My First Week with Russ

The title of this post will hopefully be something of a tell to those of you who follow my erstwhile boss. NB not : “My First and Last Week” , “The Long Walk (back) to Freedom”(my Nelson Mandela roots) or even “It was Nice while it Lasted…” . I have survived my first week with Russ but find it salient to mention that he has survived his first week with me also – not something to be taken for granted as this blog can attest to!

I arrived from sunny South Africa exactly one week ago unsure what to expect which as it turns out was perfect because nothing could have prepared me for the world I was about land in and any expectations would merely have been illusions (or disillusions) in the face of the reality I have found here…..
Russ’s first day with me was difficult for us both. How many times, I wondered, has he had to hand over his care to a complete stranger, this time a particularly unqualified one. My fears were not rational. Any normal person might have been afraid of the array of wheelchairs and their chargers, spanners and equipment that awaited me or of riding a rigid front fork 20 year old mountain bike at 20mph through the London rush hour traffic chasing a madman in a wheelchair (and completely failing to keep up) but those things didn’t worry me. My concerns were more practical – or so I thought. How would I get the inaccessible bits of him clean, how do I remove a stoma bag from a hairy chested man and please God can I not drop him on his head when I’m moving him from wheelchair to bed or vice versa. Yet in those first few hours my worst fears arrived as my new employer declared that his belly button was no longer aligned with his Willy (his word not mine) and could I please check that for him as he ripped down his underpants so that I could have an unobstructed view of said misalignment ……As I said, the rush hour traffic was easy …

My week has been a kaleidoscope of new experiences, a sensory overload of interactive moments flinging themselves randomly across lovely London’s yet arriving in apparent order anyway and the complete privilege of looking at life with a brand new set of eyes. Who gets to do that?
I have found in Russell less of a disabled or handicapped, weakened or wounded invalid and more of a fiercely independent and completely capable individual, brimming over with energy and enthusiasm for life in its every possible incarnation and some that shouldn’t be possible at all. We have chased moments of magic from Chiswick to London Bridge, seen spectacular views at the new Battersea Power Station Development and visited the heights of Tower Bridge and the depths of Churchill’s War Rooms. This enigmatic man glows with a bright intelligence, longing to learn new and unexplored ideas and has a refreshingly innate ability to laugh at himself and the world. I learn something every day, even if it’s only that the wheelchair section of the movie theatre is a raised secluded private box or that the network of Russ’s dearest friends are a gossamer thread of the strongest kinship, real people who truly care about their crazy friend and will travel miles to visit for tea, repair a broken wheel or simply share the experience of a lecture at the RGS.
These are my first impressions. I know he is on his best behavior but hey after all so am I. Somewhere in this first week we have found an easy alliance. We are both fiercely self sufficient in the ways that really matter and yet somehow find it easy to lean on each other for the things we can each provide, unthreateningly, in an almost symbiotic manner as we navigate the early stages of what is, quite simply, life together.
We still haven’t worked out who exactly is the real boss in this relationship but I will be sticking around for a while longer and no doubt we will thrash that one back and forth verbally as well as physically ( while I try not to drop him on his head)

Tomorrow Russ has his long awaited MRI scan. As you know X ray’s last week (to diagnose the non-aligned Willy) revealed part of his spinal steel structure has come slightly adrift and further investigation is required. I think I will slip the nurse a fiver and ask her to check the loose screws in his head as well as in his back while she’s at it…..

Linda Warren

The New thing was visiting Churchill’s War Rooms today. It’s just as it was in the film I saw – primitive   and pretty bleak and very cramped, but with a typically British stoic feel to the whole place. My semi working ( as in the charge is unreliable ) IBot got me there, after Linda got me ready. My fixation definitely worries me, as I seem less and less rigid all the time, as time goes by. I’ve decided to limit movement as much as I can, though that’s my own common sense kicking in, rather than my surgeon’s advice.

Friday im expecting to be told that I’m going to be admitted straight away for bed rest followed by surgery, but we’ll see.

If I end up staying in hospital I’ll miss such delights as my skin cancer check up next week – Gawd it looks like one way or another I’m going to be claimed soon! Never mind.

Thanks to the usual suspects for their support, and to Linda for introducing me to some new mind concepts. In return I’ve introduced her to such shocking movies as Movie 43 and In Bruges,  neither being everyone’s cup of tea…

New?

Met the incomparable Lester, engineering enthusiast extraordinaire, who came to assess my iBot plug last night – I t’s fully charged at the moment and hoping for a day without close shaves with Linda, including amongst other things a visit to the Churchill War Rooms in Westminster, which IS accessible.

Tomorrow is all about the eve of my visit to have my CT scan to assess my broken screw – if I was a betting man, I’d put my money on the likelihood of further surgery to replace the screw, before the rest ( that was depending on that screw ) starts to bend and break. I’m not a structural engineer, but  if the foundation is weak, then surely the Tower falls down eventually…?

