Good Manners

Duncan here.

Penny has been on duty this week. Alasdair went down to London on Wednesday 27 October, Bean went off to win (as predicted in bulletin last week - come to me for racing tips in future) 5 medals (G, 2S, 2B) and to set a new European record for the ladies 25-29 4X100m freestyle relay in Sheffield before driving back to London. I hitched a lift off Sister Alison and Brother in Law Colin ending up in James’ flat for a couple of nights last Saturday and Sunday.

Team Poole has now reconvened for the weekend of 6 and 7 November in Newcastle – and it’s rather fun to be back together again. This past week, Penny has been updating you all – my take on the week is as follows.

On Monday, Bean and I dropped in on Willis (James’ employers), where we received a very kind, sympathetic and courteous reception from Graham Knight and J’s team. We handed over sick note no.1. Graham gave me a cryptic message to deliver to James, which I duly did by phone and with Brother Nigel acting as an intermediary. This provoked an immediate and positive response from The Boy – recognition.

I went over on Tuesday for the evening to NuT and had a bit of a chat with him. Tracy day (see PJP’s bulletins no.)

Wednesday was a great day, he ate some Shredded Wheat, had a chat with a Polish nurse about Poland and was able to tell his mother the frequency of Radio 1. (Truth to tell, I was a bit disappointed, I would have hoped for the frequency of the Home Programme or the Third Programme or at least Classic FM. While we are on the subject of the Home Service, what a relief to have a journalist free day on Friday when they went on strike – perhaps the BBC should get rid of them altogether?).

On Thursday, Bean’s view was that he was making sense for 70-80% of the time. The rest of the time he was off with the cuckoos. This seems a bit of an improvement on his pre-accident state. He was also having to draw objects and he had a bit of an eye check (from his occupational therapist) – he’ll need a bit more help in this area.

Friday saw an improvement in his drawing abilities, more speaking, some walking.

Today, he’s better still.

So, to summarise:

Physically – mending very well. His surgical slices and sutures are super-healing. He has a scar on the left side of his face on the jaw line, several scars on the front of his chest where the surgeons ‘went in’ to do his ribs and a 12” scar which curves below his left shoulder blade (also rib plating related). This makes it look as if he’s been bitten by a great white shark. The eyes – well we’ll see and so, doubtless, does he – he’s sporting a saucy, rakish and piratical eye patch at the moment to manage his double vision.

Emotionally – seems pretty stable. He’s frightfully lovey-dovey with Bean, filially affectionate to Penny and does manly hand shakes (not hugs) with his male visitors(including Alasdair and me).

Mentally – as you would expect, we are anxious about this. He seems to have become extremely polite. I remarked on this to Bean, who said that he always is.

Well, if so, it’s a characteristic which he’s managed to conceal pretty well from me for the last 27 years and 346 days. I mentioned this to Brother Nigel this morning: he was able to:

a)reassure me and
b)startled me with his worldly cynicism (not a trait that one associates with BN).

Nigel said that he’s bound to be feeling vulnerable at the moment and the best way to get looked after well is to be polite. He also realises that he’ll need a bit of help in the future and so he’s banking on good manners to secure future service. That’s a relief – I thought that we were seeing personality change.

On the mental front, we’ve been visiting the Headway website (charity, www.headway.org). I’m sorry to say that this doesn’t paint an encouraging picture at all – in short, bad news, I’m afraid. Headway has a comprehensive site and one of the sections deals with the ‘Emotional & Behavioural Effects of Brain Injury’. I screwed up my courage and visited this page. There are 11 distinct traits to look out for:

1. Agitation
2. Explosive anger and irritability
3. Lack of awareness and insight
4. Impulsivity and disinhibition
5. Emotional lability (means laughs and cries easily)
6. Apathy and poor motivation
7. Depression
8. Anxiety
9. Inflexibility and obsessionality
10. Sexual problems
11. Self centredness

It’s pretty clear that all of these are conspicous – we are clearly dealing with a text book situation . I’ll give you examples of all of these, just to get the message home.

