The ward

i must have been drifting in and out of con scienceness like i was between worlds, between life and death, dont ask me why i didnt drift over to the other side, I had no sense of time during the stroke, it was as if i was left out in the dark, i dont remember too much about the early stages of taking the stroke. One minute i was on the edge of the bed the next i was on the floor crawling into my mothers room asking her what was happening thats how suddenly it happened. You can't issue blame on to much drinking or smoking if its in the family blood there isnt much you can do about it its going to happen wether you like it or not but i did live to excess. The clinical smell of unsmelt death lingered through the ward the smell wafted through the corrridors. The next 48 hours were crucial to my survival,i pulled through and the doctors seemed not to know what to do with me. it was as if they wanted me to drift to the otherside. Now that i think back to that time i think my thoughts told me that i was a wasted lump of flesh unable to move or speak my onlyway of communicating was with my eyes. for the first few days it seems i was kept in a ward wher e everything seem ed behind me. the wasted corpes were amputated and placed in a box and shipped away now i know this isnt true but my mind was playing terrible tricks on me. dreaming that day and night were only different by the changing of a sign. thats all i had to focus on that was real everything else seemed to change. after a few days i was shipped off to the royal, without that oxygen i dont think i would have survived i would have just drifted off to sleep. it seemed i dsidnt need anything else it was my life saver. it also sent me cuckoo my mind was racing with all kinds of thoughts. i was really paranoid i remember one night trying to reach my bed side thinking they were killing someone and i was next.

the nurses were brilliant but my mind was just messed up i didnt know wether i was coming or going.it still feels like im in limbo and ill wake from this terrible dream any minute.after my mir scan and trying to fit a traceotomy i was shipped to forester green hospital. i didnt know what to expect but once i settled in it was a great place. everyday i recieved speech and physio and all the staff were great. i learn t a lot from that experience knowing that people are generally good people and not the negative view the way the world is percieved in the real world by tv and the media. i remember one guy with ms was shipped in beside me after three or four conversations we had a rapour like to brothers the staff seemed to trust me and the feeling was mutual. most of the peopkle i met in there were young people which blows away the misconception that strokes are concentrated on the old one guy inthere was just fourteen so much for that myth. some nights it was like one flew over the cuckoos nest in there. norman who was trying to stop someone stealing a car and was hit on the head. sometimes he thought he was the president he was a great artist during his previous life. but since that night he wasnt the same. i must say the things he came out with were hilarious i remember being bent double at his humour even now writing this i am laughing out loud remembering it. i knew the nurses wanted to laugh but couldnt. picture this a room full of respite patients and people with brain stem injuries it was crazy in there you can picture the scene. in hindsight my time at forester green was brilliant and i was treated very well by all the staff and all this is over ill go back there to say thank you. its been over a year now i spent some time visiting joss cardwell centre which is a rre- hab centre and i must sat the people ther were great but it was just a pain in the ass gettin ng there each day and not knowing what time i would return home. even that was like limbo as milan kundera said in the unbearable lightn ess of being, we have nothing to compare this life with because we live it only once. this never happened to me before so i was lost not knowing what to expect. everyday was an event i didnt know what was going to happen. even now writin g this still in a wheelchair with a voice that still isnt right and wearing a splint on one leg. my right side is stilll very weak butim getting there its just filling in the time but even now its like limbo between worlds and any minute now something will happen. i dont know what id have done if my mind were effected. i remember a poem by raymond carver what the doctor said. the doctor had counted tumours on his brain carver knowing that he was going to die didnt want to hear the enevetable. he even wrote now on his cigarette box in black permanent marker.being a writer i dont know what i would have done had my mind been effected. i dont know who to thank as i wasnt drawn to any great light and im not sure god exists out there. im keeping my options open who am i to say there is or isnt ,millions of people have believed it for thousands of years. im the type of person that has to touch and feel a thing to believe it. i am slowly but surely drifting in between worlds. between the world of the disabled andd the able bodied. iam drifting into the real world i know my time will come when i drift to the otherside but im not ready yet. it feels good in limbo i have loads of time to put things into perspective. i remember a pencil drawing i cant remember who its by but its a picture of a head with open drawers. thats the way it feels right now as if im sorting out the drawers and putting everthing in its place. i will tell you the conclusion to this essay when i get there.the world im drifting through is nice good music, great views of nature, poetry and art filling my world ive just got to learn patience and let the truth slip by. drift here between worlds.