8th January 2018

Well that’s Christmas and the New Year all done and dusted for another 12 months – thankfully!  Is it me or is it that the older you get the less fun it becomes?  It wasn’t all bad, we had some friends round and enjoyed good company, great food and some excellent wine but the truth is I don’t really care much about it anymore, it’s just a fancy Sunday lunch and a few drinks extra thrown in on top.

Some of you reading this will know that I spent a long time as a Trade Union rep when I worked for BT and unfortunately those of us from that time lost a true friend, comrade and colleague, Malcolm Crapper, a few days before Christmas.  As bad as I might feel with my situation right now it will be as nothing compared with Malcolm’s family and my thoughts are with them.

From a health perspective nothing has changed.  I’m still in constant pain, albeit of varying degrees and my mental health continues to be less than cheery.  Has the Doctor ever asked you to describe your pain on a scale of 1 to 10 – with 10 being excruciating? Well mine sits between 7 and 10 all day.  It eases off when I lie down for the night but often needs both paracetamol and ibuprofen to allow sleep.  Another thing I’ve noticed is that if I get an infection of any sort, and water infections are regular because of my reliance on catheters to do a pee, all the pain seems to settle in my  left shoulder.  That can be unbearable and has driven me close to tears, well OK, has driven me to tears, not helped by the fact that I can’t even roll over in bed to change my position never mind get out of bed to get some painkillers!

It’s all pretty shitty really but I’m now booked in to have my prosthetic shoulder fitted in a few weeks (19th February) and one thing I have been told by both UK and French Doctors is that it should, but note only should, end the pain in my right arm and shoulder.  I’m not holding my breath but if nothing else it will give Karen a break as I’ll have to have 6 weeks rehabilitation after the op and it will have to be in a hospital because of all my daily nursing and physical needs, all of which requires 2 hands and I’ll be down to my left arm only for the 6 weeks.  I’m trying to persuade Karen to go on holiday while I’m in hospital so if any of you reading this know her please add your own encouragement because you will know what she’s like!

I’m still struggling trying to come to terms with being a spaz, it isn’t easy not being able to do anything at all without help, degrees of which stretch from almost everything needed to do something to absolutely everything needed to do anything.  Any personal dignity I might have once had has gone – it’s quite strange listening to Karen and any one of my 4 French nurses laughing and joking together while the nurse has her finger up my arse dragging out whatever waste material is up there!  My periods of depression are happening more frequently and lasting longer than before, to be expected really, but one thing that wasn’t really dealt with properly at RNOH Stanmore was preparing a healthy adult with a beautiful wife to handle the frustrations of life without any lead in his pencil!  Stanmore did have, still do have a couple of trick cyclists on the Rehab team but I was never very happy with the one allocated to me and so didn’t do much more than go through the motions with her, which might have been a mistake but in truth what else could she have told me that I didn’t already know?  For all you manly extreme sportsters reading this, and even the sedentary amongst you who do little more  than climb a step-ladder to fetch something down off a shelf – take care – the first thing you lose when you permanently damage your spine is your erection – and everything else associated with that.  While I was in Stanmore there were all ages of kids, one with a gunshot wound (in the middle of his back), one a broken coccyx (the bottom of his spine) and one a cervical vertebrae break (the neck), none of whom would enjoy a sex-life again, if indeed they had ever started.  It pays to take care and be careful out there folks!On that note

I’ll love and leave you all for now.  I’ll write more soon as I’m sure the Maybots Cabinet reshuffle that’s going on while I type will generate lots of thoughts – will she have the balls to sack Bodious Johnson, Lurker Fox and the Poisonous Dwarf  – I doubt it but who knows?

Feel free to comment, I’ll answer as soon as I can.  Cheers. Jem