October 2009 Archives

I'm fed up. I have been coughing for three weeks now, and had a full on cold for ten days. The cold has eased, but the cough remains. Off to the quack to see what they can suggest.

It is an inevitable trigger for me to think about swine 'flu. No, I'm not convinced I've got it, despite being a man, and therefore concluding that the merest sniffle is full-on-infuenza. As a parent, the notion of a serious pandemic and the risk posed to young children does cause a degree of nervous contemplation.

But there's another reason why I find myself thinking a lot about swine 'flu. As someone with an 'underlying medical condition' (although I'm not sure if I am fully in that category), such disclaimers don't offer a huge crumb of comfort when deaths are discussed on the news.

I'm relatively lucky (there's that word again) because my spinal cord injury is at such a level as to leave me with control of the muscles in my stomach and diaphragm to allow me to offer up a hearty cough. This means that I am not at an increased risk when it comes to respiratory conditions (such as 'flu). For people with higher level injuries, clearing fluid from the throat and
lungs becomes more difficult, sometimes involving 'assisted coughing' where someone pushes on the diaphragm area at the same time as the person with SCI coughs.

This means that when they talk of people dying who had 'underlying medical conditions', it is an expression that I find sobering. It is a little closer to home than I would like.

So, the political event of the week has to be Question Time. The first big question was should Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party have been allowed on. For me, Jeremy Hardy summed it up most succinctly on The News Quiz on Radio 4 this week.

The very notion that Nick Griffin can try and present himself as the voice of reason in British politics took a kicking when he announced after the programme that he was giving up on London because,
 "That audience was taken from a city that is no longer British."

 Apparently, London has been 'ethnically cleansed' of British people. Curiously, the 2001 census recorded 58% of the population of London as defining themselves as 'White British'.

I can think of no single piece of news this week that has given me more joy than hearing that Griffin has given up on London.

Let's be clear on this: 'Free speech' in a democracy should not automatically be offered to all. Those who would remove the democratic and human rights of a section of the population are not in the same category as other political parties, however hypocritical the mainstream parties may be.

There was a good reason why so many people rallied to confront Oswold Mosley and his blackshirts  in 1936. Griffin is on tape, video tape, admitting that he is trying to soft-sell his fascism and white supremecist ideas to the wider population.

So, while I thought he came across as some kind of demented muppet, with his fake, hysterical laughter and ridiculous attempts to befriend Bonnie Greer (he described a member of the KKK as being from a 'peaceful branch' of said organisation), perhaps he shouldn't have been there in the first place. Incidentally, Ms. Greer is the only one of the panel who dealt well with the situation, except for David Dimbleby. She was incisive and well informed.

And for those who didn't see it, there is an edited version that probably does the best at nailing the underlying truth...
 

I'm lucky. Yeah, OK, not something that generally goes with 'I broke my back and I'm now paralysed from the waist down', but for those of us with spinal cord injury, luck is every bit as relative as it is for anybody else.

In this context, I do consider myself lucky because I have not had any skin problems. By this I don't mean that I'm not going through a second adolescence of zits and self loathing, but rather I am referring to the spectre of the pressure sore. I have good circulation, and because of the near constant pain I am rarely sat still, which means that I don't have to think consciously about pressure relief (shifting your weight to allow good circulation to all parts of your skin).

I bring this up in part because of a posting on Andrew Farrow's excellent blog, drawing attention to the Your Turn campaign.  It is also sobering to remember that it was a pressure sore that caused Christopher Reeve's death. Something that one would think of as avoidable.

The subject of the pressure sore also came up in conversation at the launch of the Stoke Mandeville Spinal Foundation, which aims to promote research into all the different aspects of living with SCI. The Foundation is seeking to establish a research institute at Stoke Mandeville.

During a conversation at the National Spinal Injuries Centre I discovered that pressure sores cost the NHS an estimated four billion pounds a year, with a significant portion of that cost going towards the treatment of people with spinal cord injury.

The problem for those with SCI is that we do not have a sensory signal to tell us when there's a problem. Once the has been a sore, the scar tissue means that the area is more susceptible to further skin breakdowns in the future.

When this is coupled with a lack of padding (muscle bulk) around the ischial tuberosities (bum-bones), and sitting in a wheelchair all day, and long healing times often resulting in months of bedrest?

You can see why I consider myself relatively lucky.

After a nasty bout of gastro for R on Saturday night, things are starting to return to normal. Spent most of yesterday with mops and buckets and numerous trips to the laundrette, the house suffused with the whiff of disinfectant.

And all the time trying to suppress the sense of unease at wondering if it's a delayed action waiting to strike us down next. So far, so good, but I'm still a little nervous. It's certainly not the best time to think back on what a Saturday night involved ten years ago. But then, that's generally the case with most comparisons as far as parenting is concerned. 'twas ever thus, I'm sure.

If you go back a little further, it's even fair to say that our generation have had an even longer period of carefree indulgence to reflect on than those who went before. There various reasons why this period of life has become so truncated compared to the previous experience.

a) Employment is less secure, so people take longer to settle on a career.

b) We are having kids later, in part because of a)

c) Essentially adolescent behaviour and consumerist habits are aggressively marketed to the twenty/thirty somethings in order to keep them spending money on computer games/alcopops/high fashion/new methods of communicating for longer.

