To Mike and Theresa for inviting me out on their family birthday lunch. Mike was *1 today and reckons he was in the same year as me in school.

No way, I say.. unless he was one of my teachers ?

Anyway, Happy Berfday Mr Smith.  I felt very honoured to be the only non family member there.

Russ

As referenced in my last post, I’ve tried my hand at online dating.  I deliberated a bit before trying it ( at the suggestion of a Mum from one of my daughters ‘ schools ) but then paid up for 6 months and dived ( well wheeled and then tipped  ) in.

Without my injury I can’t really have seen myself doing it – bit sad/ desperate etc – but you really don’t realise how completely ‘ normal ‘ this stuff has become, until you’re in it. Now when I’m out and I see two people talking in a bar or even a coffee shop and they don’t look as if they’re  familiar with each other, my default assumption is that they’re on an online date.

My reticence was for obvious reasons. Who the f*** would want to go out with a bloke in a bloody wheelchair ? I can’t stand the f****** thing, so how is anyone else, particularly an attractive female, going to find it at all likeable? To me, it was a case of an obvious date killer, so I absolutely did NOT put pictures of me in a wheelchair on my ‘ profile’ .  That’s not to say that I put pictures of me pre injury in, because I didn’t – they were all ( 5 ) of me after my accident, but not actually featuring the metal bits that now come with me.

What happens is that you get ‘ chat / meet requests ( or send them ) and then you start messaging each other on the app/site …

Well I’m fine with the chat stuff  ( as you might imagine ) but there comes a point where you just have to mention the minor detail of being paralysed from the chest down.  It kinda becomes necessary when the potential date talks about hill walking/ surfing/ having a bedroom in the attic.

I figured that it was best to pre write a few paragraphs about my history, and then copy and paste it into a message, before any actual date took place. I mean you can’t just turn up in a wheelchair and pretend it’s not there, can you?

Expecting to always get ‘the knock back ‘ every time I sent the copy and paste, I was amazed to find that actually…. women aren’t that shallow.  Given that men are definitely that shallow, I had pre-judged the other half of the population.

It wouldn’t be right to give any details away, but I can honestly say that all of my online date experiences have been lovely ( in other words that the girls/ladies have been lovely ). I’m not exactly hard to talk to, so it’s never awkward to talk to anyone, or hasn’t been so far… and i realised that my situation ref finding a cool and compassionate lady wasn’t anywhere near as dire as I thought it would be.

I have a female friend in a chair, who reports that for her ( and she IS a hotty ) it’s really not been a success – proof that men are FAR more f***** up about the chair thing than girls are – I mean how the hell is she going to hoover the stairs, right…?

I won’t be blogging about my dating, but suffice to say that I already have some very funny stories that I could tell… not bad stories (!) but definitely humorous ones.

Last night’s one was really cool. Who knows how my next one will be?

Wouldn’t it be funny if we bumped into Dani and Pringle in a bar…?!  Awks… as the kids might say… especially if I’m sporting his pants?

I went to the West End last night, to a play.

Ooh, there’s middle class of me. …

Victorian theatres were certainly not designed with wheelchairs and SCI in mind.  For a start, you really can’t put a wheelchair on a slope… Why’s that? Cos of the bloody wheels…. they are designed to go round and take the object on top of them down the gradient upon which they are placed.

For second, if the occupant of the chair has no core muscles, then he / she is always on the verge of falling out of the chair. It’s not like I can stick out my bloody legs to stop me, is it?

For a third, once in situ and with the brakes on, no one else can get past me. If I take the brakes off to try to move, then I fly down the slope and smash into the first object I meet….

For a fourth, please put the bloke in charge of the poor wheelies through some kind of training course so that he has the first clue about anything at all, rather than just being completely indifferent and hopeless in every way.

The play itself was great. All intellectual, for sure, but good. To start with i found the laughing out loud by a few people at ‘ jokes’ that just weren’t ever worth an audible outburst a bit annoying / confusing.. was I the only person in there who didn’t get that it was funny, I thought ? For some Out Loud Guffawers I think it’s definitely just an intellectual show off thing, but actually having got the gist, it was funny. It might have helped if I’d read the plot before going though, to give me some historical insight into James Joyce, the Dada movement, Lenin’s time in Zurich etc. Well… we didn’t do any of that in my school in Wales  ( for our sins )

Thanks to my online date for taking me – I owe you one. You may get Two Pints of Lager and a packet of Crisps as the return favour, but hey.

Picadilly Circus in the evening, with NOBODY looking where they’re going ( how can you, at the same time as looking at your Selfie Stick ) in a wheelchair is really not to be recommended. As a nerve calmer, it was shite, but as with all things post injury I just ultimately have to suck it up and get over myself.. and smile.

I thought I’d try the sweetcorn test.

If you eat a tin of sweetcorn and the next day, traces of said crop are visible in your crap, then you know that your colon is functioning pretty efficiently.

To that aim I ( with the benefit of hindsight ) overdid it slightly on the Movicol laxative sachets and paid the price today – or more literally my lovely carer, Victoria, did.