1. Especially when making scrambled egg.
2. Yes, presents with this when required to do DIY
3. Yes, ask Penny and Alasdair for examples
4. Well documented evidence of this over the past 3 weeks
5. Also lots of laughs, tears in the last 3 weeks
6. Ask previous work colleagues
7. Ditto
8. Eternal pension funding angst
9. Performance of pension fund
10. Well, we’ve had to change the light fitting in the dining room to accommodate our “recreational activities” recently
11. Note that the last few paragraphs apply to the author not to James at all.

Yes, I’m afraid, dear reader, that I must have had a trauma induced brain injury in the past. I can’t actually remember when this was, but then I wouldn’t be able to, would I? That’s the sneaky thing, which probably proves it beyond all doubt. I do remember modifying the angle of my nose when I rear-ended my brother’s toboggan in 1962 – perhaps we can trace the brain injury to the same event? Anyway, given that I’ve managed to cope with brain injury for the last 48 years, had a moderately successful (interesting too) career, a happy marriage and produced a couple of fine lads, I can’t see that James will have any problem bouncing back.

Other news:

It’s a shame that that German fellow (derivation from the Arabic for peasant – fella, if you are interested) has gone back to No 1 St Peter’s Square, The Vatican. A chat with him might have helped. I want to nominate Bean for a sainthood.

This isn’t something that I know much about (along with pretty much everything else under the sun, as you’ll have realised by now). I discussed it with her and she seemed to be up for it. I said that she would have to be St Bean of something and she thought that Fenham (where the hospital is in NuT) would be good. I suggested that perhaps she could also take on insurance brokers and paragliders – she was “cool with this” too. Bean reckoned that there might be a few problems at the moment, what with spending cuts and all, although perhaps there are non-stipendiary saints?

On mature consideration (apart from not really knowing how to go about it – vague recollection of a book by Morris West) since being a saint might rule out certain activities (it undoubtedly would rule out what Jas was suggesting on Tuesday night, Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night), I think that I’ll leave it for a bit. However, she definitely deserves to be canonised.

Bean went to the Royal Geographical Society on Tuesday night, met Michael Palin and he very kindly recorded a get well message for Jas on Bean’s I Phone. Alasdair is researching how to post this on the blog. Bean didn’t buy his book but did buy a map of Orissa, which Michael Palin autographed for her.

This afternoon, Rachel Hawes, the anaesthetist on the Great North Air Ambulance helicopter which rescued Jas, metaphorically dropped in to see him. She said that he had crashed to earth half way up Carrock Fell in a place where a helicopter couldn’t land. The solution had been for her to knock him out, for him to be loaded onto a sled by the Keswick Mountain Rescue and then the sled was slid/ carried to the bottom of the hill, whence the helicopter whisked him to NGH A&E (at 190 mph). The rescue took about 2 hours. We’ll do some digging on this in the next few weeks. Now that I don’t weep so much (obviously becoming less emotionally labile), I can cope with this. James has decided to provide some publicity for the GNAA and KMR by way of a thank you. (Since loads of people have written to us offering support, I’ll set up something to enable donations to be made in recognition of the help provided to JDP, should anybody wish to say “thank you” in this form. Penny and I and the Poole Siblings all intend to do this).

The mother (Sarah) of a girl (Becky) who was briefly on the same ward as Jas went to a school in Whitby which was run by the order of sisters who organised some prayers for James – see bulletin 1. A celebratory visit to Whitby is planned when the patients are better.

Once again, many thanks to you all for visits, support, emails, flowers, wine, lifts, meals, accommodation, book suggestions (On The Edge, by Richard & Mindy Hammond) and kindness – you are a marvellous bunch of friends! This is something of a life-changing event for us.

With best wishes

Team Poole