the brilliantly leaping gazelle

If you are reading this and are eating, I would advise you to stop now and return when you’ve finished eating.

When I awoke in hospital one of the many things that confronted me, in addition to my body not working as it used to, was that I had suddenly developed a rather nasty gag reflex. I would vomit with little or no warning, and this coupled with my lack of fine motor skills, made for a very messy state of affairs. Over time I got used to recognizing the early warning signal that was an odd taste in the mouth that gave me ten to twenty seconds of an impending Technicolor yawn. Quite why or how this gag reflex happened or what triggered it, and more importantly, what I could not do to prevent it avoid wasn’t clear. Over time I discovered that brushing my teeth acted in someway as a trigger for vomiting. (Not that vomiting happened every time I brushed my teeth. That would be too simple, so to make things interesting my body added an element of jeopardy to proceedings, so it was completely random as to whether I pebble-dashed the porcelain.) Things got progressively worse and it led to a state of affairs where I was understandably reluctant to brush my teeth.

My vomit could be either the rather watery like bile liquid which normally emanated forth from my stomach to herald a new day, or if I had just eaten there would be the sink-plug plugging sludge of undigested food that I would examine for signs of blood. I must point out that I have a small toilet in my room – perfunctory, not palatial – and I sit on the toilet whilst my head rests conveniently for my mouth to give generously to the sink. For despite the smell of vomit being rather unpleasant, this is of minor significance to my overweening fascination with any of my bodily secretions. (A tissue after I’ve blown my nose in can be a  thing of curious wonderment.) Or sometimes for variety when there’s no food or drink in my stomach, it can to be a succession of dry retches that seem to be both never ending and not the sound you’d imagine no human could produce. The one saving grace out of all of this vomiting was that I’ll get the early warning, then be sick and then usually immediately feel much better. I know, weird, right? If you think I’m treating vomiting with a casual disdain, you’d be right.

In my late teens and until a kidney infection was identified, I was prone to bouts of vomiting, which also had an element of jeopardy. There would be some breaks between each outbreak of vomiting, some hours, days or weeks apart – although thankfully not as distant as the gaps between litter bins, drains, and other handy receptacles I’d make use of. I could drink a cup of tea at my house, set of for school feeling fine and then suddenly just know I was going to be sick and the need to find somewhere to evacuate safely was paramount importance. Of course one can be sick, one can’t control that but what you can control is where you are sick. I would argue that one of the signs of a blatant disregard for people and surroundings would just be to selfishly vomit wherever one happened to be. One evening a while ago I had been sick earlier in the evening. Now, fast-forward to later that evening where myself and a my girlfriend are in bed. I sit up suddenly and make frantic gestures. She rushes to get a bin and upon finding one, she places it under my mouth whereupon I deposit some vomit into it. “You held your vomit in your mouth?”, she exclaimed. To which I replied, “Of course.” because it would be bad form to do otherwise and besides which, it was a way of demonstrating my remarkable self-control.

“You’re not normal!”, was all the thanks I got, although she did try to mollify it somewhat by protesting that she wouldn’t have minded changing the sheets and the bedding, but I pointed out that emptying the contents of my stomach into the bin was a lot easier to do.

However this state of affairs was unsustainable. And so I put my name down on a waiting list to see a specialist dental unit at my local hospital, this is when I discovered that the wheels of bureaucracy had brakes on. It was one of my fillings falling out, coupled with the gag reflex which ruled out as wholly impractical anything other course of dental treatment. I mean, most dental surgeries are all about clinical efficiency and I whilst I might be clinical, efficient I’m not. Finally after nine months I got an appointment. The dentist was as competent as the secretarial team were not. He listened to my problem and conducted a precursory examination of my mouth before sending me down for an x-ray. I must tell you I’ve never seen an x-ray machine like it. It was something out of Star Trek. In essence it was a revolving scanner that went around my head and there was a grip to hold the head firmly in place. Upon returning upstairs, five minutes late, I was confronted by my x-ray, which because it was flat made my teeth resemble Wallace’s’ (out of Wallace and Gromit).

