Pt 2: My right leg AND my left leg, well let's just say it's my legs in general!

This is the well anticipated second instalment of my journey from whatever I was to whatever I'll become once this is all done and dusted. As to who I was? I don't know! As for who I'll become? I don't know either! Well I don't know is a good place to start as Rene Descartes will tell you :-P

This follows on from Pt 1, naturally. If you're yet to read it then I don't blame you as I know I can be tediously convoluted at the best of times. So what happened next!? The cutters did their cutting :-D What actually happened next was a four to five hour procedure to remove the disc stuff that was pushing on my nerves. I haven't seen the incision but it was only a couple of inches to access two discs. Impressive stuff I assure you. Not gonna say any more as I would have to research the details of the op and I know you are all ever so capable of doing that yourselves :-P

So here's one of the weirder experiences of my life, coming out of anaesthetic. Breathing is hard, perception is...conflicted? I don't feel like myself, you know how we have a default setting? How we feel day to day, moment to moment. I feel detached and then I try to reason what is happening. The first thought that springs to mind is that I me and my body have parted company. Scares me so I fight to breathe and glance furiously around the room. I feel heavy, yes I am about 100kg but like there is something pressing on me constantly. Invisible lead soup! A nice lady points out that I've got a new toy to play with, patient controlled analgesia!

The thing at the top is a button that was strapped to my right hand and the syringe would have been full of morphine!

It's a morphine pump that I've been given control of for a few days. My perception of time has become somewhat muddled. I was admitted on the night of Thursday the 5th and the operation was in the morning on Saturday the 6th of September. Perhaps it was the drugs, unfamiliar atmosphere, pain or fear but my usual uber memory seems to have broken down with regards to chronology. When people came to see me, when I was moved etc. appear to have happened in no particular order. Everything happened at once...sounds like the mumblings of a someone who's tripping on something right?

So when they wheel me back to the ward I'm greeted by the familiar faces of my mother and brother. As well as two lovely family friends who stuck around with mum n bro whilst I was being tinkered with. I am tired and confused but I want to chat so I try to talk to them. Only problem is that my powers of focus are in tatters. I would start a conversation and mid sentence I'd drift off to sleep. Oh and there is this oxygen mask on my face that muffle my already quiet voice. I briefly revert to my rough Grimsby voice, I was kinda a badass back in the day so I had the rough scary tones to go along with it.

Funnily enough when speaking in my "old" voice I said the word garage as it would be said in the home counties not how everyone else said it "garidge".

I notice that my chin really, really hurts. I've been hit in the face a lot but this is something akin to a carpet burn/bruise/rash. It's purple, raised and tender to the touch. We decided it's probably because I'd been face down for the past 4-5 hours with an oxygen mask on. I ate nothing that day, Though I have been known to fast from time to time this really isn't not like me at all!

Wasn't too sure what to do with this little nugget of info but I may as well be as honest as I can be. So I've just had my back operated on so I can't leave the bed. I'm being dosed with strong opiates so my bowels have seized up solving problem number two, savvy? Numero uno is still in full flow! In other words I have to pee! Now they could've catheterised me but they didn't. I can't leave the bed, for now, so what do I do? Any guesses? Here's a clue:

Anything springing to mind? Guess I'd better spell it it out in case some of yall are baffled by what such a receptacle could be used for. I had to pee in a cardboard bottle for a week or so. Strangely enough I wasn't drinking much but felt the enormous urge to urinate. Upon closer inspection the cannula in my arm was hooked up to morphine and a drip! Well after 4 or five failed attempts I relaxed enough to let it all out. I think these could do with being a bit bigger tbh. Firstly because some men are longer than others, if you get that reference I love you and will marry you. And secondly if you are bursting then there just isn't enough capacity. It's a real problem!

My swashbuckling surgeon comes by and asks me to move my feet, I got nothing! Now this was a little alarming at first. Mostly because I'd come in with numbness in both legs and a dead right foot. I now still have numbness in both legs and both my feet are dead :-S He asks me if I've got sensation, which I did and still do. Sensory and motor run down the same pathways so if one is there then the other has to be too. It's just a case of waiting for all the swelling, bruising, stretching + other misc. damage to repair itself. For a few days it stays this way. and I dip my toe into the depths of depression.

Strangely it wasn't the thought of me being paralysed from the knees down. It was the strain being placed on my nearest and dearest. A sentiment I shared with my mother in an effort to apologise for being hurt. Now I cried at this point. Those of you who've read my blogs know I'm no stranger to crying. But as it turns out this is the first time my mother had seen me cry since I was 8-9 years old. I've since resolved not to do it again. Dad gives me a ring from India having heard of my peculiar emotional state and explains that a few days after coming out of anaesthetic people tend to feel rather low. Turns out this may have been the result of coming down.

