I sense that people don’t really get my sometimes less than enthusiastic outlook on life, and my slightly pessimistic view of ‘holidays ‘.

Take the trip to Vegas.

‘Of course you’ll have a good time!’ I hear constantly.

So, let’s say YOU are going to Vegas next week.
Tonight you fall down the stairs. At the bottom, you realise you’ve broken both hips, and both legs too.

Your suitcase is already packed, and is there at the bottom of the stairs, next to where you’ve landed.

What’s the first thing that you’re likely to think then?

Sure, Vegas will still be awesome! I won’t be able to go in the pool, walk anywhere, have a bath, get on the toilet without people helping me on, I’ll have to be carried onto the plane, if it crashes I’ll definitely die, the helicopter excursion is definitely out, the nightclubs won’t be the same, but look at the upside, I’ll be able to sit by the side of the pool and wear my sunglasses…

Pretty accurate I’m guessing, that that is how you’d think?

Yeah right? The first thing you’d think is Christ, thank God I’m insured, and I can rebook it for when I’m back on my feet.

That’s why I’m here, on this program, so that I can reclaim my life.

Thank you so much to Lori and Ally, here at this hotel, for looking out for me, these last few days, in fact to all the staff here, for their kindness, knowing that I’d had a tough time of late.
And special thanks to Ally, again for her help in getting me to the airport tomorrow.

And armed with that bit of positivity, I do head to Las Vegas on Saturday to meet Rob, and Monique on Sunday ( after her 100 mile, 30 hour desert run ).

She’ll be all blistered, will be with her dear mum, I’ll be in a wheelchair and Rob… Well, he’s from Hayling Island…

It’s a weirder Combi than in The Hangover, but hey, don’t count us out just yet.

Massive thanks to my ever thoughtful Bro, Alwyn, for his help with arranging an appropriate room, and to the people at Caeser’s Palace for their flexibility and assistance.

And … GOOD LUCK MONIQUE!

Seen the shrink and had a 30 minute chat.

As expected I’m not clinically depressed, nor ( in general) a danger to myself.

The ‘key’ to getting on with life after severing your spinal cord, is ‘acceptance’, that yes, it’s crap, but there is life after, whilst paralysed.

I get that, but I wouldnt be in bloody Kentucky, 4000 miles from all my friends and family, if I’d accepted it, would I !

I’m here because I haven’t accepted that this, is it.
I want an epidural implant, and I want to recover as much as I can. Ok, so topping myself wouldn’t get me too far down that road, but it does suggest that I’m NOT satisfied with how it is now, and desperately want more, and if chosen, bloody hell I’m going to work harder than anyone to make the thing work on me.

And thinking this through, makes me feel more positive…

Also, I’ve watched 3 Quentin Tarantino movies in 4 days.
And that guy is definitely more crazy than I am!

I get fairly regularly Messages from lovely people Who start or finish the message with :

Hope all good in USA!

Hope you’re having a great time in the States!

Ok, so I know that the sentiment is well placed, but this is how a fairly typical day might go, and it’s now mid day.

Wake 6.15, as my legs are twitching, indicating that I need to stick a long tube into my penis to access my bladder ( done in bed ).

Pull on clothes ( that I’ve left on my bed ) whilst lying down.

Transfer into my chair, wheel down the long corridor, to the lift.

Wheel into the ‘breakfast room ‘ downstairs and put 2 bananas onto my ( unfeeling ) lap.

Wheel through 2 ( hard to push thro ) doors onto the pavement.
Put brakes on to eat bananas – no, you can’t wheel and eat at the same time.

Push for 15 minutes to the hospital, through busy traffic and road works.

Get to Frazier and have 12 electrodes stuck to parts I can’t feel.
Get suspended in a harness and electrocuted for an hour or so.

Get taken down, and electrodes put on places that I can only feel in a horribly hypersensitive way.
Further VERY PAINFUL electrocution for 30 minutes.

Gym, arm bike for an hour, really calling on my resolve to keep going – more about that later.

Another visit to toilet for ‘ In chair penis violation ‘.

So far, my day is, as they go, fairly pleasant.

