Hey Russy Wussy,

Just read your blog from Wednesday……

I really felt for you last week, moving house and the emotional wrench that must have gone with that…..far more than just moving house, I know.

I can’t believe you have had to face yet more adversity, how terrifying and how much more do you need to go through? What was the cause in the end as it definitely sounded like annaphylatic shock but obviously not to the nuts….maybe you were stung by something that you are allergic to without realising? Dreadful to see how your lovely face reacted too…. 🙁 Did the docs give you an epi pen in case it happens again?

I think you are off to the states soon? Hopefully this dreadful run of luck will end with something hugely positive from your trip. God knows, you, Dani. Lily and Amber deserve that.

Thinking of you all and as ever sending you all of my love and positive thoughts and willing things to just get better for you.

Loads and loads of love xxxxx

PS you wrote in your text that you felt guilt for your accident and subsequent affect on the family. You shouldn’t, anymore than you would expect anyone to feel guilty for getting cancer. You were touched by a dreadful hand of fate and you never invited any of this. You certainly don’t need to feel anything other than proud of yourself for the way you have handled your life since 14th June 2013. xxxxxxxxxx

So, in the true spirit of getting straight back on the horse, I started the day with a bowl of nutty muesli.

As im still here, scribing this, I’m either alright or its my latest suicide attempt, and this is the last you’ll hear from me.

Ive already been given breakfast of the above, plus coffee and fruit by my new, temporary flatmate, but longtime friend, Colin ( aged 83 ), and visited by Dan, Pia and Debs, and texted and emailed by half of the world ( including Alwyn, Monique, Arti and Sandra who all live on the other side of the globe and therefore are liable to read my latest plaintive, moany posts that I write from A&E at midnight here, at say 11am or 6pm there) Thank you all for getting in touch, it does keep the wolf that’s trying to tear out my throat, from the door.

I shan’t go to work today, as I now look still like the victim of disabled hate crime ( mugging ) , with swollen eyes akin to the effect of being punched in the nose. I do read that this type of crime is on the increase – soft targets obviously – why I always carry a gun, pepper spray and a Tazer .

That last bit wasn’t true.

Or was it?

My life does f’ing suck, it really does.
Lying on a trolley in Charing Cross Hospital.
Dani tired and gone home.
Prob here all night.
When’s it gonna end, this run of luck?

I ate a handful of hazelnuts. Ten minutes later my eyes were so swollen I couldn’t open them, the 40% of me that can itch, did itch, my lips were swollen and I couldn’t really swallow.

The ambulance eventually arrived and I’ve had a steroid injection into a line into a vein in my right hand.

Throughout, my brave little Amber held my hand tight and said encouraging things to me, at one point saying ‘don’t worry Daddy, you’ll be ok, you , always survive everything’   Between words, I knew that she was looking away and crying, as I am now at the thought of it, alone here . Why is she repeatedly having to be put through this? She doesn’t deserve the trauma of my condition and repeated brushes with ambulances

As  I’m now on a hard trolley , I’m susceptible to a pressure sore if I don’t move my legs about to different positions ( with my arms ).

It seems as though I’m only just out of hospital and now I’m back in, in a non specialist unit. I fear for my health here, I must say. Apparently I’m here for observation though that’s the last thing they’re doing.

i feel as though as soon as a positive thing happens in my life, like the course I’ve just been on, then fate just has to knock me back down again.

Big thanks to Dan White, for yet again being there in a crisis and not panicking.

So day 3 of the Ind Course.

Lizzie, my chief mentor ( wheelchair 3 yrs, sporty and fit ) is stuck in a lift, between floors ). Thankfully , it’s after, not before, she’s visited the bathroom.

So. I am writing this post breakfast. I managed to get up, wheel to the loo, do what I had to do, have a shave, a dodgy wash, get dressed, and get out of the room in an hour.

Jesus, lots of women ( ok, and men ) with working legs, take a lot longer than that, so I did ok. I did manage to somehow scrape an inch or so of skin off my left foot in the night – lots of blood on the sheets – but it’s not serious.  Skin damage and pressure sores are the main killers of Spinal Cord Injured people, I hear, so I do have to be careful. The trouble is that you can’t feel the pain, so a wound can become something horrendous very quickly, sometimes requiring literally a year in bed. Yes, a YEAR.

We’ve done skills practice, car transfers, a night out for a curry… Floor to chair transfers, wheelies etc etc.

There are only 4 of us actually being trained, and compared to the others i seem to be doing allright  – as in I can get dressed, transfer to a bed, and a car, drive, am working, done a few sports etc. The others haven’t really done any of that list. It doesn’t mean that I’m ahead of the game, but that maybe they’re a bit behind?  Either way, it’s good for all of us to compare with eachother.

Today, more car transfers, including trying to get the sodding chair into the passenger seat. Hard, as my car is pretty short on cockpit space to pass the chair in between me and the steering wheel, and my bloody forearms hurt a lot too. Oh, and my left thumb.

Otherwise, I’m  a 100%…

And suddenly its our last night in our dream house.

None of us want to leave.

I have until 11am in the morning before I drive to Essex, for my Living Independently course.

I hope that I don’t ever have to actually live alone, all by myself… I don’t ever want that to happen, and can’t imagine that it would come to pass (Mind you, I didn’t see paralysis coming either) though my long suffering wife from time to time looks like she’s had enough  – and who frankly could blame her ?