So in the days that follow I channel all efforts to wiggling my toes. You ever heard the phrase "you reap what you sow"? Well all the effort I put in made my left foot leap into action. Now leap is a little bit of a strong word it's mostly that I managed to move it up and down a bit. Then righty joins in, right toe to be specific. Upon hearing me retell the tale of how I willed my feet back to life Swapnal remarks it reminds him of this scene in kill bill 2:



Oh the day the physios came! Two nice physio lads came and helped me out of bed to see what I could do. Turns out not a whole lots! They did say they'd bring back something called an Arjo to get me walking. Weird thing for you folks. Without use leg muscles wither away at an alarming rate. Three days of being in bed made my calves and quads disappear. Whilst my upper body is pretty much as I left it, musclewise. I admit it the alure of regular food has drawn me to the dark side and I'm now in no shape at all.

You stand within the frame and walk whilst supporting what your legs can't through your arms. I managed about 20 metres before running out of steam. As you all know my upper body doesn't really do endurance. So in the days that follow I graduate to a gutter frame.

It's like a zimmerframe with wheels and handles. This burns out my chest, shoulders and triceps! All the time my feet are making strides towards full range of motion. It's around now that I notice righty has overtaken lefty! Lefty feels swollen and unwieldy. I'm moved from Stow in the dead of night, about 21:40 to Naustadt-Welton. I feel a little strange, I'd grown to love the bustle of Stow. It's a trauma ward you see so it's firing on all pistons day and night. But here I am in the elective surgery ward. It's quieter but I still can't sleep.

This is where I'm first introduced to Amy, she's from Bardney and has just found out she's pregnant with her first baby! I've been doing my best to remember the names of all the wardstaff who looked after me so well. I made a list, in my mind! But I've grown lax in my updating of said list since I've had access to a laptop. I was the most vulnerable I've been in many years. I was a soft kid who toughened up a bit too much after moving away from Bucks. The kindness and level of care I received from the staff I can't really put into words how much I appreciate what they did. They did pretty much everything, I couldn't stand, sit up or twist.

The next day I'm wheeled into the bathroom and I notice there's a shower. It's been four days since I'd had a shower. Once I'm done I pull a red cord and Rach appears. She makes a point of introducing herself and explains how oddly topsy turvy the patient nurse relationship can be! I ask if it'd be ok for me to have a shower...why not is the reply! I get a new water proof dressing for my back. That shower was AMAZING! Dunno how to express the awesomeness of this shower. The only way I can try and convey it is this, don't shower for a day. I'm talking 24 hours just go without showering, use deodorant, antiperspirant etc. Then take a shower and see what it's like, imagine that x 4!

Funnily enough this isn't the longest I've gone without taking a shower. The longest would have been 6 days when I was at Hawes :-D Did you guys take have a trip away when you were in year six? We went away for a week to Hawes. Where we walked, climbed rocks, walked, went caving, walked, mountain biked, walked, sketched, walked, player pool, walked, oh and did I mention we walked? Man did we walk a lot! Here's what I remember about the trip. We got there n trekked about six miles on the first day before getting to the place we were staying.

I think there were six of us in a room lets see if I can remember who I was staying with! Craig, Niall, Tom, Scott and Stephen. I remember Scott mooned the girls out the window and farted. This caused the window to steam up completely and everyone in the room to fall about laughing for a good five minutes. Someone bought a can of fart spray, sprayed it on their finger and wiped it under someone's nose. Fake cigarettes! I bought a bunch of gifts for my family and left them in a public toilet. Luckily the year group was on a staggered schedule and they were found by another group. When we went caving the guy leading us tricked us into thinking we could see in the dark. We met up with the second Ben Wright who had moved away from Scartho in year 2.

We caused a cow stampede by running through a field. We started running through a field, why you ask? Well we're 10/11 year old boys the question should be why weren't we already running through this field?! The answer to that would be that we were kinda knackered from all the walking, at least I was! Anyways the field is slightly downhill and those of you familiar with how gravity works will realise that this resulted in us speeding up. The rest of the group are looking at us from a distance thinking "what a bunch of tools!" We end up going through a bunch of cows, what's the technical name? Well it's herd of course! Or Hird I knew a girl with the second name Hird, she's a teacher now! The cows are somewhat startled by our sudden appearance. I'd like to think they were inspired by our childish whimsy, I know the former is much more likely. And they leg it! This alarms us so we run even faster. We hop the nearest turnstile/gate,  I can't remember which it was! Shortly afterwards a herd of 50 or so cows have crammed themselves up against the gate.

