Today I’m in Stoke Mandeville hospital to investigate my morbid leg rigidity. For the last 5 years my legs have become progressively more stiff and spasm’d. Mobility has got harder and harder and my Care hours have gone up and up.
I’ll have a full body MRI and everything will be X-rayed.
I do think i cracked a neck vertebrae in my 23 day old fall to the floor. I’m still in a lot of pain, though it’s not all the time now, thank God.
I’ll find out today if there’s any possible treatment or resolution regime. Whatever it is is going to cost me… yet again.

However I have a girlfriend… who is beautiful and kinda perfect in every way. Without getting ahead of myself.. I hope that several holes in my life are filled. I’d dearly wish to fill others but despite my best efforts for many years they remain deep and seemingly bottomless.

Nina however has an amazing bottom, so my future suddenly feels far from dire. My luck feels like it’s going to change in a big way. 🙏

My neck / shoulders/ arms are still hurting, but the pain moves around depending on what I’m doing.
I had to buy a microwave that could sit next to me in bed whereby I can keep reheating cherry stone bag that’s been a permanent fixture around my neck. I had to do that 20 times a night to get through for the first week. Now it’s far less often.
Anyway in general it’s a shit load better than It was. I’m confined to being indoors because riding my triride hurts a fair bit – it’s having my arms in front of me that hurts.

Staying in gives me cabin fever, going out is painful. I’m out now – gone a mile by triride but it’s not comfortable at all. Worth a punt though.

My parents were down for 2 days. Great to see them. No lodger means they can stay over. That’s good.
My pain understandably makes me a bit tetchy though. Well it does that to everyone.
I can only explain and apologise. Doing my best.

I have missed a few things I booked. That grates but I just had to make a call. In the normal world people don’t think twice about not going out if they have a headache or a sniffle.
I’m paralysed and then in severe pain, yet to me cancelling is a really big problem.
I need to get some perspective, obviously.

It’s not like I’ve even been able to go round my place and ‘ fix ‘ things. Too painful to use my right arm for long.

Anywayyyyy…. hopefully by Monday I’ll be serviceable ( interpret that any way you like …)

The trouble with my dogged nature is that it’s not always productive.
I went with my lovely mate Natalie to Spitting Image the Musical on Saturday night.
But I was in such pain that I hardly saw any of it, because I couldn’t raise my chin to look.

And of course I was fing grumpy all night. Well who wouldn’t be ? ( other than the version of me that just didn’t go and instead stayed in and avoided all the extra pain ). I mean it was bloody painful anyway, but going out and moving around/ tririding/ having to turn my head loads etc etc just made it all far worse.
Apologies to Natalie for putting her through it, although I think she enjoyed the show ?

Hopefully I’ve learned my lesson.

But I doubt it.

Since falling out of my chair ( whilst completely sober ) 3/4 days ago, my right shoulder/arm and my neck have been in total spasm.
The pain has been SEVERE and CONSTANT.
All day long I’m trying to massage/ stretch/ heat, move gently the whole area and gradually it’s got marginally better.
Last night I got cheap tickets for Moulin Rouge but spent most of the performance with my head bowed and desperately trying to alleviate the pain.
The second half I was able to actually look up at the stage, now and then.

Usual mass appeal dance extravaganza typa show.
Really low brow but fun.
Packed with ‘ musical fans ‘ obviously.

On the way back, by road, I was stopped by the police on the A4.
The ( senior) policeman of the 2 was Welsh.
They explained the usual ie it’s not safe to be on a speeding wheelchair on a main road and it would be safer on the pavement.

I explained the opposite to them. Pavements are full of people, dangerous cambers that could easily tip me over , a thousand necessary stop and cross the road points etc etc, not to mention pissed people on Lime bikes.

Whilst it’s not safe on a main road, motorists are clearly so amazed to see me on one that they give me an extremely wide berth, which makes it far safer than cycling on one ( and that’s totally legal ).

He told me I could get in an accident and end up in a coma and dying.
I explained I’ve already done that and shouldn’t be here at all. Also that I’d properly killed myself with a knife into my femoral artery yet was brought back from the other side, lost everything I loved, my job, my life, my children. That life for me without going out and just TRYING isn’t a life.
They were clearly moved, very moved. I thought the Welshman was going to cry.

They shook my hand and told me it was a pleasure to meet me ( but would I please stay off the A4 at night ).

They explained I hadn’t broken any laws. I knew that already of course.

I use the A4 when it’s my obvious route back.
Central london to Brentford is fastest travelled by the A4.
It’s the Hammersmith flyover that seems to get them going, despite I bet that being statistically the safest part of the trip.
It’s a straight line with a 30 mph speed limit, and only 2 lanes. Safe, see. It’s the rest of the road that’s dangerous!

Will I heed their message? Yes, probably.
I could have got the Tube but it’s packed and so often it’s so complicated that the roads are the obvious choice.

6 years ago I found it terrifying to catch a bus. Now I’m the other end of extremity.
Do I have a Death Wish ? No
Do I care if I’m killed? No.

Will I die on a road? Probably.
When? God knows.

I drive ‘ safely’ but the activity is very dangerous.