I was pleasantly surprised that despite me not having seen a dentist since my accident there was remarkably little work to be done because, as I’m fond of saying, there is a benefit from coming from peasant Irish stock. He outlined the various anaesthetic methods that were available for the treatment. In essence the gas and air mixture was a lot safer, being only a local anaesthetic, but would require a couple of treatments. Whereas general anesthetic carried with it a greater level of risk, but all the work needed could be done in one go. When I asked him about the risk he said that one in every hundred thousand people who had a general anesthetic died as a result. That would be just my luck I thought, to have a general anesthetic and wake up afterwards. Bingo! Fortunately sense prevailed and I opted for the gas and air, which means cleaner, healthier teeth but also means life.

Every silver lining has a cloud!

Next time…you say baseball, I say rounders…..

Last Tuesday – 24th September 2014 – was a fun day, for that was when I met my new therapist for the first time. Some context here might be useful to you. Ever since waking up from the coma to confront a new reality, I have been – understandably – depressed. However it is both the severity and the seeming permanence that is not so understandable. Possibly because the part of the brain I damaged might have some effect on mood. No one, not even my consultant can say for sure.

What can be said with some certainty is that I’ve got myself into a self-perpetuating mood of negativity about my continued reason for existing and my place in the scheme of things generally. I accept that most people at some stage in their lives undergo a re-evaluation of their life, what they’re doing with it and how they’d make changes to it. I get that. Part of being alive is not being entirely pleased with one’s lot. But in my case, certainly now at any rate, the chasm between what I’d like to change and my ability to effect such change on my own is on a scale that would make a before and after photo showing the effects of global warming (and when did that become climate change?) on the polar ice caps seem tame by comparison.

Be that as it may, in 2011 I had forty hour long sessions with a clinical psychologist, but the sessions weren’t as productive as either of us had hoped for, but he left the door open, saying that if I was serious on re-commencing with therapy, I’d first have to provide some tangible proof. This was a euphemism for restarting anti-depressants, which I’m still doing. Having seen my doctor, explained the new situation, he referred me. Some moths later, out of the blue, I got a call. It was from the hospital I’d been referred to, did I have time for some questions? An hour later I felt as lower than I had done in a long time. “On a scale of one to ten, one being the minimum with ten being the maximum, how depressed do you feel right now?” she naively asked. Because anyone with an I.Q larger than their waistline might have thought that answering questions about very dark thoughts one kept buried for good reason – “I have a foolproof suicide plan, but knowing I have it means I can put it to the back of my mind and not think about it.” – and certainly not to a voice on the phone I couldn’t put a feces to their face for being so matter of fact about my mental outlook. Perhaps that’s how they’re trained to do it, to remain detached and not to get emotionally involved. Anyway, answering “Right now? Having spoken to you about things? I’d say about a ten.” wasn’t perhaps the most helpful thing I could have said. But by then I was so beyond caring what she felt, I didn’t give a f*ck. The ‘phone call was, she told me, my assessment interview and she could offer me a counseling place. This being the N.H.S., this could take up to nine months, so best hold those negative thoughts.

So Tuesday, then, was my first meeting with her. She began by explaining that everything I said was confidential, but with the caveat that if I said or intimated anything to suggest a risk of harm to others, or myself and then she was obliged to let relevant professionals know. At this I just nodded. The previous counsellor had trotted out the same thing. It hardly encourages one to be candid; to discuss openly things one doesn’t talk about normally. A neutral space but one surrounded by some oppressive walls, which if you said the wrong thing, might come crashing in around you. I know what she means, that if an immediate and credible threat to harm yourself or others is known it should be communicated, but meanwhile back in the real world which someone with suicidal intent wishes to escape, would they really say something that might set mouths blabbing? Really? Who or what are they are they saving, by which I mean either saving someone’s life or saving their own career.