This manouvre neatly cut us off from the rest of the group and pissed the farmer, whose land we were rambling across, off!

It's gonna be three weeks soon enough and I'm yet to have a proper nights sleep. Odd surroundings, drugs, pain and a mind that appears to be rewiring itself. I don't know what into just yet. But I feel more and more that whilst this event has me as the main player the purpose is linked to all associated with it. I'm being obtuse as what I really think would take at least another 1000 words to explain. Ain't nobody got time for that! :P

I've only recently gotten hold of this laptop. Before then I was hand writing copious notes of what happened. I've never written one of these based on notes before so I've put them to one side for the time being.

Pirates, hair colour, superpowers etc.

Ever wondered what your pirate name'd be? Well neither have I. UNTIL TODAY! If you know me, you know I am partial to growing a beard of some description, from time to time. This first started when I was about 12/13, don't believe me? Well I have no proof so you can be all non believing all you want :-P I grew up really fast, physically that is, Think I was about 5 ft 8" in my second year at secondary school.

So facial hair! This first kicked off with some massive sideburns that I grew in year 9 at KEVIS. Once at an athletics event, I was a bit of a shot putter, Andy commented that my facial hair was like bumfluff but bum fluff is white...yeah. I had big sideburns then stopped shaving altogether. This led to the the head of our year, Mr. Hayday, having a little chat with me. His usual ridicule spiel was not present but he told me about how he understands the temptation to be lazy but rules is rules! I had a similar conversation several years later at Spalding High School. This was from the deputy head of sixth form at the time, Mr. Garbett. The next day I turn up thoroughly debearded, thus annoying Raj! He was my only beard brother at the school and I had abandoned him when we should have been standing shoulder to shoulder to fight the power!

So that was the story of my beard before I got to Uni. This was the first time round, yes I am greedy and went to uni twice. I didn't even wait that long before going for the second time, was literally a matter of months! Whilst in my first year at Notts I grew a goatee that morphed into something more than a goatee. I'll not take you on the journey from goatee to...beard but instead I'll give you my start and end points.

Mapleston and Rich Bolton in Rich's room?

I then shaved it all off and went about my business as a second year chem enger. Didn't go so well hence my leaving Notts for the fair shores of Lincoln Uni where I regrew my beard several times. I then stayed, more or less, clean shaven in my years of wandering the jobless wilderness. I say jobless but I worked a few unpaid gigs and quite a few hard labour gigs. Nothing that stretched my "mind grapes" though. If you get that reference I'll give you a hug or tell you a story that has a convoluted link to your current life situation, your choice.

My most recent beard was grown after I landed my current job. Twas a goatee that was quite fond of, let it grow into a beard and then inevitable shaved the whole thing off. Made me look disgustingly young...disgusted by youth I can definitely relate.

That's what it looked like, can you name the rather powerful presence that can be peeked from over my shoulder? That's right it's Tin tin Taylor. I also saw my dad for the first time in ages today! He's overseas learning how to be a teacher of something ancient and awesome. Funnily enough he's grown a beard too! He had a head start on me, mines only five weeks old his is approaching 2 months, I think. As you can see from the pics my beard is black. My dad's 60+ so guess what colour his is? If you guessed anything other than grey or white then you are a tool. It links neatly back to my first paragraph, pirate names! Now the old man's beard is white and the beard I currently possess is black. See where this is going?

So if we were to switch from lovely law abiding citizens to salty scourges of the sea then it'd only be natural to call ourselves Whitebeard and Blackbeard!!! Just like in One Piece :D But alas here comes the weird bit early this morning I was in the bathroom about to brush my teeth. Not so strange I hear you exclaim, hold your horses chaps an chapesses, I'll get to the point one of these days. This is when I spy something that I've never seen before. When was the last time you saw something you'd never seen before? For me it was Saturday morning! On my cheek I spy a hair with a hue that is not my usual.

Care to hazard a shot in the dark as to what it was? Come now don't be boring take a guess, even if you don't post a comment have a guess in your head or write it down if you really feel like committing to this farce :-P. So white and grey is what I think most of yall have in your noggins or scrawled on the back of an envelope. But alas that is not what I found!!! What I actually found is a hair with a hue I would never have expected to appear on my face. It was gingery...auburn, reddish brown. Yep made me all giddy for a few mins! Or it could've been the push ups I'd just cranked out on my zimmer, on second thought let's not get into that just now.

