He's Mending

Yesterday was the end of week 5 since James’ fall to earth. Today is the beginning of week six. In the last 36 days, he has managed to break some dozen or so bones in his body, most in more than one place, damage his brain (“severely” although we’ll come back to that) and do something or other to his right eye. all of these injuries seem (to us) to be mending extremely quickly, indeed the Royal London Hospital have it in mind to discharge him into the bosom of his family (and, of course, St Bean is an integral part of both the bosom and the family in question, do try to keep abreast of the metaphor) in the next few days.

Newcastle General Hospital did an absolutely fantastic job. He was discharged from NGH on Saturday 13 November and the hospital, doubtless exhausted by the effort of having to deal with James, has now closed. Should anybody be inclined to have an accident paragliding off Carrock Fell despite reading these reports, they will find henceforward themselves whisked to the Royal Victoria Infirmary instead. I’m not sure that James really enjoyed his stay at the NGH but they certainly did him proud. When he was there his grasp on reality was gradually tightening, he came to realise that:

• he wasn’t in a hotel,
• the not-hotel , i.e. the hospital, was in neither Seaford nor Scarborough and
• the prime minister was Cameron (not, thank heaven) Blair or Brown

He did perceptively remark on the number of Geordies among the staff. Anyway, last Saturday an NHS ambulance and two nurse drivers “repatriated” him safely to Mile End Road, London E1. I hadn’t hitherto regarded London as a being in a country distinct from NuT, but maybe the Geordies have that view of the world.

I was somewhat surprised to find out that the nurse/drivers were apparently brothers. Of an age (mid 50s – a very good vintage), Tommy and Dave didn’t look at all like brothers. Very different build (although both Geordies), their common surname was Pts. I remarked on the fact that they didn’t look like brothers and how did one pronounce the unusual name or was it an abbreviation, perhaps for Potts? A slightly tense pause ensued, there was a bit of eye ball swivelling (with the benefit of hindsight, this was probably their reflex action in search of a straitjacket) and then the reply came that PTS stood for Passenger Transport Services and wasn’t a surname at all (and that they weren’t brothers).

On the medical front, the view is that the Royal London can’t do much more for The Boy. He’s mending very well. He will have an ophthalmological appointment in 3-4 weeks time – the delay being to allow Mother Nature to carry on doing her bit. His consultant neuropsychologist says that there’s no concern about his physical recovery and his life expectancy is unimpaired. The eyesight is manageable. Even if Mother Nature can’t quite get things back to what they were pre-crash, he can wear glasses.

The brain injury? Well, it is “severe”. Now, of course, I have absolutely no professional experience of brain injuries and a lot of my friends and family would unkindly say that I have little experience of a brain either, but if his injury is severe, there must be some pretty extreme words further down the spectrum to describe worse injuries. The James Poole that we have today is pretty compos mentis: he is a bit vague when he gets tired, but vegetable he isn’t. Yesterday when I was telling him about a drain clearing exercise that I had been undertaking round the back of the house (in Lorton), he could clearly picture the drains and their covering grates (which for some reason don’t keep the leaves out). He recognises all of his visitors and connects them with their lives/ interests/ jobs. He enjoys the Home Service on the wireless (bit of an improvement on Five Live). We have to look out for anxiety, boredom and depression and will need to make sure that he doesn’t get overstimulated. He cannot be relied upon to look after himself yet - he’ll need somebody to keep an eye on him when he’s in his flat (but he is way past the level where he would benefit from day care at Homerton Rehab Clinic).

In terms of return to work, we’ll have to wait and see: James would like to get back to work, but the consultant said that this should be on a phased basis. The consultant’s opinion (not quite sure what this is based on) was that James has a high octane job and that this wasn’t the same as being a roadsweeper (indeed were James a roadsweeper, he could go back to work as soon as he has built up more muscle tone). I thought that this was interesting: most of my colleagues think that work in the insurance industry consists entirely of large lunches (planning, eating, drinking, digesting, getting somebody else to pay the bill). Since I’m the only insurance professional that most of them have met/ know (in my singleton capacity at the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority), I’m mystified as to the origin of this misapprehension.

The consultant did say that James’ employers shouldn’t concentrate purely on the physical side and that we would all need to watch out for the recovery of his high level cognitive abilities (planning, problem solving, multi-tasking etc). Encouragingly, the consultant said that there are lots of coping strategies, many including what he called cheating with a Blackberry. This is probably an area where James has no little experience already.

Penny and I go back to London tomorrow morning. She will stay in London for the week, I’m going to Bristol and Berkeley Tuesday-Thursday and then back to London for Friday. During this coming week we expect to see James back in his flat. We don’t know yet what we are supposed to do with him. Gently increasing physical activity and games are what we think is appropriate, along with some looking after of himself, making cups of tea for his carers and visitors, a bit of light shopping and interaction with the natives of Bethnal Green. We have to get some instructions/ guidance from the pros.

Reports back from Bean, James and Alasdair this evening:

Bean is at Nando’s buying spicy chicken fajitas to augment the Royal London’s cuisine. She has been busy moving sofa beds around the Home Counties this weekend and, of course and blessedly, loyally and lovingly looking after her inamorato.
James has had a raft of visitors over the weekend from school and work.
Alasdair is with James as I bidigtally peck at the keyboard


Many thanks for all of the marvellous continued help and support. I’ve been fed and watered by Cumbrians this past week, taken to an Anniversary of Flood presentation arranged under the auspices of the Institution of Civil Engineers and delivered by Cockermouth Mountain Rescue (mercifully long on civility and short on engineering), and this weekend Penny and I have been looked after by our many friends up here – entertained to tea, dinner, elevenses, lunch and tea. I’m not sure that we’ve been able to reciprocate very adequately – our conversation has been dominated by ribs, clavicles, interpedunculate cisterns, oculomotor nerves, skulls and neuropsychologists, which must be a bit dull. James has had lots of visitors and there are more in the pipeline. James joins Penny, Bean, Alasdair and me in saying that your interest and continued support mean an enormous amount to us. Muchos gracias! (Incidentally James asked his consultant about whether his ability to speak Spanish would be impaired. The consultant said no, foreign languages are at a “low level”. I’ve got reservations about James’ ability in this area anyway: Penny, Alasdair and I have not forgotten the occasion in Vittoria when we were confronted by James Poole procured tapas which included some deep-fried cartilaginous material – yes, you could say that he had made a pig’s ear of ordering – it certainly wasn’t a silk purse).

Adios amigos!

With love from us all

Duncan

P.S.: I hope that this bulletin is OK. I was mildly admonished for a couple of remarks in the last bulletin. One related to James and his bed, but in this respect everything is fine. The other related to the light over the dining room table – the expression “recreation”, of course, referred to snooker - nothing else.

After 57 years, 9 months and 4 days, I have come to accept such criticism philosophically.

I imagine that England’s other great men of letters have had to put up with this sort of thing too.

Dorothy: William, don’t you think that “host of golden daffodils” would scan rather better than “crowd of yellow flowers of the genus Narcissus”
Anne: William, that bit at the beginning of Romeo and Juliet about mistress’s circle is a bit risqué, dear
And so on!

D