Today I soon see the psychiatric people ( what on earth have I to get down about?! ).

Then maybe a visit to the semi friendly wheelchair cafe, for a salad.

It’ll be 2.30 pm by then, so only ten more hours to kill before I sleep.
It’s pouring with rain, so I’ll have to sit it out til the storm passes.

Then I wheel back to the hotel, and transfer onto the toilet, usually for an hour or so, where I have to do the most unspeakable ( truly ) things to myself.. that even I hesitate to write down in detail.
Then a transfer back onto the chair, 2 feet to the shower, transfer onto another seat, wash only the parts I can reach without falling onto the floor, dry as best I can, then transfer back onto the wheelchair, 10 feet to the bed, onto the bed ( having put clothes on there ), pull clothes on, transfer back into chair, 12 feet into ‘ kitchen area ‘ , one handedly get something onto my lap, from fridge, wheel to desk, put food on desk, and eat it.

No problem… All a doddle.

So sure, as you can tell, I’m having a fab holiday, here in America.

Living the Dream, me.

But keep sending the texts, only maybe with different wording….

Xx

Today I get my first chat with the Shrink.

I think in America, that it’s as common as going to the dentist, so I shoul sweat about it.

Not that I can sweat.. Well only above my spinal cord break, not below it.

A siren even goes off on your phone!

Now there s a ‘tornado watch’ here.

Alarms went off and we were all herded away from windows..

I thought sod this I’m off, before the rain comes down so hard I can’t get back to the hotel.

So I’ve just pushed back at record pace and made it whilst it’s just raining a bit, with occasional lightning.

The sky is Very Dark.

In that scene in The Wizard of Oz, where she sees all sorts of things floating up and past her in the tornado , is there a bloke in a wheelchair?

Christ, now it is ABSOLUTELY PISSING IT DOWN.

I ignored the phone when it started ringing. And the few texts that came, and an email or two.

I’d decided that I was going to make a choice for myself, selfish I knoe, but true.

I couldn’t ignore the 4 police cars that arrived, and the officers that wanted to talk to me, pretty urgently.

They said they were duty bound to take me for a psychiatric evaluation.
I explained that incarceration for a guy with spinal cord injury, was very likely to lead to bodily damage, and ultimately potentially far worse.

We compromised on me phoning my doctor and talking to him.
Doctor Mike arrived within 7 minutes and took me to his home.
I don’t think you’d get that level of dedication in the UK, on Easter Sunday?

So the deal is that I’ll have a professional to talk to, from here on.

But thank you to anyone that did get in touch, and that includes Beth, who was the first.

As I wheeled along the road, on the road, through the road works, I didn’t care how close the traffic got, or that it’s an offence to ‘walk’ on the road here in the States.

I’m Now at the Waterfront, the huge Ohio river just in front of me.

There’s no barrier between the path and the river’s edge.
I’m Strapped by the legs into this chair,and I know from my weighing the other day that it weighs 35 pounds by itself, so would sink pretty fast and take me with it.

I doubt they’d ever find any trace of man/ wheelchair combination. It’s very deep in there, and extremely cold, and fast flowing too.

It doesn’t strike me as the nicest way to go, but it certainly would be 100% effective.

I feel about as low as I ever have.

I don’t remember it being as bad as this, even early on.
I’m Close to tears all of the time.
I go to sleep unhappy and I wake up unhappy. I don’t want to stay in my room, but don’t want to go out. I don’t want to answer the phone either. I don’t want to see people, or more to the point be seen by people, not like I am now.

It’s Easter, and everyone around me is happy. Everyone having fun, except me. That is how it seems.

People ask, what am I doing for Easter…

Nothing.

All my life I’ve ‘been busy ‘, been happy, whether in company or by myself.
Now, I’m not.

I’ve never felt closer to stopping, opting out.

People say ‘ hey, how you doing? ‘ around here..
Do they actually want to know, want an accurate answer? No, of course not, it’s not a serious question, it’s just a line that people are conditioned to say.
Occasionally, I say ‘ not too good’. They don’t actually even hear my answer, they just see my lips moving and assume I’ve said something cheery, and then say ‘ great, have a good day! ‘

I was invited out to lunch this morning, the message saying ‘there’s 13 of us going for lunch, you coming?’
I declined, I can’t face it, 13 strangers all talking, having fun, assuming that I’m happy too, yes in a wheelchair but surely it can’t be that bad, right? We’re all sitting down too, so it’s the same for all of us, right?