Pretty much what my beard looks like from range

Now you can see that red hair right? I decided to highlight it by teasing it out of the glut of dark beard hairs. Made me read up on red hair as I've never seen a brown man, such as myself, with red hair! So I did a little reading and it's to do with mutations in the MC1 receptor on chromosome 16. After a chat with my mum, who also has my freaky remember everything that ever happened memory, she confirm none of our family has ever had red hair! So I am a mutant! Next stop super powers me thinks. If I had a choice I'd pick super speed and the reason is because Flash can beat Brainiac/Luthor!

Let me set it up a bit. Brainiac merges with Luthor and kicks the crap out of the Justice League. The last man standing is Flash, would you pick the wise cracking funtime guy to save the world from someone that could put the smack down on Batman, Superman, Hawkgirl, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and the Martian Man Hunter? Yeah me either!

Awesome right?

Also I was reminded of a pic I saw an absolute age ago about how redheads are the best!

I think this is memecenter meme but I've seen it all over the place!

What's the RDA for pep?

We could all use one of these from time to time. The best one I've seen relatively recently comes from the kid president :-D If you're familiar you'll know he gets the job done, every time.



I've used this a couple of times before but I never get tired of it!

So what else get's me fired up to do something? Well I mentioned before about a line in Eminem - Lose Yourself:

"If you had one shot or one opportunity, to seize everything you ever wanted, in one moment. Would you capture it or let it slip?"

Kinda links back to my previous post or posts I'm having troubling sifting what I've written with what I want to say. X-O it really is a wibblywob timeywimey thing. When I heard it, it shocked me into action. Even now if I remember/hear it I always wonder how many of these opps I've let slip through my fingers. But that's kinda defeatist thinking. Using the past for motivation is cool :-D But torturing myself with past failure? Seems a little loony when I look back. Don't miss them in the future! :D

So now on to some more obscure sources of inspiration.

Can you name these legends of the anime world? If you can then I'll buy you a beer, I'll limit this to the first 10 people who can name these dudes! Just to be clear that's first and last name :P

Let's kick things off with Rock Lee: 

For the uninitiated Lee is from the popular Japanese manga series Naruto. His main thing is hard work, he doesn't know how to quit. The phrase used by his sensei, Maito Gai, is "genius of hard work". Not talented but works his ass off. I'd encourage you all to watch the anime. Watch out for filler arcs as they will no doubt bore you to death. These are mainly inserted to let the manga, comic, storyline get ahead.

Spoiler! So when we first see Lee he knocks ten bells out of Sasuke the guy that the main protagonist, Naruto, looks up to. But Lee was holding back. When he fights Gaara, the dude with all the sand, he lets loose. The fight showcases a lot of speed + skill that Lee has built up allowing him to overcome Gaara's seemingly impenetrable automatic sand defences. Oh yes Gaara controls sand and uses it as if it were an extra limb/s. He can also encase himself in it, sand armour!

Lee use certain techniques that allow him to push his body beyond it's natural limits. Muscles tear, metabolism increases to unsustainable levels etc. He is literally tearing his body apart to win. Lee performs an all or nothing attack that doesn't take Gaara down. Gaara is severely hurt though. Lee is out of juice and Gaara traps his arm and leg in sand and crushes them. Gaara is in full flow and ready to kill Lee, Gai steps in and stops the fight. Gaara quizzes him about why he'd do that? Gaara loses his patience and starts to walk off, exclaiming that he quits. This would leave Lee as the victor but seeing as Gai already intervened it's too late.

There are gasps from the assembled crowd. When Gai turns around he sees Lee standing up in his fighting stance. Gai explains to him that he's in no condition to carry on. He suddenly realises that Lee is unconscious! Even with his lights out Lee refuses to go down. If you want to watch the fight you can here it's an English dub so not ideal but still worth a watch :D

I was going to leave it at that but it hardly seems long enough, and I know you lot love to plough through masses of my mumbo jumbo, so I'll throw in another one.This questions is which one? Well I may as well go with the tale of two brothers who tragically lose their mother. You can see it all here This is of course the story or Ed and Al Elric - Fullmetal Alchemist. They live in a world within which science kinda exists but you can transform things into other things using alchemy. The primary rule of alchemy is toka koka in Japanese - equivalent exchange. So they gather together the ingredients required for making a human being:

• Water, 35 litres
• Carbon, 20kg
• Ammonia, 4 litres
• Lime, 1.5kg
• Phosperus, 800g
• Salt, 250 g
• Niter, 100g
• Sulphur, 80g
• Fluorine, 7.5g
• Iron, 5g
• Silicon 3g
• And fifteen other elements.

