‘This is like normal life, isn’t it?’ A few hours of chat, laughter, conversations about every-day-like topics: carefree, unworried, light-hearted, young. What a difference that must have made to Pádraig: no beeps, no bells, no trollies. Just plain, simple, lovely, creative conversations, full of energy and enthusiasm, as only young people, and those young at heart, can have them.
There have been friends with Pádraig almost every day for the past weeks and months, and if you check out the calendar you’ll see that this will continue. His friends come a long way, and they stay for days. A nurse said that in her many decades of work she has never seen anything like it. ‘If I got sick, you could count the number of visitors I’d get on your two hands – it’s really amazing what’s going on here’, she said, and then she corrected herself: ‘one hand would actually do to count the people that would visit me’. I tell her that it wouldn’t be different in my case, and how happy Pádraig must be to see that his friends, the one thing he values more than anything else in his life, are staying with him, and go through all this trouble to be with him and show him their support.
It’s easy to loose perspective if you are spending months on end in a hospital, a lot of that time in ICUs. Days disappear in a haze. This couldn’t be 11 January?! What ever happened to Christmas, the New Year, the ‘holidays’?? The idea I had of ‘normality’ has morphed into something completely different from what it was six months ago. Only when I am reading up on a condition or a procedure do I realize that what is happening to Pádraig is far from ‘normal’. A prolonged stay in an ICU is not normal. The number and kind of operations he has had are far from normal. Being in bed and in a coma for more than six months is not normal. This serious and prolonged lung trouble is not normal at all. His vulnerability is not normal either. What would be ‘routine’ in the case of a healthy person becomes high-risk in his case. But because he is the young, strong fighter that he is, and because he has the support of so, so many friends who believe that he will be able to pull through all of this in the end – he is overcoming all the obstacles put in his way, and he keeps fighting.
Today, all the ‘figures’ were wrong and troublesome: heart, breathing, temperature – yes, postoperative stress, a reaction like that in the case of an infection, bound to disappear over the next 12-24 hours, but still high. It’ll be all right tomorrow. All right.
Today’s German Music Tip
Glasperlenspiel, Freundschaft (2012). Techno (if this is ‘techno’) is not really my kind of music, but it’s not a bad song, especially if you’re dancing to it. The lyrics are a bit ‘in your face’ but nothing wrong with that either.
What’s hot
Tomorrow
What’s cold
Today’s worries
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Wunderbar
Twitter: @forPadraig
#caringforPadraig
web: http://www.caringforPadraig.org
Hospi-Tales 
Wunderbar is a word paddy taught me:) thinking of you all.
Hi Jane, It’s a wonderful word, isn’t it? Funny how words come back to you… Reinhard
I used to use it for everything and he would laugh at me! I have an awful German accent.
Friends are wunderbar and they are the best therapy and he is very strong. Things will get better I enjoy your links to music and your bottom comments. I admire your Kraft to write for all of us the Hospi-Tales (hospitales) with such dedication..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQFC_V_IS0E
I wonder if you can see this link to harp irish music, Carolan´s Receit.
I can see not just the link, but the full picture and video, Ana. It’s really nice music. There is a statue of Carolan in Mohill, close to Cloone in Co. Leitrim, where Pádraig spent many summers, getting to know ‘the middle of nowhere’.
what a nice coincidence, I knew nothing about that.I just thought you would like this irish harp music.I still have a cassette from the time in Cromore House near Colraine. besos y abrazos!!!
This is it, the come-down after the traumatic procedure.. Hold tight, the process isn’t over. It’s great AND timely that his friends are coming to him in an almost constant stream just now. Long may it continue!! “C’mon Ev’rybodY!!” as the song says. Ye might just Be the decisive factor!
…agus mar sin a rá gach duine againn.
Thankyou for the update Reinhard! Though you cannot see us ,we are with you constantly and Padraig too! Good for Padraig to have his friends around. Lets do the Irish Shuffle dance; 2 steps forward, one step back! But with each move there is that extra step forward! Not always apparent at first! Chris Barnes
Thank you for your comment, Chris! There are many people from different countries some of whom have never met, all thinking of Pádraig and wishing him well, it is amazing. You’re right, Chris: some things are not apparent at first, but as long as he is moving in the right direction, we are all happy. – Reinhard
Great to hear Pádraig continues to pull through the obstacles thrown at him, delighted the latest operation went well! His popularity and support amongst friends has always been incredible. The fact he has already overcome so many battles in this difficult period fills us with hope that he will recover and continue to improve
He will, Daire, no doubt. What has been happening to Pádraig is, by any means, extraordinary. So will be his recovery! – Reinhard
Extraordinary is the word. Everything he did in my time knowing him, he did with extraordinary commitment and determination, right until it was achieved, and he’d do it after reinventing the job from the bottom up – with deep thought and consideration of the purpose of it in life. Then, when it had been achieved, it and all involved would be led by him in an enormous CELEBRATION that’d lift the roof off, out of shear joy in achieving this new thing out of old forms,of renewing what was tired.!! Mo dhuine go deo é, Padraig Schaler, an Draoi ar an Spraoi, agus mo dhuiine thar na bearta in achan rud a bhaineann leis.
Hello, Reinhard. I am not at all surprised that the nurse was struck by the warmth, loyalty and (yes, that word again!) steadfastness of Pádraig’s friends. She’s learnt a lot about Irish young people. (Actually, she’s not alone in that – so have I). I wish Pádraig all the very best in combatting the post-operative issues. I can almost literally feel from my phone here the warmth of the wishes that are coming through for him. With best wishes, Louise.
Hello Louise, though I should be the German here, I also feel Irish, and think that a symbiosis of (the right) German and Irish traits could make the world (at least Germany and Ireland:) a better place. Amazing, isn’t it? If you think about it, Pádraig (and his friends) teaching a highly experienced German nurse some of that! – Reinhard