March 2009 Archives

Karma.
We were driving through Islington the day before yesterday, when Penny spotted a purse on the pavement. We stopped the car and picked it up. Inside, among the credit cars and house keys, was the business card of the owner. We rang her, and found that she had only just realised that she had dropped her purse, so we waited for her to walk back down the road and we gave it back to her.

Then yesterday I was in Sainsbury's when I realised the usually reliable mobile phone case on my wheelchair was open, and my phone was missing. I went home hoping that I had left it there, but it was nowhere to be seen. There was a message on the landline, however, from a man who had found my phone in the supermarket carpark. I immediateky called him back and went to meet him, wherupon he apologised for not having got around to taking the phone to the Police station.

I like to think that most people are still basically honest and decent. It's just that they aren't usually the ones that find things when you lose them. But it's very reassuring when they do.

On another note, my latest Times column went live today. Sorry to those who were looking online for my piece last week. Technical problems meant that it didn't see the virtual light of day. If it goes get posted anytime soon, I'll let you know.

Here's a link to the Wheelchair tennis yearbook from Take Two Magazine. There's a piece from me on page ten, all about my experience of taking up tennis as a wheelchair sport...

This is worth a watch, just for the exuberance of it...

Spent the weekend training to be a trainer for the Back Up trust, as a part of their wheelchair skills programme. The trust sends experienced wheelchair users into all the spinal units in the U.K. to teach wheelchair skill to people who are newly injured.

While physios do an admirable job in giving people the skills that they need when thay are discharged, there are certain techniques which are best taught by an experienced wheelchair user. As well as demonstrations and guidance, there is also the invaluable experience of meeting people who have been in wheelchairs for a few years and are getting on with their lives.

When I was up at Stoke Mandeville, I found these sessions inspiring, as they helped me to start to build a picture of a life after the spinal unit. It feels like a great opportunity for me to try and pass this experince on to other people.

Back Up also provide more advanced wheelchair skills training on most of the other courses that they offer (Outdoor Multi-activity weeks, kayaking, water-skiing, sailing, handcycling, skiing, drama, etc.)

It's a funny thing, but getting more involved with Back Up feels like another milestone in my rehab. And it'll be four years since my accident next Wednesday. Fool's day, of course. I'm having an M.R.I. that day. Not by way of a celebratory trip down memory lane, just a check up.

My latest column for The Times...

A trip up to Stoke Mandeville today, for an oil change and a new set of plugs. I lie, it was actually to have an ultrasound of my kidneys (which aren't pregnant, as it turns out), and an x-ray of my bladder. These tests are an annual event, to make sure that I'm not developing stones.

After spinal cord injury, I am at a greater risk of developing kidney or bladder stones. This is because I'm not putting weight through my legs. As the bones aren't bearing weight, the body starts to re-absorb the calcium, which can lead to stones and even osteoporosis. This is one of the reasons I stand in my  callipers for half an hour every other day or so. Another being the change in perspective that comes from being back to six foot two instead of four foot six.

It turns out that, as Jimi would say, I am stone free, to do what I please, stone free, to ride the breeze. Although I suspect that's not quite what he was getting at. And sadly not the words that the enigmaitc Dr. J used when he gave me the results. An opportunity missed, methinks.

Settling back into some kind of routine is proving a challenge. R keeps waking up at about 4 a.m. and demanding breakfast. I have been struggling to get to sleep, although yesterday that was down to stove-top espresso and chocolate covered coffee beans for lunch. Well, I was feeling tired, see.

The coffee thing will be a challenge. In Australia (please stop me if I start beginning every sentence with 'In Australia'), you can get very good coffee pretty much anywhere. Even the most unpromising looking corner cafe seems able to make a decent coffee. This means that weak folk like me end up coming home with a habit that condemns us to disappointment. As with access,  the quality of  the product in coffee emporia in this town seems to be patchy at best. Why must we be locked into the American 'watery milk in a five gallon bucket' notion of good coffee, when we are within sniffing distance of the European continent? The one thing that has become clear is that my coffee habit is making me rant more than usual.

By the way, in Australia, the sun shone and the view over my  cup was better too. Including my good old friend Gymnorhina Tibicen, the Australian Magpie as drawn on the back of my shoulder. But that's another tattoo tale for another day, perhaps...

Staring blankly out of the window, the gray sky made even more grey by the thick fug of jetlag. Oh to be back under the clear light of our favourite star.

Jetlag is a slippery customer, fooling me into thinking that I can operate coherently and plough through the post and the in-box, when in reality I am stuck in a two minute memory holding-pattern, craving the next hit of caffeine, and trying to remember my name.

This I have to do for the bank/tax office/sake of my sanity. In truth, I would rather be remembering the warmth and beauty of the sunset in the Margaret river, Western Australia.

Air travel was more of a challenge on the return leg, with wheelchair misroutes and wheels coming off only to go missing temporarily at Heathrow. All was recovered pretty quickly, but it was a nerve-shredding experience after 13 hours aloft.

My latest column in The Times came out today, here-linked for those who would like  a read.

Now, where was I? Nurse! Nurse! More coffee!