This is from the beginning of the story after Ed has become a renowned alchemist. The girl is hoping that by being devout to this particular temple the priest will be able to bring her dead fiance back to life. Ed launches into his list.


They researched Human Transmutation, a forbidden art in which one attempts to create or modify a human being. However, this attempt failed, resulting in the loss of Ed's left leg, and Al's entire body. What happens next pretty much brings a lump in my throat every time. 24 minutes? Can you spare that to see what I'm on about? If so watch it here :-D

Freedom

If you were "free" what would you do? Owing to a situation that's out of my control I've been handed quite a bit of free time. There is an old cliche that applies here "only boring people get bored" Guess that I wouldn't get bored if something wasn't taken away from me. Urgh, being cryptic for the sake of not shattering an illusion is ever so tedious!!!

Anyhow there are a load of films/TV series' I wish I could watch but I think I may have reached saturation point. Below is a list of films I've watched in the time I've been off. This isn't exhaustive as I am fully up to date with New Girl, Happy Endings and Apartment 23. Oh and I've caught up with Naruto and Bleach too :D

The Watch - Features Richard Ayoade, need I say more?!
Aeon Flux - Nice to look at, somewhat boring.
Skyfall - Javier Bardem really kills it, THAT VOICE!
Jack Reacher - Little predictible but I did actually gasp from time to time! Well worth a watch.
Chronicle - Amazing! Mystery unsolved!
The Dark Knight Rises - Good film, rip off of the Alabasta arc in One Piece:-O
Ted - Seth Mcfarlane is a genius. 
Dredd - The Judge, end of.
Dark Shadows - Quite tedious till Jonny Depp. Are there any films he's in where he isn't sexy/kooky?
Pirates of the Carribbean: On Stranger Tides - I struggle to remember any of this film, may have been all the opiates in my system.
Green Lantern - I liked it
Men in Black 3 - Old school K is the dogs proverbials :D

So what would you do with your free time? Well I'm physically limited, as far as I'm gonna go so hurtling around doing back breaking labour and generally being a daredevil is out of the question :-(. But beyond that there are numerous skills I'd love to master e.g. cold reading, the memory palace, VBA! Plus there are soooo many books I want to read. I don't know what it is but once I arrived at this freedom all I found was frustration! There's a phrase from Wild Hogs of all films that springs to mind. Ray Liotta's character shouts angrily "YOU WOULDN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THIS KIND OF FREEDOM!"

I've arrived at some kinda freedom and have no idea what to do with it :-S. I have a focus, overcoming this particular physical limitation. But that's not full time there are fallow/rest periods. Also I don't sleep a lot so what the hell do I do!? The grass is always greener also leapeth forth.

Here's something weird for you, I woke up this morning with a real desire read Faust. German story of a dude who makes a pact with the devil, sounds a little like bedazzled to me. Anyhow I was determined to acquire it on Amazon, to the interweb! Do you folk believe in serendipity? Well as luck would have it there is a free kindle version of Faust available on Amazon! Now that sure is lucky right? It's a volunteer translations, akin to the fan translated manga I do so enjoy, so dunno how good it is. But here's where my luck stems from, last year I won my kindle in a Metro Radio competition!



I'm a lucky old soul but that doesn't stop me from slipping into the odd funk. Right now I've been given some freedom in exchange for losing something. You give and in exchange you get, or you don't X-D That's the madness here. Well maybe it's not so mad.

Say you give someone a kiss and you were expecting a kiss in return. Depending on who you kissed, time of day, weather or any given combination of variables you may receive a Glasgow variant in return. Now you did receive something in return but you may not want it or you may not be able to recognise it. There is also the fourth dimension to consider, time! Say you tend an apple tree for the first 2 years of it's life, you're motivation is to devour the tangy fruit it shall produce. After 2.5 years you give up and forget about the tree, 5 years pass. You come back and BOOM apples!!!

This kinda relates to Newton's third law of motion, google it :-P. Equal and opposite reaction, savvy? Without appreciating all the effects, perceptions, moods, distortions etc. how can you possibly hope to predict the kind of return you'll always get? Sat here giggling a little whilst I write this. Basically telling you that when you do something you don't know exactly how it'll turn out. But you already knew that right?

Guess who's back?

The pressure of trying to write something terribly sincere is wearing on me! I'm gonna let loose so in the immortal words of Dave Vitty

"LET'S GET READY TO RAMBLE!!!!!"

