Much to be said for a stay-at-home morning, no wheelchair travels Peetsward, a deliberate effort to tune in...with an emphasis on the 'in.' Something about the week had dragged me down. Jane's absence playing no small part. More prominent in my consciousness, the lack of same. Very little time given to reflection, which is always a bad thing for me. A growing sense of irritation when I had to deal with the practicalities of life. All adding up to the feeling at the end of each day that I had done Read more [...]

Hard to say about the essential facts of this, my life. One of which has most recently included the notion that, time's cruel ravages being what they are, I have lost so much strength that, well, getting out of bed in the morning has become marginal. And while this is not to be dismissed as laughable, the sitting-up-in-bed involving quite a strain on what able-bodied fitness buffs would describe as the 'core,' the truth lies elsewhere. Such as in the psyche, where a predictable quantity of everything Read more [...]

At some point in my neuromuscular career I resolved that disability would not be at the center of my life. A commendable notion, this has proved impossible. With each advancing year, like it or not, my entire being spins around cervical 4/5, the anchor point for everything I do. Like it or not. Which I don't. Actually, it all goes well beyond not liking and directly into the region of not accepting. This very morning I began to go nuts searching for my coffee capsules. What? Well, for the uninitiated, Read more [...]

The trouble I am having these days...is not like the trouble I am having many days. What is troubling about these or any days? Age...lingering memories of abandonment...dim fears of the future. They coalesce and precipitate, heaviness descending through the fluid of life, just like one of those school chemistry experiments. Am I really having more trouble getting my body out of bed, or do I fear having more trouble? Perhaps both. The day begins with Jane up and bustling out the door to walk the Read more [...]

Jane noticed it first, a sort of a knob on the elbow. A watery knob, to put a finer point on it. Elbows being inherently knobby, a knob on top of a knob. It may have been Jane who looked looked up the matter on the web. Bursitis. A guess heartily reinforced by Perry, PT assistant, who arrived the next morning for the usual bout of stretching and kneading, a.k.a., range of motion. Your doctor may want to stick a needle in that, he observed, drain it...the very thought of which drained me. And it's Read more [...]

Nothing like camping at the start line when you have to run a race. Thus my last evening at the Paddington Hilton, Jake residing in the adjacent room. And so it came to pass that shortly after 7 AM, the communicating door opened, and my cousin's son emerged. To help me with my socks. And to pack those last noisome items. This concluded, all was concluded. There was simply nothing more to do but enter a lift in the hotel and emerge onto the platform, almost. No more than 30 meters to the Heathrow Read more [...]