5 hours later, on the drive home with Dani ..
Category Archives: Events
Amber at Tulley’s Farm.
How to make a guy feel better. Part 1.
My God, I’ve had some positivity flow my way since my admittedly depressing post.
Thank you all for the phone calls ( Monique, Dani and Rob ) and the supportive texts and emails… John Barden , Alwyn, Roy and Caroline, Pia, Pat Huggins, Sian.. to name but a few.
Scott and Ina came tonight from my work place.
I am their boss.
When your ‘staff’ travel hours to see you, it tells you something.. That you must be ok as a boss?
Alice and Irinder came with them. They are former employees and now friends .
As an employer, I’ve always tried to break down the barrier between ‘ boss ‘ and ‘staff ‘. For years I’ve felt that you really don’t need to be an authoritarian to have authority.
You can engender respect through being an example. That doesn’t mean through being there for 12 hours a day, but by being decent, approachable, respectful, and in my own case through being a laugh ( I hope ).
The formula seems to have worked anyway.
You’d have to ask the ladies and gentlemen that work for me to confirm I’m not talking thro’ my arse, but I’m pretty sure I speak the truth.
Tonight I missed our annual family Haloween trip to Tulleys Farm in Sussex.
You’re supposed to be at least 14 to go, as the ‘rides’ are scary (but my girls are dead brave).
I was really upset to miss it.
Next year I’ll have an off road chair so I’ll be there again girls, ok, I promise you.
Xx
At 4 am tomorrow morning the indomitable Dan White begins his next ultra run, for my charity.
It’s a mere 68 miles of French mountain with 4800m of climbing.
That’s like running from London, to Brighton and the running up Mont Blanc ( europe’s highest peak ), twice.
Is the site address.
Is there no stopping this man?
Good luck buddy.
A lot of people are with you in spirit.
Russ xx
From Sian.
I’ve heard this distinction between feeling forsomeone and feeling with them described like this: One day, Sympathy and Empathy come across someone in a deep hole. Sympathy says ‘You poor thing, it looks really dark down there. Would you like a sandwich?’ Empathy, on the other hand, climbs down into the hole and says ‘I see you. It’s horrible down here, isn’t it?’
Your family and friends are in that hole with you, they care, and they’re not leaving.
Hope that today is a little brighter
xx
Thank you, Sian. X
I forgot….
I forgot to thank Jade Rodham of the Hogarth, in an earlier post.
Jade is married to Terry, and is an absolute treasure. As a trainee physio, she understands more than most my new difficulties.
Jade was there for me, helping me onto the hand bike, keeping me from overheating on it and continually encouraging me.
I’ve known Jade for at least ten years.
The world is a better place for having her in it.
Thank you Jade.
Russ
Xx
24th of October 2013.
Am feeling down today.
Depressed/ low/ sad.
Why today and not other days, I don’t know.
There was a moment, an hour ago. I’d gone to the Guttman leisure centre ‘ home of the Paralympic Movement’ for a group Fitness Class.
We did shuttles, sprints, chases, even the Bleep Test.
In my past life I’d have been pretty good at that. Now, my small lungs and beginners chair make it tough to be even 60% as fast as some others are. But I was better than last time.
There follows a ‘hill’ to be climbed back up to the hospital.
Next to the entrance there are a few wheelie bins. I had to stop to catch my breath, holding up a few others.
I moved aside to let them past, and stayed where I was for a few minutes.
I reflected on what my life has become.
In my chair, part human, part inanimate object. The wheelie bins took on a new significance. Filled with society’s rubbish, I felt no more important than them.
Tears ran down my face, as they do now.
Anybody who thinks I’m brave is wrong.
A message.
From Sian, who came to see me in Toulon. I’d not seen Sian for 20 years. What a wonderful thing to do? Plus, I actually remember her coming. Bonus!!
She wrote:
”I thought that and also with you two, emotionally.
You are incredible……. the two of you are The Incredibles, there’s a film there, but I believe it’s been done!
Really made me think about You in Toulon. Your fight for life, Danielle’s amazing strength for herself and for you. I will never forget how you kept a twinkle in your eyes, even then.
Keep looking forward and get some sleep.
Love as always
Your pen pal
Sian X
Toulon, July. James ( left ) , me ( obv !) and Nick. I have no recollection of them coming…. But am very grateful.
ITV4.
I just watched my friend, James Cracknell, on TV. The documentary of his achievements so far was intertwined with the story of his brain injury sustained in an horrific bike crash in 2010.
There was footage in the programme of the crash scene.
His bike laying on its side.
His bloodied and battered cycle helmet lying in the road.
His blood stained cycling shirt, cut off his body by the helicopter paramedics.
They cut to his wife, Bev, telling of the phone call, saying he’d been in a serious crash and that she’d have to catch the next plane out of London
The parallels of the situation, James and I , Bev and Dani, next door neighbours, hit me really hard, lying here tonight, irreparably damaged goods.
Bev and Dani are left with the legacy of two husbands and fathers, almost killed, never the same again.
It wasn’t until I saw Bev on the TV giving her account, 3 years on, with that unmistakeable look of horror still etched in her eyes, that I can imagine how my own wife felt hearing the news, by phone, on June 15th 2013.
Dani, I’m so sorry for putting you through that.
My God…
The blog got 1,973 hits yesterday.
That’s the most in a day.
I don’t log in to the stats bit very often, but am always prepared to be surprised when I do.
What it doesn’t tell me is whether it’s a 100 people logging in 19 times a day, or whether it actually represents 1,973 different people having a look.
Not that it really matters to me.. 🙂
Today I learnt, or had my first lesson in, getting pants and socks on, all by myself, whilst in bed.
Yep, you’ve really gotta start all over again.
Yesterday I started ‘self catheterisation’.
Success means NOT continually having a bag of wee strapped to your leg, into which your bladder drains…. Instead I now control when and where I ‘go’ by forevermore taking with me a couple of vac packed sterile catheters.
Ah, the unseen glamour of my new existence is never ending.
Physio was mainly stretching my contracted hamstrings and medial leg muscles so I can chuck them about a bit more, to get them into cars etc. Having
realised the importance of flexibility, it’ll become part of my daily bedtime routine.
Today my ‘oldest’ school friend came to see me. Mike Jenkins and I were inseparable aged 6, in Griffithstown Infants School.
We’ve drifted apart here and there over the years, what with Uni, moving to different parts of the country, getting married etc, but have seen eachother regularly for about 10 years now. In school Mike had a terrible habit of pulling the girls that I fancied….
He was essentially far smoother than me ( Christ, who wasn’t?! ) and had long curly hair.
My hair was cut by my mother until I was 15, and bless her, Vidal Sassoon she wasn’t.
Although it probably saved my parents hundreds of pounds over the years, the Dawkins Boys hairstyles were a source of amusement for our schoolmates for a painfully long time. Alwyn was the first to go to an actual hairdressers, aged about 15 ( Alwyn, not the hairdresser ), and I followed suit about a year later.
I’d go so far as to say it led to a change of fortunes with the girls…..
So any amateur home haircutting mums reading this take heed, it can seriously impede your offsprings’ chances of finding a partner.
My partner at work, Helen, came today too. It’s been tricky for her, losing my input to our business for the last 4 months.
The good news is that I fully intend resuming my career as soon as I can get showered, get dressed, have breakfast and get into a car (stowing my wheelchair in the back) down to a fine art… For a bloke that has just learnt to get his socks on, that seems like a country mile away… But I’m sure the rate of progress will snowball…
Watch this space.
Russ