On Wednesday I go to the gym and find Scott and Donnell working out together there. I don’t chat to them much. I finish, I tan and I go home. I have chicken and watch TV and take a pill and go to bed. In the last two weeks I haven’t been able to go to bed and have a proper night’s sleep without taking sleeping pills or Valium. That’s because in the last two weeks I’ve been thinking a lot and that keeps me awake.
I want to do 3 things today on here. First, I’m gonna give a quick overview of the blog characters, because people are starting to get confused. Then, I’m gonna write a story that I’ve written somewhere else before, but this is a new / different blog and I’m sure there are new / different readers and if you’re one of them you should know this story. Finally, I’m gonna put down my favourite paragraph from my favourite book, cause that’s something I want to share as well.
1) Overview. These are the people I see almost every day and I write about most often on here:
Scott. This is my boyfriend. We met 599 days ago. I haven’t had a boyfriend before.
Matty, Ace, Mean, Nats. These are the Lads (even though Nats is a girl). They are my very good friends in London. We used to work at the same place. We email each other all day long. One problem with them is that they all read this blog and I can’t be completely honest about what they say about each other. Matty’s girlfriend is Nicole. She is ridiculously tan.
Andrews. This is my best friend. We lived together for 6 years. We cut ourselves and connected our blood. He doesn’t live in London.
Donnell. He is my very good friend in London. I’m not allowed to say where I met him. We don’t like going out without each other.
Pam and American Girl. I work with them. If they weren’t there I would also be taking Valium at work.
There are many other important people but those are the ones that I have daily contact with.
2) Old story. This is the story about getting very sick last year. Sorry to people who have seen this before, but as I said this was posted somewhere else and I want to have a record of it here, on this website. This story explains why I come across so cynical. It also explains why I don’t care about many things that I used to care about before. Here goes.
Basically, last year I went through a neurological condition, which left me paralysed and incompetent for 3 months and could have been fatal. In the end of December 2005 I started getting a weird feeling of numbness on my hands and toes. I didn't think much of it to start with, but in the next few days that feeling continued to progress and started moving up my legs and arms towards my body. On the 27th of December, Andrews took me to the hospital. He had to carry me from the taxi in there, because I couldn't stand anymore. I had something called Guillain Barre Syndrome, which is a syndrome that attacks your nervous system and your brain can no longer control it. There is no reason for it and no cure – you just have to wait and see if it will go away. The doctors were giving me lots of stats though, which I normally like so that's cool I suppose (e.g. 5% die, 1 in 3 are paralysed permanently, etc).
I stayed in hospital for 32 days. Get the violins out cause I spent New Year’s Eve / Day and my birthday in there.
For the first two weeks it was getting progressively worse. Every day I would wake up and I would have lost feeling/movement in a new body part. Of course I couldn't stand or walk, I had to be fed, I couldn't move my mouth to speak, I couldn't shut my eyes, I found it hard to breathe because my lungs were affected too. Also the whole thing was very painful. At that point they still didn't know whether I would turn round. I remember it being a Friday morning when I was in there and the doctors came round to do the usual handover between shifts and discuss how I’m getting on. So I pretended to be asleep so that I could hear what they said, and the said that by the weekend they would probably sedate me and put me on life support. Which was kinda scary.
Well then, just before that had to happen, cause I couldn't breathe on my own anymore, I started recovering. Very, very slowly.
I stayed in hospital for another 3 weeks, doing physiotherapy in order to learn to walk again, taking speech therapy, trying to move my fingers which was seen as a huge achievement, etc. For the first few sessions of physiotherapy, I would have 5 people around me, supporting my knees, holding me from the back and from either side cause otherwise I would collapse. Eventually I managed to control a wheelchair and I left the hospital in late January. For the next 2 months I stayed at home mainly, trying to fully recover, put all the weight I had lost back on (it's amazing how quickly muscles and definition go when you're paralysed you know), etc. So I kinda lost the first half of 2006 with all that (but at least I didn’t have to go to work).
I still get very tired because of it and I can’t really walk for very very long and maybe that’s why I don’t do cardio at the gym. But I’m alright generally now, you know?
Anyway, this whole thing has had three effects:
a) It’s made me a bit more shallow. Cause it’s made me think, I wanna look good while I can, cause this thing might come back and then I’ll have no choice how I look
b) It’s made me a bit less shallow. Cause it’s made me think, why the fuck do people go on about looks and muscles all the time, when something like that happens and you have no choice how you look
c) But above all, it’s made me not care. About anything. So it’s an odd one really.
3) My favourite paragraph from my favourite book.
I was confused by what passed for love in this world: people were discarded because they were tool old or too fat or too poor or they had too much hair or not enough, they were wrinkled, they had no muscles, no definition, no tone, they weren’t hip, they weren’t remotely famous. This is how you chose lovers. This was what decided friends. And I had to accept this if I wanted to get anywhere. On the verge of tears – because I was dealing with the fact that beauty was considered an accomplishment – I turned away and made a promise to myself: to be harder, to not care, to be cool.
I have 2 songs by Alan Braxe and Fred Falke and I’ve played them 7 times
I have 12 songs by Alanis Morissette and I’ve played them 193 times
I have 1 song by The Alarm and I’ve played it 2 times
Thursday, 21 June 2007
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14 comments:
well i must admit i had to google it to make sure it was a real syndrome 'cause it sounds more like either some sort of east end working-mans-club-caberet act or a high class chocolate fetish. Have you recovered completely (aside from wussing out of long walks) and is it somthing you could use in the future to get time off work & a seat on the tube?
chabang: Yeah I'm alright now. Apart from fucked up mentally a bit :-)
Yeah, I love that book too.