The process of crap/clean up/ crap again /clean up was repeated several times and I’d never have managed it by myself.

There was however, no sweetcorn…

The tangible sense of care / love that I get from my 2 incredible carers is very touching ( and contrasts very starkly with the sad indifference of my daughters and STBE – soon to be ex – wife ) .

These girls ( both 27 ) are just adorable human beings.  I’m so very glad that I have them in my life.

Last night I ( sort of ) invited myself to a dinner party at Cress and Toby’s. Cress told me not to swear as she wasn’t sure how it might go down with the disparate group that was invited.

I heeded her advice, and can state that I dropped the F Bomb far less often than either of the ladies sat either side of me.

Thank you to the men there for lifting my chair over the 3 steps as I departed, and pushing me through the gravelly driveway, where my trike electric wheel would have foundered. I think Toby thought he was back at the top of the Cresta  Run, as he pushed me at high speed down his driveway at midnight, setting me free to speed along the A316 in the moonlight.

Amazing how considerate motorists are to a wheelchair bike, and how their behaviour contrasts with my memories of years of abuse as a cyclist.  There’s Good and Bad in that observation, but I’ll concentrate on the Good.

The sequel to Wallace and Grommets film ‘The wrong trousers’ is titled ‘The wrong spangly pants’

Thankfully, the Ancients had even made it wheelchair accessible..

Me, in my new lucky pants.

So… this morning, my lovely carer, Francesca, is assisting in dressing me post wash….

In the middle of the ‘ underpants pulling up’ process, i look down and say ‘ Fran, those aren’t my pants?’ She’s like saying ‘ what’d you mean, not your pants ?’

‘ Well I don’t have any Pringle pants’… ( I mean who actually does?! )

I ask her to pull them off and we take a closer look at the slightly spangly Pringle silver insignia on the waistband. Then I look at the size ( bigger ass than my own ).

My soon to be ex wife’s secret boyfriend’s underwear has been now been worn by myself….. which I’m very amused by…

Does he want them back?

I may have leaked a little turd in them? Who knows – I can’t tell….

If anyone out there wants a pair of size XL pre worn by ( at least ) 2 blokes pair of Pringle slightly glittery insignia’d underpants ( in black ) then please write in ….

Operation date, finally.

May 4th ( 2017 )

Phew.

Bloody brilliant to spend a day with my school buddy, Neil, after not seeing the crazy b****** for only 29 years. He drank pints of proper beer to my pints of shandy ( all day ) and I still felt rough the next day, so not sure how he must have been.

Like me, Neil’s not been so lucky with his health, and isn’t properly mobile. We resorted to him sitting his 14 stone on my lap, along with bags and a walking stick, and the whole 28 stones of us being powered along by my single wheel motor. Not ideal, but it worked, and we even finished the day watching a great band, The Brakes.  Thanks to Maddie for the invite, and to Veronica for her help back. A former nurse appearing when you least expect it,  comes in handy it would seem…

Thanks to Damo and Sal for inviting Pia and I to a Hen Party in Southampton… on Saturday night. The last Hen Party I went to was actually Pia’s, where I had the dubious honour of being the barely dressed waiter.  This weekend I obviously wasn’t, but nonetheless managed to at least contribute by suggesting very inappropriate games .. well, a Hen Party isn’t supposed to be dull, is it?

Thanks to Damo, Sal and Pia for looking after me extremely well, though I did actually manage to drive my car there and back. After 9 months of not driving at all, it actually felt pretty exciting, although I’d never have been able to get  into a car by myself, just not being able to get my legs in at all without significant assistance. That’s how it’s always going to be from now on, so I accept it and still appreciate the fact that once behind the wheel, I can at least do that part, and it enables me to visit more of the Good People.

Look at the positives, right?

Imagine a world where more people care than you imagine

Imagine a woman you’ve never met enjoying interaction with you

Imagine all those people you’ve yet to meet but who will value you

Imagine the relative freedom of a colostomy

Imagine quality time with your daughters who will love you in a way no one else can. One day. Really.

Imagine not waking up with that crushing longing

Imagine the truth that all your “imagines” or at least those listed will become your new norm

It’s truly the worst being a bird inside a cage. And it’s truly difficult to find words,precisely because I get it! No pithy little homilies here. You’re stuck in a Shitty,palpably toxic situation, but it won’t keep you down for longer than necessary. You’ll make sure of it X

Sounds like you have some great friends around you. You’re relying on them just now,but you prob have already (and will in future) return in kind. Friends…and least we get to choose them!

I never kept Get Well Soon cards in hospital . Felt like reading living obituaries, or like they were taking the piss… “You’re a fighter” they’d chirp. How the fuck do you know that? “Fought” paralysis lately,have you? Left up to me, fuckin things would’ve gone straight in bin. My Dad insisted on reading them (“people have taken the time”) and I was paralysed to stop the debacle lol. I say this only cos sometimes things are beyond our control…your “situational” stuff is beyond your control. For now. Only.

Well my digits are f****  after this crap. Know only that people care. I’d ghosted your blog for yonks before making a comment. How many more Dear Readers… do you have? Nice thought, eh? X X