Right, so having now seen an X-ray taken of my spine today whilst sat in my wheelchair  ( all previous ones were with me on my back ) it does explain a lot.

There’s a 36 degree curve in my spine.

Yes, THIRTY SIX  degrees.  That’s almost bloody diagonal.

It means that I’m ( laterally ) like the Hunchback of Notre  Dame.

Being straightened will mean that everything I do  will be easier. They would put screws and rods along the whole length of my spine ( in itself not good ) but the result will be symmetry at last.

Personally I can’t bloody wait to get it done, but for various reasons it may not be til August.

There are risks of course, but I couldn’t give a flying F about those, to be honest.

I’ll be a long time in surgery, then a spell in Intensive Care, then in hospital for 10 days, then   3-6 months in a  brace without vigorous exercise ( in case the whole lot falls apart )

Oh, and he warned me that I’ll feel very rough for a while.

Two nights ago I dreamt that I could walk – not very well, but just enough to do a few things, and significantly well enough to  no longer use a wheelchair.  In my dream it seemed that I’d just forgotten that actually I could walk and that I just hadn’t tried enough to do it.

When I woke up, I fully believed the dream to be reality.

The realisation that it was just a dream was truly heartbreaking.

http://m.seetickets.com/tour/new-faces

If you like music, go and see my superstar buddy, George Morgan ( appearing as ‘Beach’ )

Ive known him since he was a baby and now he’s 23 and been signed by Sony …

See him now for a few quid, before he’s selling out the O2 and you have to pay £60 a ticket.

He was amazing last night in Shepherd’s Bush.

Also, happy 18th to my nephew, Morgan!

Conversation overheard by me from front of car :

‘ If you had to, would you go out with a picture of a vagina on your forehead, or five penises on your back?’

I know what I’d choose.

This week I  am involved in 2 research projects. One is trying out an Exoskeleton suit ( probably my first ‘walk’ in nearly 3 years in a couple of days time ) and then an experiment in Loughborough involving core temperature differences between the Spinally Cord injured and ‘ normals ‘ – necessitating me swallowing a special pill to record inner temperature.

I’m not sure if they want the pill back or not, but good luck if they do.

Happy Birthday to my brother, Alwyn.

This Friday I have an appointment with a spinal surgeon ( in fact the same doctor that oversaw my return to Britain in August 2013 ) to talk about straightening my very wonky spine.

I really don’t like the fact that the 60% of me that doesn’t work is not even lined up with the 40% that does.  I am constantly leant to my left, without any ability to right myself.

I’m expecting him to play down the improvement to be gained, as there’s more to it in my case ( like the fact that I have more muscle that works on my left side, which also pulls me in that direction ) but if I could be a few degrees straighter it would be well worth it.

Fingers crossed then.

PS Not yet had MRI results.

I don’t have anything particularly wrong with my urethra or bladder, is the verdict so far.

Whilst that’s good news, it does nothing  to explain my continuing spasm torment.

I’ve just had my MRI also, and await the results of that.

Thanks to Jonny for helping with my arm bike repairs, and to Simon at The London Bicycle Workshop  ( 373 King Street, Hammersmith ) – where all cyclists should go for services.

Thanks to Pia for helping me at the hospital, and to Saz for her input into some other stuff.

Also sincere thanks to Michael Appleton.

I went to Stoke Mandeville yesterday  ( thank you Dani for your help ) and was there for quite a long time. I can tell that my consultant there ( who as an inmate you see ever so briefly once a week or fortnight ) seems to have a curiosity ( can’t think of another word for it ) about me. I left there 2 years ago and really hardly saw him when I was there, yet he remembers all kinds of details about me that really he should have forgotten – maybe he reads this blog?! But I doubt it.

Anyway, they did standard X Ray’s and an ultrasound of my bladder, discussed my distressing spasms at length, talked about my bladder a lot too, and then it got more interesting  when I prompted a discussion on a possible straightening of my spine ( which in the haste to save my life in Toulon they cobbled together very badly ).  So they can now revisit it and re-operate to stack the vertabrae on top of one another in a straight’ish line. That ought make me more upright and less twisted than I am now – I hope.

There is a slight risk that I end up more paralysed than I am now but I’m cool with taking a chance.

Also they found the very large swelling to my sacral ( tailbone/ coccyx ) area quite alarming and want to do an MRI scan urgently to rule out a tumour. That eventuality didn’t even cause me a flicker of concern either.

On the assumption that I don’t die soon of the above I’ve decided to make a dramatic change in the direction of my life, having realised one or two things.

Some things are unrealistic and not achieveable, no matter how hard I wish for them.

Some things are definitely achieveable, but having tried very hard to make them happen for what seems like an eternity, I now realise are beyond my control and in the hands of others. Those things I can let go of and say goodbye to.

I spend way, way too much time being very unhappy / suicidal even, but there is an alternative approach – not one I had imagined taking a year ago (or even a month ago )  – but it would I think set me free, and give me a another bite of the cherry.

First things first though – medical investigations to my insides/ tumour search / major spine surgery / time in hospital recovering.

Oh and I need a haircut as well.

Thanks to Steve and Shelley ( mostly Steve ) for his words, and thanks always to Clair,  and to Pia.

I just want to have a day which I could now described as ‘good’, the definition being where nothing has distressed me.

Today began with legs and trunk that spasmed for 5 hours.  I did some work stuff on line through a fair bit of that, though it’s very, very hard to concentrate.

The spasms lessened for about 2 hours, which I had to spend ‘ in the bathroom ‘ – the obligatory unpleasant stuff.

The spasms then started again at about 3pm. It’s is 10,45 and they are continuing to dominate my world and break my spirit.

I thought that the antibiotics might have stopped them but really they have made no difference at all.

It’s probably been no worse than lots of other recent  ( last 7 months ) days really, but I’m worn down psychologically.

Tomorrow I go back to Stoke Mandeville for tests. I don’t have much faith that there’ll be any quick fix to this situation.