Ive had a lot of lows recently, only seeing the negatives in my life, mostly connected with my seemingly hurried forced goodbye to the trappings of my only too recent old life.

To just move on and get over it is so hard for me. It’s not easy to forget who and how i was only a little over a year ago.

I’m Surrounded by capable and caring people, and am in the most uncomfortable situation of wanting them all to go away, yet needing them desperately at the same time. If any of them read this, please don’t actually go… I love you all dearly.

Work is a challenge for sure, I’m managing regular days, and I’m  told it really helps, yet fear that my influence from my chair is too little.

That argument is countered by the Frank Williams story, who from a wheelchair managed to build and run one of the most successful motor racing teams in history.

So far, I’m more Spencer than Williams, but who knows what the future holds.

… Before we move out of our house, the one I thought I’d never leave, my perfect home.

Near the river, easy access leaving London, amazingly organised shed and attic full of sporting kit – kayaks, stand up paddle board, paddles, skis, rollerskis, skates, bikes, canoe machine etc etc- all unusable now and probably for ever.

My life laid out in the garden before me, asked to choose – keep/ give away/ throw away. To say I found it hard, well that would be understating it.

20 years of memories and experiences, all intertwined with these objects , not inanimate to me

I have this thought going around my head – well what if I’m cured? Don’t I need to keep this stuff? Is that just a stupid notion, or should I hang on to it?

I’ve toyed with, and been offered the option of being carried up and around the house . One last look. The last time JUNE 2013

Is it better to just have the memory of how it was, in my head? Ive no idea, frankly, of what I want, but time is running out fast to decide.

I think I’ll ask Amber to walk around with her camera and video it for posterity.

Other stuff… I’ve been in touch with Re Walk, the people who make Robo exoskeleton suits. I’ll meet with them in due course, maybe January. The wheelchair is increasingly depressing me as a lifestyle accessory, so want another option. Dan says I’m built like Robocop, so may as well go the whole way.

We went to see Kate Bush on Friday, her comeback sold out London tour. Viewed from the Disabled section of the Hammersmith Apollo… With various other people, only me in a wheelchair though.

I was more than dismayed to see Kate, in my head 8 stone of balletic, ethereal grace…..now stomping around the stage with all the dance step imagination of me, at 15, in a disco in Pontypool.

Shes worth a cool £33 million- not beyond affording a gym membership/ personal trainer/ even just a pair of trainers?

Its been some time since she’s run up that road, let alone that hill.

Chris Haynes and I got in a cab at 10am and headed to the start line at Greenwich.

I was fully dressed in waterproof trousers and boots and a cagoule, at odds with my former life paddle Lycra get up.

About a hundred boats were in the race, of all descriptions and from all over the world. Most had at least 5 crew, ours ten, including me as the steerer and ten year old Leith as the ‘passenger’.

Three of the guys carried me down the very muddy slipway and wedged me into the rear of one of the hulls of our Bell Boat, so that I could reach the rudder – an oar stuck through a metal bracket

Our allotted start time of 1.30 came quickly, by then the incoming tide rising and filling the river really fast.

There were 4 boats in our category, paddling off hard from the gun. It was obvious that the enthusiastic pace wouldn’t be sustainable for 21 miles, and it wasn’t…

The ride through the whole of the london  riverscape was a trip everyone ought do, so much history on view, attached to the many iconic buildings.

The river was very rough from the presence of so many boats so it wasn’t an easy ride. I kept sliding down from half sitting to almost being flat. Getting back up involved letting go of the rudder and dragging myself up with both arms.

We won our category in a time of 2 hours 59, a Richmnd Club record no less.

The most emotional part for me was the sight of London Bridge Hospital, where, little more than a year ago, I lay in intensive care, emaciated, with weeping facial wounds, a tracheotomy in, being fed by a tube, virtually unable to move, having to be picked up by a hoist, in the depths of despair.

There is no way on God’s Earth that I would have even Imagined canoeing past  just 1 year later, in the company of friends, smiling all the way.

It does bring it home to me, how far I’ve come.

Thanks so much to Richard and Tim and Chris and everyone at Richmond who made it possible.

Hello mate
You did a very respectable 31:39.7 mins
10.77 km distance.
20.4 km/h average speed.
Looking forward to our next blast round the park !

Jonny.

Thats almost 3 mins faster, despite lungs full of phlegm….

Big love to Jeremy Day and Jonny Welch for being my outriders…

So by virtue of introductions from Tim Killip and Rich Hendron, I met Ian and Warren at Imperial College last week. These very smart guys work at the college and are very much involved with the Rio Tinto Sports Innovation Project , looking at ways to get injured athletes back into sports, using engineering lateral thinking/genius.

They have proposed that I get back into a kayak with their help, and are happy to throw the cerebral weight of their students into the task.

That is extremely exciting for me, and I’m very much looking forward to meeting them again, in November.

In the meantime, this Saturday, I’ll be in a boat again, in The Great River Race, from Greenwich to Ham.

I won’t be paddling but i’ll have the rudder control for 22 miles, from my position of being wedged firmly into the left hand hull.

Thanks to Richard H for talking me into it, against my better  judgement.