Oh I did hear about a 100 page book that I'm itching to read, The Testament of Mary. It's the story of the world favourite carpenter/son of god Jesus from his mothers point of view. Now the thing that made me want to read it first off is that it's so short! Secondly the reviewer said that you could really tell that the author had really thought hard about every word. Additionally I am a weirdo who'll no doubt follow a peculiar path in life. My poor mother will watch as I do so. Not saying me and Jesus are anything alike, well we both have beards but that's about it. Well I kinda have a story for every situation as well. But other than that I'm no where near as brave as the dude was, if it's all true that is.

Well when it comes to bravery I'll dive into the middle of any melee face first with little or no hesitation. But I'm not one to take massive risks. Yeah I'll stop comparing myself to Jesus.

Unrelated image of a fox chasing a lion, no you didn't read that wrong just now :-P

Anyone heard of the Q brothers? Well they were charged with remixing Othello. Now I was rather dismissive as soon as I heard this but once I heard and example of what they said it made me want to go see them so bad! Sadly that's not been possible, but that's a story for another post/s.



How many calories does an After '8 have? 33! Surprising low right? But then again it is terribly difficult to stop at just one. Brings me onto another book, Consumed: How Shopping Fed the Class System. Sure to be a good read. I'm kinda putting these here to motivate myself to finish reading quite a few other books so I can get started on these. I am terrible at finishing books.

Ooh I did finish Clovenhoof the other day! It's a funny story really. The Devil is deemed to be underperforming so he's kicked out of  hell and has to live in the real world. ***SPOILER ALERT*** Go read the book it's only £2.99 and you won't be able to put it down. He runs rings around conventional thinking and subtly challenges some of our ideas about right and wrong. There is also a nice nudge at the lengths we'll go to to protect people we care about.

Might as well finish on this little ditty that I heard on the Zane Lowe show some time ago. But I've been sealed away by that the powers that be to see what would happen if I were to disappear from the face of the earth. Turns out Russia gains a diplomatic upper hand X-O

Pt 1: My right leg AND my left leg, well let's just say it's my legs in general!

Prolapsed discs eh? What's all that about? Well in the olden days they'd have said it was a slipped disc but now it's be rebranded to sound less like an accident, e.g. I slipped and fell flat on my face! And more like something that has gotten lazy e.g. a lapse in concentration/performance etc. I'll try and explain but I am prone to being overly verbose at the best of times so this may take some time!

Discs are like spongy shock absorbers that sit between the vertebrae of the spine. When place under odd pressure they can deform and bulge outward. This puts pressure on the nerves in the area and causes a hell of a lot of pain. This time round I prolapsed two discs in my back as a defensive measure my back muscles went into spasm.

The resulting pressure on the nerves causes sensations of pain and numbness through my legs and lower back. Now this isn't your usual ouch that kinda hurts pain. I laid down and would only get up to answer the call of nature. Something that decreased once the kind doctors decided to prescribe me opiate based pain killers. Co-codamol initially followed by Tramadol for the pain. This was teamed up with naproxen, anti-inflammatory and diazepam, muscle relaxant. Oh and naproxen causes stomach acid to flare up so I was prescribed lanzaprazole to counter that. Now I've had high blood pressure for some years now so I'm used to taking regular medication but this is ridiculous!

The initial bits are all documented here for your reading pleasure! Some of you may know that I don't tend to see any problem as being particularly serious. As Mark Taylor would say I'm known for being laid back and casual. My right leg was practically paralysed below the knee and I didn't see it as a big problem. I dealt with it for a few days and waited for my appointment with the specialist spinal surgeon. The moment he knew what had happened he told me that surgery would be his recommendation. This is an emergency and has to be treated as such.

So I go and sit in A&E at Lincoln County Hospital. In this time I go for my second MRI, I've had another since then! I fully appreciate why some people can't stand them loud and cramped for shizzle. My shoulders brush past the sides as I was being pulled in. I really didn't want to be in hospital but at the time of writing this it's been just over a fortnight and it's not so bad. I'm admitted at the same time as a rather...unique individual. He's 72 years old and got in a fight resulting in him breaking his shoulder in 3 places. He's waited as long as I have for a bed and to top things off he worked in a factory for 30 odd years resulting in him being practically deaf. Wondering why this is a problem? Well it's a problem because he shouts everything he says.

We're put into a bay that can accommodate 4 patients in total. But for now there are only three. Myself, Jason and Malcolm. Jason has been in for quite a few weeks and is a thoroughly nice chap. Turns out he has a septic spine! The next day I'm instructed to not eat or drink anything as the surgery will happen if they can sequester the theatre space. I don't really eat a whole lot, usually. But on account of being injured my dear mother went into overdrive and seized the opportunity to feed me regular food for a couple of weeks. It's not so bad as mum sneaks into the ward and hangs with me for the day. As the day draws to a close I get the news that the surgery won't be going ahead and I'm presented with a sandwich!