Well hey, that’s what put me in a wheelchair in the first place, doing risky stuff.
I’m not going to stop tbh.

My date was late, having managed to set fire to her hair during the ‘ getting ready ‘ process that women do.
She looked very cute despite a section of hair that was ‘ frizzy looking’
Women often ‘ catch fire ‘ when they meet me, but not usually BEFORE they do. Good sign. Shame I was in too much pain to actually speak to her for about 2 hours.
She was actually officially my ‘ carer ‘ at the event, by definition.
Not sure how safe I was overall then, not just on the way home. 🤦‍♂️🙄

Since my lovely homie Marky P just qualified as a beekeeper… he’s now going to be known as

Wait for it.

Marky Bee!

Cmon, makes perfect sense.

He was buzzing when I told him.

( 🤦‍♂️😂 )

Dr Semmelweis play is brilliant – the ( true ) story and the whole production.
He should be a household name. Introduced the concept of infection in hospitals through poor hygiene, killing people, before being banged up and killed for it in an asylum.

He’s right up there with Marie Curie if you ask me.

Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis (German: [ˈɪɡnaːts ˈzɛml̩vaɪs]; Hungarian: Semmelweis Ignác Fülöp [ˈsɛmmɛlvɛjs ˈiɡnaːts ˈfyløp]; 1 July 1818 – 13 August 1865) was a Hungarian physician and scientist, who was an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures. Described as the “saviour of mothers”,[2] he discovered that the incidence of puerperal fever (also known as “childbed fever”) could be drastically reduced by requiring hand disinfection in obstetrical clinics. Puerperal fever was common in mid-19th-century hospitals and often fatal. He proposed the practice of washing hands with chlorinated lime solutions in 1847 while working in Vienna General Hospital’s First Obstetrical Clinic, where doctors’ wards had three times the mortality of midwives’ wards.[3] He published a book of his findings in Etiology, Concept and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever.

Despite various publications of results where hand-washing reduced mortality to below 2%, Semmelweis’s observations conflicted with the established scientific and medical opinions of the time and his ideas were rejected by the medical community. He could offer no theoretical explanation for his findings of reduced mortality due to hand-washing, and some doctors were offended at the suggestion that they should wash their hands and mocked him for it. In 1865, the increasingly outspoken Semmelweis allegedly suffered a nervous breakdown and was committed to an asylum by his colleagues. In the asylum he was beaten by the guards. He died 14 days later from a gangrenous wound on his right hand that may have been caused by the beating. His findings earned widespread acceptance only years after his death, when Louis Pasteur confirmed the germ theory, giving Semmelweis’ observations a theoretical explanation, and Joseph Lister, acting on Pasteur’s research, practised and operated using hygienic methods, with great success.

Jesus.
I got back from listening to Billy Joel in Hyde Park. Me and about 10,000 other people without a ticket were just loitering outside the perimeter fence.
About £200 cheaper anyway.

After I got back I was in my living room and , because my sleep is so dire generally, I evidently fell asleep in my chair ( rarely happens because it’s so uncomfortable on my neck, must have pitched forward.. and woke up having smashed my forehead against the wooden floor.
I’m on my front with my legs twisted beneath me, I can feel the blood pouring out of my forehead, but I’m totally stuck.
The TV is on quite load and my phone is God knows where.
I’m shouting for help but no way anyone can hear me.
My help is asleep. It’s 1.30 am and I just don’t know what to do. I’m in such pain around my neck that I assume I’ve broken something, but I have to try to drag myself across the room to find my phone.
I cant drag myself unless I’ve got something solid to pull on. I use thé table legs and get myself my phone and call my help.
Jesus I’m in so much pain.
She drags me through 2 rooms to get me to the hoist in my bedroom, and then eventually into bed.
She wants to call an ambulance but at 2.30 am on a Saturday morning? Seriously? A and E would be a nightmare and I was in such pain.

Remarkably upon waking I’m more or less ok.
My bones clearly aren’t brittle enough to snap, hence my survival of a fall down a long escalator and now a head first Plummet into the ground.
Only exercise keeps your bones strong when you have my condition, so I do loads. Powerball, Powerspin devices and others too.
No weight to these things, just gyroscopes that trick your muscles and bones into thinking they’re heavy.

My face is a mass of blood and cuts today.

Another close shave then.

And I wasn’t even drunk.
Zero alcohol beer tends to be my Go To when I’m up against it. Alcohol is a depressant when there s so much to get you down ( as there is in my life ).

I met a lady the other night. Did I already say this? Her friend crashed his bicycle 18 months ago and he’s paralysed and in a very dark hole.
I talked to her for ages. He needs to talk to me.

Only the paralysed understand the paralysed.
No matter how much emotional intelligence or education you have, you just don’t get it unless you are one of us.

Survived the ‘ holiday’ without ant major mishaps.
Holidays are challenges in better weather, really.
The Curse of Olhao struck again since I decided the lady wasn’t for me!
That’s proximity for ya – make or break! 😂

Another wheelchair issue OBVIOUSLY.. the one I had had shipped out 3 months earlier was completely dead and unable to revive.
What I need is a full time wheelchair technician living there.