She later enquired, apropos of my suicide plan what was it that kept me going? “Laxatives.”, was my deadpan reply, quick as a flash. And was there any reaction from her? No. ‘ Go on, smile love, I’ll pay for the stitches’ I thought. Which for some inexplicable reason, bought to mind this saying, used in a another context, yet still applicable to suicide “Has the world turned it’s back on you, or have you turned your back on the world. If one is seriously thinking about ‘turning your back on the world.’ The hospital website also usefully advises that either call 999 or “ Go to your nearest hospital with an Accident and Emergency (A&E) Department. In some hospitals, this will be called the Emergency Department. There are qualified staff on duty 24 hours a day,  seven days a week, who will be able to assess you and give you the appropriate help.” To me at any rate, that’s about as much use a cement lifejacket.

I mean, the last time I was in an A&E, involved me almost having to shout repeatedly to a nurse through a sheet of thick glass. (My nearest A&E is in a busy inner London area, and deals with a high number of drink or drug dependant patients, some just seeking shelter from the elements, others, who have felt the smack of firm government repeatedly, seeking a bed for the night.) Embarrassing enough at the best of times, but when one is facing the worst of times…! That presupposes you’d even think of doing that in the first place. But hey, that’s the advice they give you. They offer assistance, whether people avail themselves of that assistance, or more importantly, if that assistance is a prudent use of resources, is another matter. All I know is that if the laxatives stopped working, the last thing I’d would be to go A&E, broadcast loudly why I was there, take a ticket and wait for a doctor to see me. Can anyone else hear the sound of ass’s being wall papered? No?

”Christmas has often been cited as a time when people who have depression are at high risk of suicide. However, ONS statistics (1995-2005) show this to be an apocryphal story: December has fewer than average suicides compared with the rest of the year, with women in particular being less likely to commit suicide in December than in any other month. The arrival of a new year, however, tells a different tale: January has one of the highest suicide rates compared with other months in the year.”

So, all the more reason to devote more resources (of dubious efficacy) toward the problem. Er, no. New Years Day is, by quite a margin, the day people choose to make their final choice. One can see why. You’re all sentient beings, I won’t insult your intelligence by telling you why, but what I will tell you is that a skeleton staff operates a minimal out of hours crisis intervention team. A skeleton staff of a short-staffed team to start with! See in the New Year in style!

A correction. In my last post I boldly asserted that a personal story was made with the other persons permission. This was as rash as it was untrue. I’d told them I might include it, which was, as was pointed out to me, is not the same thing as I will. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!

Next time…..the secret of eternal youth? Just ask a man, over 30 on a skateboard or a scooter….

A couple of weeks ago I was by the seaside in Dorset. To be more specific I was at Lulworth Cove, which I am reliably informed could easily mistake it as being located in Greece when the weather is right. Unfortunately the day I happened to go there the weather was most decidedly wrong.

Whilst the sun did try to make an appearance, it was a very weak sun against very thick clouds and it’s efforts put me in mind of a very drunk man attempting to have sex. No matter how eager he was, it just wasn’t happening. Repeated attempts to penetrate offered a tantalizingly cruel expectation, which went unfulfilled. This was of less concern than the occasional drizzle, which along with the overcast sky, only added to the typical English seaside experience. So, naturally enough, one did what the English normally do when confronted by conditions such as this at the seaside and prepare for a swim. It wasn’t cold it was but merely bracing and good for me. ‘Not getting hypothermia is good for me!’ I thought but I was persuaded against my better judgment to embark in this folly.

I should mention that one of the side effects of my brain injury is that not only has my ability to walk and talk been affected, but also it would seem, my ability to float. This was forcibly brought home to me a coupe of years ago, when I ventured to my local leisure centre (a leisure centre puts one in mind of a vast space filled with people dozing in deck chairs and other comfy chairs, engaged in a range of sedentary activities, and not involved in vigorous and sweaty exercise!). The first challenge was getting changed. One might think that disabled changing areas had been designed to comfortably admit a wheelchair or similar. Disavow yourself of that foolish notion. My walking aid is narrower than a wheelchair’s width and it just about got into the changing room. That should have been a warning to me, however my carer at the time was an advocate of aqua therapy, the theory being that the water pressure in front and behind me would effectively stabilize and support me. In so doing I’d be able to exercise in a way that would be impossible without the support of the water. That was the theory at least. Mind you, time travel is also theoretically possible and the theory that the water would support me fell as quickly as I did in the water. I wasn’t much like Michael Phelps as more Vanessa Feltz. Despite numerous visits to the leisure centre, the result was always the same. In water I do a good impersonation of a stone.