Wrong.
It’s not the same.
You can all get up whenever you like.

My wife and girls are in Portugal, and I get photos texted to me pretty regularly.
I’m Pleased for them. They’re quite naturally having a great time, so much so that my daughters have very little time to speak to me. I know they’re just kids, and that’s what kids are like.
If they knew just how much difference it would make if they did find the time, inside my head, perhaps they would, who knows? When we do talk, all too briefly, I do laugh and joke with them, so it’s not as though it’s depressing to speak to me, yet still I’m a long way down their priority list.
I’m Sure my Nan used to joke ‘ you’ll miss me when I’m gone’. That’s what occurs to me now, but I don’t think it in a humorous way, if you understand my drift..

It was DW this weekend, the world’s hardest canoe race probably (125 miles non stop ) and I followed it online, all day yesterday, until I fell asleep.
It was won by a mixed crew ie a man and a girl. Lizzie Broughton is the first girl ever to win. They absolutely thrashed all the other crews. Their winning margin was an hour and 20 minutes, an incredible result. Another mixed crew came 3rd, missing out on 2nd place by 20seconds.

I feel for the other lady, her amazing effort totally overshadowed by Lizzie’s.

I won the mixed race a while back, with my partner, Roxanne, and overall we came about 8th I think.
The winners names are engraved on the trophies so if Lizzie has a look, she’ll see mine, I guess. Frankly though, her performance makes ours look pretty crap, though it seemed like an achievement at the time.

I do know Lizzie, a bit, but I very much doubt that she reads this diary, but for the record… Lizzie, you’re amazing. If there’d been any recent rain, and a bit of ‘flow’ on the Thames, you’d have surely beaten the record time of 15 1/2 hours set back in 1979.
As it was Lizzie and partner did 16hours 40 minutes, with no flow at all. That’s faster than my best by 50 minutes, putting her into a different league altogether.

As usual, 50 odd boats didn’t get to the end, for various reasons.
Anyone trying it without the right boat and the right training would be tenacious to get more than 10 miles…

Writing about the race makes me realise how much my life has altered – one year taking on one of the worlds hardest challenges, a couple of years on not being able to sit up in bed without dragging myself up with my arm gripping the side of the bed.. And then helpless to keep myself sat upright without holding on to the sheets, tight.
To fall so far, so quickly is so very hard.
Whilst in hospital, a year or more ago, there were 4 of us on my ward. Two of the guys looked completely happy with their situation. I couldn’t relate at all. Both looked as though they’d probably not done a days exercise in a long time, and both spent their time watching TV on their iPads, headphones in, and laughing regularly. I envied their contentment, but was sickened by it at the same time.
Life for them was evidently not so different to normal, now they had an excuse to stay in bed all day. One of them didn’t look at, or talk to me once, in months, asking the nurse to draw the curtain between him and me,at all times.
He snored all night, driving me to distraction, and ate all day, despite being diabetic.
I imagine by now, he’s a good 20 stone in weight, not helping himself very much, and will inevitably die prematurely.
I don’t know why he ignored me so completely, perhaps annoyed by my stream of visitors, or my efforts to stay ‘fit’ whilst lying down, using various elastic straps tied to my bed, perhaps?
When I had leave to go away at Xmas, I returned to a different ward. The sister said she had an ideal spot for me … Next to .. Guess who?
Yes, he’d moved too, and just glared silently at me.

For the only time there in hospital I showed ‘dissent’ saying no, I couldn’t be in that ward, next to that patient.

They found me another place.

It was next to another guy, who wore a cowboy hat and smiled all the time.
When I asked him why he seemed so happy, and how he’d been injured, he explained that like me, it was cycling ( but about 5 years before ) and that once in hospital he liked all the attention, and being looked after.

We got on ok, but it’s fair to say that we didn’t feel the same about our lives.