Dave’s Law of Life In 25 Year Chunks

Dave’s Law of Life In 25 Year Chunks? I’m not Plato by any stretch of the imagination. My mind has been called many things in its 51 year history, but beautiful isn’t one of them.

I’m putting my philosophical ‘laws’ down to having too much time to think and bugger all else to do while I’m in hospital…again. But what do I mean by 25 year chunks? Please bear with me and read on for Dave’s ‘enlightenment’.

I’ve had lots of striking end of life thoughts, (a.k.a. Dave’s ‘law’ of Life in 25 year chunks) 

This does sound really depressing as an opening header for a blog post. It’s pretty stark when I read it back. Taken at face value it’s a very blunt heading. But my most recent hospital stay has actually been quite therapeutic.

It’s not the end of life, staring at a coffin from the inside, end of life that I’m talking about. Any right–minded person would struggle with this as a therapeutic concept. It’s more about considering my life in 25 year, (there or thereabout), chunks.

In this regard, my thanks go to Paddy – the old Irishman in the bed at the side of me. Paddy’s the one responsible for making me think.

What‘s in a name anyway

Patrick Flanagan. I shit you not. What ‘lucky, green, little leprechaun’ type of a name is that?

Perhaps not too fucking lucky, based on what his wife was telling me about his health. But hey ho. Nevertheless, I salute your County Donegal drawl. It is fecking amazing!

And I really do mean thanks. Unusually for me, there’s no heavy sarcasm in my expression of gratitude. I’ll raise a glass of Jameson to you when I get home. I can taste the peat already.

So, who is Paddy?

Paddy was, I’m guessing, in his mid-seventies. He spent all his time lay in bed. Even when he had visitors. And he had no shortage of visitors.

Paddy didn’t sit at the side of his bed, all clean and scrubbed for visiting time. He didn’t get out of bed. And he didn’t roll over onto his front or side. He couldn’t. Paddy’s legs were in a bent, ‘fused’ position. He lay on his back, with his knees pointing straight up to the ceiling.

Is he a ‘talker’? No. He doesn’t speak much. He does converse when his family visit, which they do every day. What I conclude from these daily visits is he’s either a great guy or stinking rich.

But irrespective of his greatness or wealth, I quickly suss out that he’s as deaf as a post on his right-hand side. In fairness, this doesn’t take much sussing out. “I’m deaf on this side”, was about the only thing he said to me. Useful information to share though.

Armed with this information, and much to my shame, I didn’t go to his left–hand side and try to engage him in conversation. But we did wave and smile every time I wheeled back onto Bay 6. 

He acknowledged me by raising and waving his thin, withered arm with its deathly coloured and loosely wrinkled skin, as well as giving me a welcoming, almost beseeching, smile with his rheumy, yellowing eyes.

For my part, I returned his waves and ‘eye smiles’ with my MS contorted, spasticy arm. More and more, my spasticy arm is looking like the arm of Raggety, the cantankerous Wood Troll from Rupert the Bear. If you have no idea what I’m on about, just Google Raggety & RtB. Scared the shit out of me as a kid.

Anyhow, I always engaged Paddy like this. All the time, smiling and saying hello to his right-hand side, (the deaf one, remember). A sure-fire way to avoid a conversation. I really couldn’t be arsed trying to spark up a conversation. I suspect he was of exactly the same mind.

Do we always want a new friend?

We were never going to be friends. Why would we? All we ever shared was 8 days and nights in 4 bedded, Bay 6.

I know it sounds like the beginning to some obscure ‘man-love’, skin flick. But Brokeback Mountain it wasn’t. There was no Mr Big in my shower, not even me. And it wasn’t like I needed stimulating conversation to while away the hours. 

Don’t be too hard on me. In fairness, Paddy seemed happy enough, staring holes into the ceiling tiles. Or was he just sleeping with his eyes open? Yes, that’s correct…sleeping with his eyes open. I didn’t know this was even possible. But it is. And, much like Raggety, it really is some scary shit.

Anyhow, I’m taking solace from the fact his silence meant he didn’t want to engage in chit chat. He didn’t try to engage with the other 2 old fuckers in Bay 6 either. He dodged a bullet there.

What I did find out from Paddy’s wife, was that he’d been in this ‘fused’ position for some time now.

I didn’t go into how long some time actually was, but it was long enough for her to stay in the marital home – I presume alone – while Paddy resided in a Care Home. The emphasis was on the fact that although he needed care, he wasn’t receiving the care at home! Feck!