Added in later from a memory that popped up! I had blood taken three times on the Friday by three different junior docs! The first used a syringe, the second I barely felt at all and the third reminded me of Cynthia from Malcolm in the Middle. If you get that reference I love you and insist you marry me this instant. One of these days someone will get one of my obscure references and I'll get hitched, you mark my words :-P

That's how she looks now not back in the day. Would you believe she's two years my junior!

At this point in time I am still gloriously unaware of the permanent peril my right leg is in. The longer paralysis is left the less chance movement will return. So Saturday morning and I'm wheeled out of Stow ward. As luck would have it I pass my mother and brother on the way! They are ever so pleased to have seen me before I go under the knife. Funnily enough I've faced the threat of many a knife...

Thinking about it I wonder why people want to see you before you go to surgery. Boost your morale? I think it may be because you won't it out the other end, all surgery however minor has it's risks. The anaesthetist plugs me with a cannula and I barely feel it! I think this is more testament to his skill than my uber hard as nailsness. This is when it gets weird. They are basically working to slowly yet surely knock me out. I feel things going hazy. Breathing is becoming peculiar as well, no panic mind you. I can see my heart rate on the monitor. And that's when the lights went out.

Is anyone reading this familiar with the Master Chief - John 117? Well he's a fictional super soldier, stolen from his family as a six year old boy and indoctrinated into the military. 75 children were conscripted for the project. They underwent hellish training and in their early teens underwent physical augmentations here's a handy table:

Procedure	Description	Risk(s)
Carbide Ceramic Ossification	Advanced material grafting onto skeletal structures to make bones virtually unbreakable. Recommended coverage not to exceed 3% total bone mass because of significant white blood cell necrosis.	Specific risk for pre-and near-postpubescent adolescents: skeletal growth spurts may cause irreparable bone pulverization.
Muscular Enhancement Injections	Protein complex is injected intramuscularly to increase tissue density and decrease lactase recovery time.	Five percent (5%) of test subjects experience a fatal cardiac volume increase.
Catalytic Thyroid Implant	Platinum pellet containing human growth hormone catalyst is implanted in the thyroid to boost growth of skeletal and muscle tissues.	Rare instances of Elephantiasis. Suppressed sexual drive.
Occipital Capillary Reversal	Submergence and boosted blood vessel flow beneath the rods and cones of the subject's retina. Produces a marked visual perception increase.	Retinal rejection and detachment. Permanent blindness.
Superconducting Fibrification of Neural Dendrites	Alteration of bioeletrical nerve transduction to shielded electronic transduction. 300% increase in subject reflexes. Anecdotal evidence of marked increase in intelligence, memory, and creativity.	Significant instances of Parkinson's Disease and Fletcher's Syndrome.

They had to be put under for the process and were told to count down from 10 to 0. The Master Chief managed a couple of rounds before succumbing. I had meant to try this out when I was being put under but failed to remember!

I think that'll do for the first instalment. I was going to write this as one enormous text dump but decided not to. Dunno why if I'm honest.

Taught or learning?

From time to time I feel like someone is trying to teach me a lesson. Thing is I don't really like it if someone is trying to teach me something. Kinda feels like it's being enforced, know what I mean? Alternatively I could see every experience as an opp to learn. Puts it on me to try and get something useful out of all the shizzle that goes down.

I was intro'd to a structured way to do this, really simple once you've heard it:

1. Sit down at the end of each day, reheheally hard right?
2. Go over key interactions/events
3. Identify what you did "right" so you can repeat/build on them.
4. Pick up what you did "wrong" so you can improve/not do it again.

Simples, right? I do try to do this so I can become more effective! But I tend to get sidetracked by all the other interesting, but inane, things that are occurring around the globe.

Yep that's a mongoose facing off against a cobra. You see the kind of distraction I have to put up with?!? Did you know that the mongoose isn't immune to cobra venom they're just really fast so that can dodge, hence Ace Ventura's phrase "Speed of a mongoose!"  

Anyway onwards to what I think I should be learning from my current situation. Now we tend not to appreciate something till it's gone. Friends, parents, weather etc. I'm totally guilty of this and recently I was reminded of something that I shouldn't take for granted. My health. I've prolapsed a couple of discs in my back which has resulted in a lot of pain. Not only pain but my mobility has been reduced spending most of the day laying down in my side.