New today ?

Linda, Mark, Mike and i went to a lecture about WW2 escapes from POW camps.

There were 36,000 successful escapes by allied troops… escaping was A DUTY for ‘ our boys ‘, so they blimmin did. Escaping was a whole industry, and completely ingenious ways of smuggling in maps etc to the prisoners were invented.

Guess how many successful escapes there wer by German soldiers ( back to Germany )….?

One.

One only got away, from captivity in Canada. I wonder why that was? Presumably they weren’t imbued with the duty to try? Or Maybe they were just not very good at it. Ever so good at killing people, but not so clever at laterally thinking about escapology?

Fascinating 75 Minutes…

Im getting more convinced that my fixation isn’t happy. I’m getting pain that I didn’t used to get. The surgeon said that I should do nothing differently, and NOT do less. Historically his advice hasn’t always been necessarily good for me ( in my opinion ) so I have been more careful, in so much as I can be.

On Friday I have a CT scan, to tell all. I’m expecting it to lead to more surgery to replace the broken screw, but we’ll see. I have a date that evening, so I’m going to be cheerful come what may, I’ve resolved.

Lets just wait n see.

I learned a ( new ) important lesson yesterday. It’s to trust your instincts – well they are there for a reason, and are the essence of you as a creature. I’m talking in my case about ‘ choosing ‘ a partner. Basically, you HAVE to heed the warning signs and listen to the alarm bells that your INSTINCT is telling you loud and clear that someone isn’t a fit for you. She may well be a perfect fit for someone else, but for you she’s never going to work, no matter how much you are  prepared to bend to her will, by way of ‘ trying to make it work ‘.

I think also that your friends should feel free to tell you what they think too – after all, they are your friends, so if you don’t respect their opinions, then either they aren’t your friends, or you aren’t their friend. If you can’t trust your mates, then they aren’t actually your mates, are they?

After watching the Churchill film, it’s apparent that without him at the helm, the Swastika would indeed have flown over Buckingham Palace. He listened to the people, whose instinct it was to never, NEVER surrender. To me, in my situation, it was such a powerful film. Never give up, and if you fight for long enough and hard enough, you WILL win.  Like Shackleton, my hero, Churchill knew never to give up.

When i commîtted suicide last July, i wasn’t giving up, i was choosing a different path. No one made me do that, it was right for me at the time, and my choice. My choice now is to live on and make the most of what i have left.

Enough said.

New yesterday – well I’d never seen a George Bernard Shaw play, and I’d never been to The Orange Tree theatre in Richmond. Tbh, it was bloody brilliant. I had no idea just how clever that writer was, or how similar in so many ways human behaviour is now compared to all those decades ago when the play was written. Thanks to Toby and Cress for the invite, and my date for coming. Thanks to Pia for the invite to her birthday celebration, not thanks to the frosty reception I got from lots of my pre divorce friends – that was an experience, I can tell you…. all ‘ dealt with ‘ quite calmly by myself though, I must say.
New today – met a cool lady online, and a first for Linda and i, going to the movies. The Darkest Hour promises to be really good. I find myself more and more interested in WW2 as time goes by, the horrors of The Holocaust, and the cruelty of the Nazis. Human cruelty of course goes on, and its fascinating listening to Linda’s Robert Mugabe tales, as she is from Zimbabwe.

Gotta sleep!

Lots has been happening, not all good, but I’ll dwell on the positives!

My carer left,but her replacement is thus far astoundingly good…. I’m so happy to say. Even writing ‘ so happy ‘ is something I’ve not done for almost 5 years, so read into that what you will….

The iBot is still working, with its Toby repair, and ongoing tweaks by Toby, and 6 total strangers continue to be doing their best to assist me. Huge thanks to Cliff, Volker, Simon, Lester, Poppy Anne, and Mark Lesbirel for instigating their support via a post in Cool Components..

Not such great news is that I noticed I’m no longer ‘ straight ‘. No, not gay or ‘questioning ‘ but simply that my tummy button is no longer in line with my willy, unless I’m cock eyed… ( that was a joke ).

An x Ray revealed that as per the image, my bottom left screw into my pelvis has broken. That s one of the 2 screws that were ‘ impossible to break ‘, by the way.  No surprises there then, as it’s me I’m talking about, after all.

The Triride is also not working properly, and needs repair.  As they pointed out that the 2000 km I’ve done on it in a year far exceeds anyone else’s use of one, im obviously pushing it like one never has been ? Again no surprises?

So not ALL good, but I’m not getting all depressed about anything – worse has happened to me, my by line.

Linda and i have pledged to ‘ do something new every day’ so that’s what we’re doing. Yesterday we went into Tower Bridge for a self tour – what an AMAZING structure that is!

7 mm diameter cable….

As measured by my ruler from Poundland..

I was asked what length the charge cable was. 

It’s 141cm.

Lettering on the side too.