A dawning realisation

Feck, feck, feck, and more fecking feck…as I’m sure Paddy would have drawled in his lovely County Donegal burr. It might seem daft, or even a blindingly, fucking momentous oversight on my part, but I had genuinely never thought this might be how my life plays out.

I had no idea why I hadn’t had this thought before, especially as I’ve been suffering with MS for the last 20 years – give or take the odd month. But, I hadn’t had this thought. And having this thought now is chilling. And that’s an understatement.

I’ve never had any worries about how Lisa and the kids would cope financially if I shuffled off this mortal coil before her. In my eyes, this was always, what a ‘good’ Dad & Husband should do in his second group of 25 years. And that’s what I’ve tried to do. Keep up on the math. It’s not that difficult.

So, back on track with my observations and ‘Law’. I’m 51 now and at the start of my 3rd chunk. This is our time. Isn’t it? One sprog already at Uni and the last sprog due to go next year. But…

Sour Milk

There’s seemingly not a month that passes by without my FaceBook account notifying me that somebody else I didn’t really know from my school year, has made their way to their maker. 

Another digression. Is that a disapproving look? Seriously? That’s not really a shocking way to describe the passing of some of my cohort of roughly 240 kids – the 1979 intake of Westhoughton’s finest, (only) secondary education facility. After all, 240 is a big number.

It’s all a bit like milk really. Some – of the 240 – go ‘off’ before their sell-by date. And this undoubtedly is a real pisser when there’s a great proportion of the 4-pint bottle still left to drink. But the majority will make it to the end of their ‘best before’ date. Some will even go beyond their best before date. They’ll be ‘long life’ milk. This is just playing the statistics ‘game’.

I suppose the same can also be said of body shape, body form and the differing fat content of certain milk. But this has only just struck me now. And that seems a digression too far.

A life in (25 year) pieces

So. I’m into my 3rd ‘cluster’. So what? Well so are the majority of you – my age cohorts. 

What my plethora of hospital admissions in 2019 has taught me, is that if you make it through to your 4th cluster of 25 years with good health and without your picnic losing one of its sandwiches, you’ve done well.

I’ll finesse this further, by saying that each year enjoyed after 75 seems to start to be blighted, (pretty bloody quickly in fairness), by a more than incremental increase in the ‘bad health’ that you start to experience.

This isn’t the result of scientific analysis. It’s based on spending 240+ hours in close confines with 3, (OK 2 – I’ll give Paddy a ‘pass’), generally, miserable, moaning buggers. 

I can never understand why, but most people appear to be genuinely shocked they “…can’t do now what I managed to do 5, (10) years ago”.

No shit Sherlock. Or am I forever to be jaundiced by being ‘tarred’ with a progressive and chronic, debilitating illness at the age of 31.

I would genuinely take quality, over quantity, of life any day of the week or year.

Sobering thoughts

But until seeing Paddy, I’d not really thought about what might happen to me if I lost my physical function before my mental capacity. Perhaps, better put in Westhoughton High School terms, what would happen to me, if I lost my ability before I became a ‘mentalist’. 

Fuck me. This is a sobering thought. 

But, given that I’m also now wheelchair–bound, have a Raggety arm, need help to get dry and dressed after a shower, can’t cook and am looking for a ‘Drive Through’ Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle to be able to maintain driving independence, why is this really such a shock to me? What the hell have I been thinking up to now? Or more appropriately, what have I not been facing up to.

Clearly, there’s a great deal of practicality that I need to face when I’m discharged from hospital this time. It’s not that I’m thinking about how many years of my 3rd cluster of 25 that I might actually experience. But I do need to think how I should best enjoy each year that I experience of my 3rd cluster of 25.

Seize the Day

Carpe diem, I remember Robin Williams espousing in Dead Poets Society. This movie was released in 1989 – thank you Wikipedia!

I remember loving the movie at the time and thinking its message had a profound effect on my life. Clearly not that profound given it’s taken me 30 more years to wake up to the passing of time.

God bless you Paddy for opening my eyes, you “stupid old donkey”. 

Now I’m not being disrespectful to Paddy. This was a cuss he frequently moaned about himself after he turned over without thinking what this exertion would mean to his ‘fused’ legs. 

First, the pain would result in his screams. These really did scare the shit out of me the first time I heard them. Second, the fading screams would be peppered with more than the odd reference to “Jaysis”. Finally, with the cork back in the Pain Bottle, would come a contrite muttering of the phrase “Aargh. You stupid old donkey”.

Bye for now. David