March 2011 Archives

Penny and I got married again today. at our 5 year old daughter's insistence. The wording was unorthodox...

Celebrant (Rosalie) Do you, Tim Rushby-Smith, take Penny Rushby-Smith for your awful wedded wife.

Me: I do.

Celebrant: You can kiss...Oh, no, wait...And do you, Penny Rushby-Smith take Tim Rushby-Smith as your... withered husband.

Penny: (after everyone has stopped giggling hysterically for five minutes) I do.

Celebrant: You can kiss your bride.

I'm thinking of making an advance booking to make sure she writes my epitaph.

Less than a month until our family increases by one, and I am trying to remember what life is like with a baby. The arrival of a second child is usually a question of recalling the arrival of the first, only with less nervous staring, tip-toeing around and constant doubt about what one should or shouldn't be doing.

For us, it's a little different, and it's not just because of the age-gap of five and a half years.

When Rosalie was born, I had only been out of the spinal unit for a week, and we were living in a small flat in Aylesbury, miles away from family and friends (with the exception of Penny mum, who stayed with us and helped enormously). It was difficult to identify the life-changing element of new parenthood; our whole lives has changed so profoundly in the previous three months.

In some ways we were fortunate. I didn't have the demands of work forcing me out of the house. We were able to spend a lot of time together. England were playing Australia at cricket in one of the most thrilling Ashes series (and it was on freeview). I spent many hours with Rosalie asleep on me while I lay on the sofa, and shifted my gaze between our newborn daughter and Freddie Flintoff (It's no contest: Rosalie is infinitely nicer to look at, but I must concede that Flintoff is the better cricketer).

There was almost a feeling that everything else had been put on hold, just so that we could treasure those first few months (just to clarify, I'm not advocating spinal cord injury for expectant fathers).

In other ways, we were less fortunate. I could hardly get into the kitchen, let alone cook or wash up. I was struggling to stay on top of bouts of excruciating neuropathic pain (while this is still a major part of my life, it is undoubtedly less than it was, if only because I am better at living with it).

Perhaps most difficult all, I was emotionally very raw, and felt like all of my hoes and dreams of fatherhood had been dashed. Yes, I could lie around like a cricket-watching Moses basket, but I was nervous about moving with the baby, let alone taking a toddler out or visiting a playground.

When I look back on that time (writing a book has some advantages), it is easy to remember that feeling, even if I am able to do so much more than I could have imagined. And when I teach wheelchair skills to newly injured people, I am especially careful to take the opportunity to try and offer reassurance to any parents that it's still possible to do the really important stuff.

All I have to do now is remind myself how...

After I broke my back in 2005, I spent three and a half months in hospital learning to live with paraplegia. When I was discharged, I claimed incapacity benefit. Hardly surprising. About a year after my accident, I began writing an account of my experience. This eventually became a memoir, which was published in 2008. On the back of the book I began writing occasional articles for different publications.

 

The decision to cease claiming Incapacity Benefit was a hard one to make. The financial case was not emphatic, as freelancing in a very competitive industry makes income unpredictable. On top of this, I suffer with chronic neuropathic pain caused by the nerve damage in my back. This too is unpredictable and on a bad day, I can barely get up and dressed, let alone be productive.

 

I did come off Incapacity Benefit, and while my financial situation hasn't changed significantly, I feel it was the right decision for me. But I have the confidence to feel that in the event of my pain worsening or my mobility deteriorating, I would be able to convince the relevant authorities that I would be entitled to claim IB again.

 

Not everyone on Incapacity Benefit is in the same position. Few part-time jobs pay anywhere near enough to make the switch financially prudent, and in a time of retrenchment and cuts in services, job security is at rock bottom. For anyone who is on the margins between limited work and incapacity coming off benefits could be described as risky at best.

 

I certainly agree that the benefits system needs looking at, especially as consecutive Governments have 'encouraged people onto IB as a way of massaging the Unemployment figures. But if reform begins with the objective of getting a set percentage of claimants off Incapacity Benefit, it is not taking each case on merit, but rather following a 'pass curve' approach. The danger is that people who are already marginalised (especially those who do not have the confidence to fight their corner) could end up being bullied off benefits and falling through the cracks. Especially at a time when funding for the usual social safety nets is also being cut.

 

The measure of how civilised a society we live in should be how we protect the disadvantaged and vulnerable. I suspect the shrill screeching sound you can hear (and read in certain newspapers) may well be the barbarians at the gate.