Morphine

 

I work (for now), I love, I live, I have fun. Just with wheelchairs and drugs and spasms and stuff...

 
2 February 2018

Moving on. Grief and relief in equal measure

Phew! Yesterday was my first day out of work in decades and I’ve survived. Coffee and pastry in bed courtesy of my gorgeous, hard-pressed wife. Bit of aimless internet browsing. Ordered some mouthwash and a boxed DVD set. A lot of chat and ‘wowness’ reacting to the overwhelming tide of support and love flooding in from social media. Twitter, Facebook both busy. LinkedIn bonkers, absolutely bonkers. 450,000 views when I last looked, and I only posted two days ago. Lovely, lovely comments to warm my confused and doubting heart. Confused and doubting because even yesterday, I really wasn’t sure I had done the right thing. For me or for the family. More coffee by the sea to reflect and breathe. […]
8 May 2017

Urology. Rhymes with Eurghh-ology

Urology. The dark arts of investigating malfunctioning bladder and bowels. I doff my cap to anyone who enters or leaves medical studies and says, “I know, I’ll become an expert in wee and poo and stuff.” Sadly, like many a person with Multiple Sclerosis, I’m well-acquainted with urologists and their capacity for rummaging around and describing with complete precision the shape and size of my prostate. All the while chatting to me about the time of day or this afternoon’s weather. And the title of my blog, “One man and his catheters,” may just indicate one routine I have to follow three or four times a day. The first time I did it, the nurse training me, (no, she wasn’t […]
10 March 2017

Death sentences and Life sentences. The blue pill or the red pill?

Hurrah! I’m out of hospital after a total of 13 nights fighting a bladder infection and temperatures twice steaming scarily over 41 degrees.. My ward routine that started around 5am with a rude awakening for blood pressure checks and a refreshed IV drip is no more. It’s been replaced these last mornings with a gorgeous 6.30am start, the time my two much-missed children are allowed to start bounding around the house before school. I’m utterly exhausted and I’m blissfully relieved… My last five hospital nights were spent in a ward of four chaps including myself. One stubborn but lovely old gent of 89 also recovering from an infection. A big nose, a big smile and capable of humongous, prolonged noises […]
27 February 2017

Blue Lights, Morphine and a Resuscitation Room

OK, so there’s me booked to speak on Wednesday to 500 health professionals at the thrilling ‘Infection Prevention and Control 2017’ event. Lots of clever, senior medical people in the line-up And little old me, who wouldn’t know his Metatarsal from his Metabolism. I was there because I’d been on the other side of the fence, twice hospitalised by bladder infections, or UTI’s. Urinary Tract Infections. I do know that hokum phrase at least. Here’s proof I was on the line-up. I had 20 minutes to talk about my bladder. Rock ‘n Roll… Infectioncontrol2017.co.uk/speakers So of course I had a blog lined up in my mind. How fun it was to say ‘willy’ at a medical conference. How when my […]