Is "King of Pain" included in those 12 songs by Alanis?
Wow, this is heavy stuff. An amazing recovery. All your writing is coming to
Heavy stuff but it all makes sense. You're writing is really coming together. x
idrinkatwork: No, actually I've never hears this song. I'll look it up
alistair: thanks dude
Back in March, when I first heard from Preppy about his illness, and how he looked upon life, I wrote to him about it, and then I wrote a blog entry on it myself. With his permission, I would like to share it with his loyal blog readers...
So many gay people always seem to only be able to see their own narrow point of view, especially when it comes to vanity, and to superficiality, and especially selfishness. MAYBE it is because so many gay people grew or grow up without proper GAY role models to look up to, and then never take on the responsibilities of family as they grow older, but I cannot say for sure. So few have the point of view, as I do, that life is fleeting, that it can change in an instant, and that everything is not based only on seeing and being seen, what you are wearing, what kind of car you drive, who you know, and how many nights per week you go out.
I know this first hand, because in 1997, my life changed forever, when my gastrointestinal system failed me completely in the form of Crohn's Disease, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Gastro Esophogeal Reflux Disease, and Lactose Intolerence pretty much all at the same time. You would think that was enough, but there was more. Within months of my illness taking hold of my body, and knocking me on my ass, my Father, still a relatively young 64, and never previously sick with more than the common cold for a day in his life, exhibited symptoms of a stroke, but within two days was diagnosed with a rare inoperable brain tumor called an "Astral Cytoma," which would ultimately kill him less than eleven months later.
Here it is, ten years later, and my illnesses are still with me, but my beloved Father is not. I have long since stopped going to the gym, out of necessity because of my various health issues, and I put on 70 pounds (32 kg) in the intervening time, and I was never a gym body before! I mention this because I am usually rebuffed by other gay men even for a date, and sometimes for the possibility of simple FRIENDSHIP because I am overweight, gasp "fat!" In 2006, I lost over 50 pounds, as result of one of my health challenges, and dieting hard work. But I am still "overweight," in the minds of so many gay men, because I am still not a gym body with a 30 inch waist. To gay people, I am still not suitable, as a date, or in some cases, even as a friend, because of that. Life is too short, isn't it?
What inspired me to write this article was a conversation that I had recently. An online friend of mine, who had a very challenging bout with Guillain-Barré syndrome (an auto-immune disease that attacks the central nervous system and looks much like polio) feels that to tell people about his experiences with that disease, and his ultimate recovery, is depressing. I told him that I disagree with him, and that what he went through, and what he was discussing, was not, and is not, depressing! It was, and is, life affirming! He is HERE! He did not give up! He perservered! He survived! He thrived! He is still here to breathe another day and to share his experiences with us! It would be depressing if he was not here! It would be depressing if he let Guillan-Barré take him from us, as it does to some people!
What really makes us fit is not our bodies, it is our hearts, our minds, and our souls! Too many gay people have skin-deep beautiful bodies while having black or cold hearts; or closed, bitter, or jaded minds; or souls traded to some devil; or maybe some combination of all three. Can't we do better? In one of my previous articles, I asked, "When are we going to stop eating our own young?" And now, again I ask that same question....
PS. I am not sure if you are all aware, but probably the most famous Polio case in history was probably not polio at all, but Guillain-Barré syndrome instead! In a peer-reviewed study published in 2003[1] concluded that Franklin Delano Roosevelt's paralytic illness was probably Guillain-Barré syndrome, not polio as previously assumed.
Oh, and one more thing, there is a particularly appropriate piece of music for Preppy, IMHO, and it is.....
Unforgettable: With Love
By Natalie Cole
Release date: By 11 June, 1991
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=te9TISQdD_E
I have a question for london preppy. After all you describe and the conclusion "not to care anymore" how come you continue to care so much about your appearance? I mean, you have stated many times that you would want some day to be able to eat whatever you want without thinking of your definition and all. This evidences that you repress yourself a lot to keep you looks in such a state. I just don't understand why someone would do this after going through such a life altering event. What if this day never comes, do you prefer living a life of repression just so that you can be considered as beautiful?
ironic blogger: I think I give the answer to this in the blog. I'm saying that this life alterning event (as you describe it) has made me both more shallow and less shallow. It's made me more shallow for myself (because I want to look good while I can) and less shallow towards others (because I've learnt to not judge anyone by their looks).
I hope this makes sense on some level.
omg - my mom suffered from this same disease... French Polio. She got it from a flu shot. I was 7 when her symptoms started, and she was bed ridden for a while. At a young age I was the one taking care of her, making her smile, walking in on her crying and letting her know everything was going to be ok. It was a complete role reversal. She had a doctor for a while who was doing some malpractice on the disease, and she now has permanent nerve damage in her legs. My parents could have sewed the shit out of the medical center, but they didn't - they're forgiving people even in crazy situations like this. I have never met someone, or really heard of someone who also knew of this disease. I commend you for fighting this. I know how it can affect one's life, as well as the others' around it - but I honestly give credit to that hard situation starting at 7 years old that has made me the mature, understanding, helpful person that I am today.
wow... great story dude. im glad you wer able to bounce back
Assume you've read the Tales of the City books (on the subject of Mouse getting GB Syndrome and having to be taken to the hosdpital by his boyfriedn etc).
I loved reading this story. I had this same sickness when I was in the second grade - however no one knew what it was at the time.
Thanks for sharing!
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