Meanwhile, back in Dorset, there was no start to the fun. To keep me airside of water I need a buoyancy aid, a waistcoat filled with foam to aid flotation and for added dignity, a strap that goes between my legs to hold it in place. My inability to get to the waters edge unaided necessitated two companions to assist me getting into the water. Despite assurances that the water wasn’t cold and that one would soon get used to it, this proved to be an exercise in optimism over experience. I found myself in water that wasn’t warm and which I had no desire to get used to, all the while doing the doing the King Canute tiptoe. Which gets it name from forlorn belief that when a wave of waist height approaches you, you stand on tiptoes to avoid it touching things which it shouldn’t touch. To soon you’ll discover that you’ve been unsuccessful and the sound of this lack of success will be greeted by a high pitched screech, quickly followed by you stating you want to get out, followed by someone pooh-poohing the very idea and splashing you with cold water in order that you get used to it.

Greece it wasn’t

A few minutes later when I lost all feeling in my lower limbs, one of my companions held onto the front of my lifejacket and the other supported my back, whilst I lay flat and drank a lot of water. This was accompanied by me protesting loudly for comic effect -at some length – and so loud were my cries that an elderly couple on the beach were heard to remark to each other “What on earth are they doing to that poor man?”. After what seemed an eternity of these shenanigans, I returned to dryish land and eventually my teeth stopped chattering. On the walk back to the car I was asked how did I feel?

I replied that I felt on top of the world.

Actually, this was a terminalological inexactitude or a lie, if you prefer. All the while I was in the water was thinking about the last time I’d been in the sea, a couple of months before my accident, snorkeling on The Great Barrier Reef. A month of no one else to please but myself, a month spent at Ningaloo, Australia. Over thirty miles from the nearest town and more than six hundred from the nearest city, where the one hotel in Ningaloo sent a car to the ‘airport’ – more a landing strip attached to a warehouse – to collect you. One had set out purposely to get there. There were no day tippers. It was bliss. Over one hundred and sixty miles of marine national park. Nothing to do but snorkel. And snorkel. You’d get on a boat, it’d take a group of you out to the reef and then you’d be immersed into an underwater carnival of colour, in the clearest, warmest water I’d ever been in.
On one occasion, I was snorkeling on the reef when I spotted a shark. It wasn’t big, maybe five or six feet long. So I did what anyone whose name when turned into an anagram contains ‘sharksemen’, and is armed only with an inquisitive nature and an underwater disposable camera would do – could do. I followed it. Staying well enough away not to scare it – about thirty feet – for fifteen glorious minutes I observed its total indifference to my presence. When I judged it no longer saw me as anything other than to be ignored, I ventured nearer and took a photo. It’s my desktop image now, but then it continued, swimming away from the reef and toward the rest of group, with sadly predictable results –near enough to cause panic and frantic shouts amongst the rest of the boat party. The shark swam away, and naturally I berated them at length and with swearing for scarring the shark away. They were Germans, Swedes and Italians after all….

But now such memories are just that. Memories. Well, you can’t very well snorkel wearing a buoyancy aid, now can you?

Next time….Bored of emotional bingo? Play David Cameron’s political version instead……….

Charles Dickens is, by quite a considerable margin, my favourite author, and if you’re unfortunate enough to be unfamiliar with the works of Dickens then I both pity and envy you. Pity, because you have not been exposed to the sheer delight of his prose, richly detailed characters and plots that are both intricate yet graspable. I also envy you, because if you haven’t read any Dickens yet, then you have a literary treasure trove of delights awaiting you and no reading is better than the first time.

Except for one exception.

