.

‘Rehabilitation’ is as yet uncertain to me – I’ll await advice on that.

And I don’t know if anything in my metalwork has shifted, though I do seem to be a bit more wobbly than before – as in from side to side.

So…. I’ll to try to stay as still as I can until further notice…

As I expect the worst, any news bereft of calamity is actually good news!

Cheers.

I haven’t stopped bloody spasming today. It’s been relentless.

It was a bit of a heavy weekend, and where in the normal world, you feel rough,  I get spasms, and I feel rough.

I could always give up going out, but I’ve only just started enjoying it again, so sod that – I’ll just have to suffer the effects

Bedtime at 5am on Sunday morning wasn’t very good for me, but it was worth it, overall. Before, I’d have kayaked off the hangover, in the cold and the rain, but now I can’t do anything like that,  I have to just tolerate it.

The bloody spasms make it very hard to ignore- I’ve a feeling that tonight could be a long one, but we’ll see.

Thanks to R&T for the party – it was complicated getting there and back  in a wheelchair cab with no headroom, my face being on my chest for 40 minutes. As my back doesn’t bend AT ALL, I can do bugger all about it, except learn through bad experiences.

As ive had a zillion of those, I’m an old head.

The RGS was good on Monday – I’ve made a few friends there, it would seem. People definitely admire stoicism in adversity – the success of the Shackleton photo exhibition going on there is testimony to that.

That guy knew how to suck it up, for sure.

I’d been told that there was no way of me going up to the Members’ Room, on the third floor, but a senior man there said that there was a disused lift that ought work.

I suggested they try a sack of potatoes first, before trying me out in it, my propensity for misfortune being now the stuff of legend. Death from suffocation in a lift, or a fatal free fall down a  lift shaft would both fit in on my CV.

Ive managed to turn myself into my side in bed, but the jerking continues, seemingly coming from my stomach area, but I can’t be sure.

I did make it to the dentist finally today, and will soon get a long drilling session.

Tomorrow I am X rayed in London Bridge to see if all my metal is still where it should be.

I cant say that I m looking forward to the visit much.

The band that I was going to see with Pia tonight cancelled the gig. My wheelchair musical comeback has been delayed.

God I wish I could just sometimes go and lie down on the sofa and sleep.
My world of fixed straight spine to pelvis denies me that.
I can’t transfer onto a sofa or anything, so am confined to my chair all the time, until I get help into bed.

My legs are far stiffer than ever, and spasm a lot still. As a consequence, they seem to have put on more muscle again – so look just fine but weigh a ton.

Positive thinking makes it tolerable. That and accepting occasional sleep sat bolt upright. I wake from a short sleep with a sore neck, but short of getting a neck brace, what can I do?

I need to thank  –

Anna for being lovely. And for taking me to the movies – The Accountant is a very good film!

Eva, Randall, Marky P,  Rick, Q, Tej, and  Rob, for their company and laughs.

Dani for her help ( I think she’ll miss me when I’m gone )

Pia for being Pia

Angela for confiding in me

James and Bev for their crazy party

❤️

‘As a rough guide, it’ll take you about a week to recover from a simple operation such as gallbladder removal, and a few months to recover from a major operation such as a hip replacement’

As I had four massive operations altogether, I wonder how long I’ll take to ‘ recover ‘ ?

I’m not aware that I’m undergoing any changes…

Having waited some time for my dental appointment, and asked the ever kind Cherie to lend me a hand ( well, both of them ) to push me there, I got as far as the lift in the building where I live ( 100 feet up ).

There are 2 lifts, one bigger than the other. I only fit into the larger lift…

The chap sat playing with his phone near the lifts ( doing a job for my flat, inside the building ) told me that the larger lift hadn’t been working for 6 hours, since his workmen had broken it. I tried in vain to fit my chair into the small lift, now already late for my dentist.

As I don’t really get annoyed these days, I was surprised when I found myself feeling pissed off, a feeling that I made known to Duncan ( his name ). As he could fit into the small lift, or walk down the stairs, it hadn’t occurred to him at all that someone else ( me ) was now trapped inside the building.

I had to call my dentist, before giving Duncan a fair bit of flak. He didn’t do himself any favours when he mentioned that one of his guys was parked in the disabled bay outside the building. That got me going a fair bit more – that bay is designated for my use alone, and he somehow hadn’t put 2 and 2 together and worked out that it was MY bay.. despite me being in the wheelchair,  and stuck upstairs.

Disability bay abuse is so rife, it’s extraordinary. All sorts of people think it’s perfectly fine to park in one for ‘ just 5 minutes ‘ or if they leave a note on their dashboard, or if they display a blue badge that belongs to a relative ( who isn’t in the bloody car ) . All of the above are illegal, but more to the point, a massive problem for a genuine wheelchair user, who cannot fit into a standard width space ( no room to fit the chair alongside the car door ).

The lift was fixed an hour later… and I was able to leave.

Imagine how chuffed I was at 8.30 , when I got back to discover the same workmen had broken it again, and not bothered to call the engineer, leaving me stranded 100 feet BELOW where I needed to be.

It was just as well Duncan wasn’t there this second time..

Using a ladder, a rope, a girder 10 feet up, and the help of Danielle and Kim, I managed to transfer to a smaller wheelchair, and get into the small lift.

Necessity is the mother of invention, after all.

As it was 3 hours til the lift was fixed, it was far better that we tried the rope transfer.

My technique ( learnt from an old friend, Chrissy ) of tummy massage, to ‘ encourage the throughput of digestive waste ‘ has paid dividends, my waist now once more being significantly smaller than my chest. It’s taken a bloody long time to achieve this, but now I’m not bloated anymore, which imakes me feel far more presentable, and it’s now possible to do my trousers up, as well.

I can see my hip bones again. It’s been a long time.

I’m doing a lot of exercises with rubber resistance bands to try to rebuild my body after so much abuse in surgery.

My bloody rib cage on my right side is now hurting so much! I have to remember that  at least 9 of the ribs on that side are not joined to anything – that’s 18 ends of ribs that are presumably just sticking into something or other, so maybe that’s why it hurts so much?

I’m also tired from a crazy night at the RGS…. where the drinks are extremely cheap.

I did meet another Wheelchair person there, Mark, who went over the handlebars of his motorbike 20 years ago.

What a good bloke he was too .

He won’t thank me for this, but as well as saying that he’d coped very well with paralysis, he did add that he ‘ missed walking and wanking ‘.

I don’t need to add anything to that summary..

Along with the speaker, Frank Gardner, that made 3 of us with Spinal Cord Injury. Frank can actually just about stand up, though the other speaker, out of respect, sat down for most of his (very funny) talk.