And in the usual incoherent babbling style I am so fond of, it is the communication methods bit that I turn, particularly as it offers the most startling comparison.

Now, I have to be careful here, seeing as this is a blog after all, but with the advent of twitter, mobile e-mail/blackberry devices, Facebook walls and countless other methods of broadcasting our thoughts (yes, like this blog), have we actually got anything more to say than we had twenty years ago? OK, maybe we have, but is it actually worth saying?

Sure, Twitter supposedly instills a haiku-esque (how great is that piece of linguistic bastardisation?) economy of thought by restricting communication to 140 characters.

Also, it is true to say that modern communication technology has enabled news from different parts of the world to get past the usual mechanisms of information suppression.

But isn't the overwhelming majority of the information being communicated actually really rather trivial and unnecessary? Couldn't we do with a little more reflection? Are we evolving or regressing as far as our ability to communicate meaningfully with each other is concerned?

This is all leading up to the fabulous newspaper ad below. Could scheming ahead obviate much of our communication today? Should we, could we abandon careless use of the telephone? 

Whistle stop tour...

A trip up to Newcastle at the weekend, as I was speaking at an NHS conference on diversity and equality.

It was strange to get the train up on Sunday evening and back on Monday afternoon, six hours on the rails, all told.

The assistance was good for the most part, although there was no-one waiting with a ramp when I got back to King's Cross, and one of the catering staff from the train set it up for me in the end.

The main downside was that staff didn't seem as cheerful and eager to help as they have been whenever I've traveled by rail or air in the past. Perhaps it's the fact that I am usually with Penny and often with Rosalie that makes people more cheerful. I'm sure they provide a welcome distraction from my furrowed brow and mumbled observations.

Anyways, as the photographic evidence below demonstrates, it was beautiful sunshine on the Tyne and no fog to be seen, while London and the South was under rain clouds. I was rather taken with Newcastle/Gateshead, in particular the Baltic art gallery from where the bridge pic was taken (see arrow).

The Gateshead Millenium bridge in the foreground is truly impressive, particularly the way that it pivots at each end in order to open for passing river traffic. Sadly I didn't get to see it the day I was there.

Newcastle itself looks interesting with lots of architecture that points to a history as an industrial powerhouse in the Victorian period. I hope one day to get a chance to explore a bit more.

Unfortunately, I got a bit carried away with my meandering exploration, and decided that a gentle sojourn from the Baltic to Newcastle Central station would be a good way to spend an afternoon. Across the bridge was fine, along the Tyne was picturesque, however...

It appears that hills are very popular in the centre of Newcastle, and the journey from the riverbank to the station nearly gave me a nosebleed. The higher I climbed, the steeper it got, but I was determined not to give up and get a cab. My determination bolstered by a complete lack of any taxis to abstain from.

Then, two-thirds of the way up the north face of the castle of new, a funny thing happened. A passer-by offered me a push, and I declined.

"No thanks! I need the exercise!" I spluttered cheerfully from under the bulging veins of my forehead.

 I DECLINED! Why? Some stupid-arsed stubborn streak that would see me puffing and panting and feeling sick for most of the rest of the afternoon. I'm not sure I understand this particular facet of my coping mechanism. I know it's been an essential part of my 'dealing with' spinal cord injury, but it sometimes annoys me too.

Incidentally, on the whole 'dealing with' front, I heard a line in a radio play this afternoon which caused me a wry smile of recognition, and it's one that I'd like to dedicate to Penny, and the way that she has kept me together over the last four and a half years...

 "Fred Astaire? Sure, he was great, but don't forget that Ginger Rogers did everything he did backwards and in high heels."
 

I have, from time to time, received complements about my coping and adjusting to life as a paraplegic. On some occasions, the complement has contained the statement,
"If it happened to me I wouldn't be able to deal with it the way you have."

And, I'm sure I would have had similar thoughts had it happened to someone I know. The thing is, you never know how you will cope until you have to. I spent far too long lamenting other setbacks in life that now pale into relative insignificance.

But what I am staring to appreciate more these days is not the 'heroism' of the individual, rather our phenomenal ability as a species to adjust to almost anything. Given enough time. Medicine now affords us more time to physically adjust, and our bodies adapt to sensory, circulatory, even fundamental skeletal changes. But we also have in us the ability to get used to profoundly different circumstances, to adapt psychologically.

Yes, I still spend a part of every day wishing I hadn't fallen from a tree and broken my back, and I'm sure that I always will. But when I look back to 2005, I find it staggering to remember how I felt then and how much time I now manage to spend feeling some kind of happiness and fulfillment.

No, it's not all the time, and certain things (oh, hi Spike) really do get me down. But on balance, I finish most days ahead on points.

I am truly grateful to all my family and friends for getting me this far, but I'd also like to thank all of my predecessors going back into that huge, Darwinian ball of possibilities that led us to this point. And to acknowledge the contribution of all of those people and animals that have gone before