"Cauda Equina Syndrome is a very rare but serious condition, where the bundle of nerves called the Cauda Equina at the bottom of the spine get compressed. The Cauda Equina control the function of the bladder and bowel, and the sensation to the skin of the genitals and bottom area. The most common cause of… Continue reading Getting Out of Bed
Category: hospital
Life springs forth unstoppably
It's the sixteenth day of my stay in Stoke Mandeville Hospital, world-famous for its treatment of spinal injuries and midwife to the Paraplegic Games, now incorporated into the Olympics.. In the early morning, after the need of nursing help after an embarrassing incident and I was clean and fresh again, I looked online for views… Continue reading Life springs forth unstoppably
From a Comfy Sofa
I've become 95% bedridden! There's a number of reasons and some remaining issues, which keep the NHS doctors very concerned as to my full condition. The basic one is this. All my life I've had a slight spinal curvature, not like that of Richard III's hunchback as portrayed in Shakespeare; but in the lower spine.… Continue reading From a Comfy Sofa
“Thank You NHS”
I went up to the hospital for a blood test and took these snaps of the approach road. They've been painted here for more than a year, and reflect a massive manifestation of affection for our National Health Service since the pandemic hit us. At various points it has drastically overloaded its workers at all… Continue reading “Thank You NHS”
Glad
My life has changed so radically in the last 7 days that I don't know what to say. Unless I write, knowing I'll reach a handful of readers, I won't have access to my true thoughts and feelings. Strange perhaps, but it's been this way for a long time. In ordinary consciousness, this radical change… Continue reading Glad
The Steps
From Bryan White So how did I get here? And what do I do now? There's a point when your kids are still little. They're little, but they're not babies anymore. They're starting to need their space. You're not just a young couple with a baby; you've officially reached that turning point where you're a… Continue reading The Steps
Just like that
This is an impromptu rant, just to get things started. Perhaps meaningless and incoherent. From someone who used to support the #metoo movement—not any more.
Travelling on Foot
A Wayfarer’s Notes has changed its motto again. Farewell “not-doing”; back to Werner Herzog and his dictum: “The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot.” To be sure what he means, I check context. Patrick House: You once walked from Munich to Paris to visit your dying friend, and in your film “Wheel… Continue reading Travelling on Foot
Watching the English
Like Paul on the road to Damascus, I know exactly when my eyes were opened. It was Monday April 3rd, on a trip to town for two significant appointments. One was to see my specialist nurse, to arrange details for my stay at Stoke Mandeville Hospital. It didn't happen then. The other was to collect… Continue reading Watching the English
Tethered to a Robo-goat
It's not curtains for me yet, much as I admire the views they bear of Chiltern scenes, as I saw again on my latest visit to Stoke Mandeville, which lasted two nights. I'll pull back the screen to show what happened. Let my goat be called Chemo. I was fed intravenously from her high-dangling udders,… Continue reading Tethered to a Robo-goat
The Exchange of Gifts
As Dr Johnson put it:Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully. Even a personal health scare, when you don’t really know what’s going on, does concentrate the mind to an extent, till you decide that it’s going to be all right… Continue reading The Exchange of Gifts
Everything fits together
Things fit together, said I. That’s what they are supposed to do, said K. If only we have faith, said I—in the right things, of course. We were having our morning tea in bed while doing the cryptic crossword, where things always fit together, if you puzzle over them enough. The clues fit the answers… Continue reading Everything fits together
Kindness (audio podcast)
click to to access the podcast transcript … I don’t know why, but the pain and the weariness started first thing Sunday morning, February 5th and here it is today, on the 23rd. I don’t even know what. At first, when I was told it was diverticulitis, I took the antibiotic and thought it was… Continue reading Kindness (audio podcast)
Living in a body
In my last I described how a stranger’s eyes met mine in the street. I imagined that his glance said “My soul soars, but I’m stuck in this body.” I don’t claim the power to discern a person’s thought from his silent face. More likely, the thought had lain dormant in me for a while,… Continue reading Living in a body
Hasty Sketch Map
hasty sketch-map Dear S I am starting to form the impression that the “preoccupied and dreamy boy” contains the real you, and that what you write operates as a kind of mask through which to address the world. This “real you” has not yet evolved the capacity to interact with everything that the present moment… Continue reading Hasty Sketch Map
Back Home from Hospital
The pianola When I reached home from hospital I was pleased to find I had a proper bedroom. Well, it was my baby sister’s room. Her cot had been moved to my parents’ room and I was assigned a mattress on the floor but I luxuriated in its sparse furnishings and relative comfort. I soon… Continue reading Back Home from Hospital
Released from hospital
It takes effort to wrestle the facts from memory. I thought that it was summer when I came out of hospital, and that it had been a six-month stay. But I was discharged in time to see a long queue outside a tobacconist / candy store in Harold Place, Hastings. The public record confirms that… Continue reading Released from hospital
Why pain?
Since my last I have hardly ventured outside due to a pain in my thigh. It’s not swollen and there is no bruise, just a pain sometimes severe, as when walking or standing. I suppose a muscle got pulled on Friday when I went up to that mysterious US base. Each day since recovering from… Continue reading Why pain?
a wayfarer’s notes 