Before you all get incredibly worried this is not a big deal. It hurts and it sucks that I can't leap about for the time being but I've got my bro and my lovely mother with me. And a network of medical contacts the likes of which the world has never seen before ;-D

When it first happened the muscles in my back went into massive spasm. So I went home and laid down. And in a time honoured tradition of sportsmen everywhere I tried to walk it off! I did this by stretching my lower back and buttocks with every technique I had encountered in my many years of being a gym dweller. When nothing worked I called physio, he gave me one exercise n told me it was way too early to do anything. I needed to rest. So after a bit word spreads and what followed was an intense intercontinental discussion about wtf my next step should be.

Whilst the debate was raging in the background nature inevitably called. I had to bite the bullet and get up. So after a lot of shuffling I got up and experienced the most pain I had ever felt in my 26 years. Now I've broken my toes, fingers, had numerous cuts, torn many a muscle and been punched in the face more times than I care to remember but this pain was on an entirely different level. Every movement sent a crazy jolt of new pain through my back. Once back I crashed on the bed and could hardly breathe. This was because when I inhaled the pain would increase, making me breathe in little and out quickly.

With tears in my eyes I gained a glimpse into the world of those who live with levels of pain equal to or above this on a daily basis. The muscles in my back were in such tight spasm that I could only take small steps, also saw what it must be like to be old n stiff. Everything was such and effort, still is atm so I have massive respect for all those old folks out there doing it for themselves.

Funny thing about me is that I don't progress or grow when the going is good. If things are easy I tend to sit back and rot. There is something I heard once that applies here I think.

This pain first started sometime in 2009 when I felt a pop in my back when getting up from the decline bench. This wrecked but being the stubborn twentysomething that I was I went back to the gym the next day and did a full bi n tri workout. After a bit of rest I hit cardio like a madman and experienced a time of well being. But then old habits resurfaced and started building it up again. In my foolishness I neglected my lower back. The excuse was that it was weak and I didn't want to hurt it.

Surely it's the weaknesses that need addressing before you strengthen your strengths, DUH! Well my back was always a bit iffy, stiff, sore etc. In 2011 I went for a programme called BSP which was the most intense experience of my life. Made all my muscles ache like nothing I'd ever felt before. Once the fatigue wore off my back pain was gone! I was over the moon. But bad posture etc brought the pain back soon enough.

I got a taster of my current situation in Feb '13. My arrogance got the better of me and I decided to move 60kg of water bottles in one go. What happened was either muscle spasm or prolapse. This particular brand of agony kept me awake for a week straight. My mood deteriorated and I grew increasingly angry at the pain that wouldn't let me rest. I found my release when I realised who was to blame for this situation. ME! In my foolishness I had hurt myself and so I was reaping what I had sown. I actually laid on the floor laughing at myself, actually hurts to laugh! Cruel and unusual punishment indeed!

On a sidenote I love the saying "Reap the whirlwind". Looked it up and apparently it's from the hebrew bible!

I grew kinder from my pain and became even more sensitive to my surroundings. Then my world was shaken up and I hardened up. It's well documented what happened, have a read through my shtuff from April and May :-D So this time the pain is back. But that's not all. I've got numbness running down my right and left legs. Recently I've lost most of the movement in my right foot. Means I kinda drag my lower leg around from my quad.

I did despair when I first noticed this was the case. My mind started racing thinking what happens if this is permanent? But I've seen a bigshot spinal specialist and he's not so worried. Off to see him again soon so I'll know if this is something to be worried about or not. It has given me an insight into what it's like to be paralysed. Not saying I can fully appreciate it but I've got a teeny tiny idea.

Picture this, you're sat in a chair. Your favourite chair, you've got a fave chair right? If not pick one that's nice n comfy. But really who doesn't have a fave chair? Your legs are out in front of you with your feet resting on the floor. You want to raise your right foot whilst keeping your heel on the ground. Follow what I'm asking you to do?

That kinda movement but whilst you are sat down. What is it that you think in order to make that happen? In my case it's not really a thought. In so much as I can't really explain what I'm doing when I command my foot to move. Now I stare at my right foot whilst thinking whatever it is that makes it move and nothing happens. Now that is such a weird thing to see! My foot is there, I can feel the floor under it but when I tell it to move it does nothing.

I know why this is happening so it's not as worrying but it's still a little scary :-O ;-D The prolapsed disc is pushing on nerves thus causing the tingling and also reducing the movement in my right foot. Should sort itself out in a few weeks. It has given me a reason to bust out the cane I bought for a costume party 11 years ago! Yep I am using it in the wrong way, on the same side as my weak leg. I really need a crutch but I'm debating whether to buy one or see whether I can score one off the NHS.