I refer of course to, ‘A Christmas Carol’, most specifically the character of Scrooge. For a large part of the story he is to my mind at least, a delightful character – but then I would write that, given that I am a misanthrope. It is towards the end of the story that it all goes horribly wrong for Scrooge. He shows us the hypocrisy inherent in religion. In order to be thought well of and to be loved after his death and to save his soul he becomes a different person. He in effect, buys a good opinion of himself. Even when saving his soul he calculates the cost of doing so. Or not doing so.

Such thoughts were uppermost in my mind earlier this week when I was doing some last minute Christmas shopping and I had the good fortune to happen upon a shop in Greenwich. Because it gave no clue as to what lay within, it therefore stood out because of the lack of any promotion. It was like an attractive yet haughty girl who has a dismissive attitude to boys and stands out because the rest of the girls in her company are eager to please and fawn over them. Her very lack of interest in others only serves to increase the interest others show in her. Intrigued by the black exterior, blacked out windows and total absence of any clue as to what awaited me, I ventured inside and jolly glad I was I did.

It was a cornucopia of delights. I could have done all my Christmas shopping here. ‘This is my kind of shop!’, I thought because rarely had my flabber been so gasted! Selling both highly inventive and practical merchandise that suited every price bracket, it was of course a shop wholly devoted to selling products that you could plant on the unsuspecting to really ruin their day. There were so many to choose from, that picking a favourite was well nigh impossible, but here are some of my favourites, (sadly there is no room to mention the dispenser that scattered convincing looking plastic mice droppings or the letters from an always engaged Harley Street clinic asking the recipient to urgently contact them, as a previous sexual partner had tested positive for a STD. Or from bailiffs threatening repossession of goods after fourteen days if no contact was made, their number was, of course, permanently engaged. Whilst they didn’t make the cut, they were nonetheless worthy of honourable mentions).

There were shower pellets that you could put in a showerhead and when a certain temperature was reached an indelible red dye would come out. There was also a non-smear Pritt stick like gadget that you could use to write a message on a mirror and would leave no trace, until the bathroom steamed up and the message would be revealed. A small stick could write up to fifty, fifty!, short messages. The display was of a mirror and one could write on the mirror, boil a kettle underneath it and bingo! The endless fun one could have writing ‘I’m watching you’ on the bathroom mirror of someone living alone, every time you visited. Or shaving foam, that worked as shaving foam until a few hours later there was an indelible stain on the face where the foam had touched the skin, the longer it had touched the skin, the harder it was to remove. Combine it with a deodorant which when first sprayed it gave a deodorant like smell but thereafter gave a repellent smell, much like having a porcupine squirt into your armpits and just as difficult to remove.

They also had a range of mugs some of which were designed that when a certain temperature was reached would do a variety of things; some the cup would disintegrate, some the cup handle would fall off and some mugs which when a certain temperature was reached would display a range of offensive and innovative assertions. There were also radiator drops, which you could sprinkle on a radiator and once dried and heated, would emanate an utterly repellent odour. There was also a similar gel that you could rub around a car’s air conditioning vents with predictably noxious results. They also offered a service where you could take a CD of your choice in and have it embedded with a computer virus. The disc would play normally and after a few days it would infect the system so it wouldn’t work. They also offered a similar virus for car electrics, and of course they offered a DVD service as well, which would affect both the TV and the DVD recorder. Naturally these viruses would be hard to detect and remove. There was also the predictable range of customisable t-shirts and hoodies but these were for the most part a bit too obvious and about as subtle as a swift kick to the testicles. I asked the shop owner why there was no advertising or window display. His reasoning was that he didn’t want any old Tom, Dick or Harriet just popping in to browse. He wanted news of the shop to spread by word of mouth only and this was the reason it didn’t have a website.

When I told him that I felt duty bound to blog about it, he asked me not to reveal its exact location. He truly was a misanthrope of the very highest order. I remarked that the selling of such goods might leave him open to legal redress until he pointed out a large disclaimer form which every customer had to sign before purchasing, indemnifying him against any legal action. It was exactly the sort of thing if I were in his position I’d want my customers to sign. It is the sort of place that the Scrooge in ‘A Christmas Carol’ would buy his Christmas presents. Except, of course, for most of the story Scrooge wouldn’t buy any Christmas presents. He would see them as an expensive waste of money. Only at the end when things began to go horribly wrong would he consider buying presents for anyone. If you find yourself in Greenwich I invite you to try and find this shop and buy a few things. Buy yourself the gift of happiness at the expense of others’ misery!

Next time…how I brought Stevie Smith’s poem to life…

One of the most depressing features of my brain injury is that it has transformed my voice into something that sounds alien to me. My voice, such as it now exists, is only a dull monotone with no gradiation in tone, meaning that I can’t emphasize certain words. Partly this is due to my inability to adequately control the small muscles in my mouth. Given that I have difficulty enough controlling of small muscles, controlling lots of small muscles that are independent of each other is somewhat problematic. My speech therapist perseveres gamely but after such a period between the injury and now, my motivation is at rock bottom. This is in no way related to the fact that my speech therapist recommends chunking.

Chunking is not an exotic sexual practice like tea-bagging, but rather a device whereby one takes a deep breath and then on the out breath speaks. In my case it has been decided through trial, and quite a lot of error, that my optimum capacity for speech is four syllables before having to take another deep breath. Lends itself rather well to witty repartee, I don’t think. And that precisely is the problem. On my outgoing answer phone message is my voice as it used to sound and it serves as a cruel reminder of exactly how much I’ve lost. Part of my problem now is with plosive sounds, these are the sounds of any word beginning with the letters b or p that burst forth from your mouth in a short explosive sound. As I have trouble controlling my mouth sufficiently this can be something more miss than hit.

Also my speech therapist has drawn my attention to my tongue placement, not that I’ve had any complaints about my tongue placement from women in the past, I was always able to control my tongue and its movements, but now my tongue is a major problem to effective speech. By the same token my speech therapist also informs me that my lack of movement in my mouth is in some way related to my habit of stabilizing my jaw to stabilize my system. In other words the learnt behaviour I’ve built up over the last few years is the very thing that hampers my attempts at normalish speech. How times have changed.

Back when I was in my late teens I had occasion to appear on a TV chat show where I was designated to ask a question. Up until then I’d always managed to convince myself that any recording of my voice that sounded dreadful was due largely to the poor quality of the recording equipment. That fallacy was certainly shattered when I saw the broadcast programme. There in full stereo were quite clearly awful sounds emanating forth from my mouth. I resolved at once to do something about it, so I did what anybody wishing to improve the way they spoke, would do. I immediately turned to the best example of spoken English I could find.

This was of course Radio 4, in a time well before the craze for regional accents plagued the airwaves. I listened to Radio 4 religiously and over the course of 5 years I changed the way I spoke. Quite what my parents or my brother made of this I neither knew nor cared. So successful was the transformation that upon first meeting me people would think I’d been to public school and when I would protest I hadn’t, they would assume I was being disingenuous. That was until they met my brother. He sounds like an Eastend geezer and liberally adorns his speech with swear words. One could almost see the quizzical looks as people thought ‘You’re brothers?’. 

Some years ago, around a dinner table, a friend remarked that she’d never heard me argue. I explained my theory of arguments. That people often said things in the heat of the moment and their opponent was forced to retaliate, so that it resembled more a verbal escalation of conflict. By my remaining calm this also had the beneficial effect of making the opponent even angrier. At this she foolishly said that if I ever shouted at her that she wouldn’t cry but laugh instead because she’d the whole idea of me shouting at anyone, utterly implausible. At this I did what anyone would do. I grabbed a pen and some paper and got her to sign her rash promise, which I then laminated and kept safe. Fast forward a few years later and you can guess what happened. Yes, we were going out, and yes, we were having an argument, or rather she was having an argument. I was merely listening. And then I remembered the laminated card in my wallet, so I let rip! As expected, tears came there many. Impervious to such a tawdry show of emotion I continued, as did her waterworks. I produced the laminated card and told her she should be laughing. For some inexplicable reason this only made things worse. I tell you this as a warning, I am not a nice person and if the person concerned is reading this, I would like to apologise. 

Like being the operative word.

Next time…the almost Scrooge guide to Christmas shopping…