Bood pressure: check. Heart beat: check. Oxygen: check. Food and drug supply: check. X-ray: check. Drainage one: check. Drainage two: tbc. We are almost ready for departure. Mobiles switched off, all bags stored away safely, we are beginning to relax a little and to look forward to get moving again.

We are taxiing on the runway, to take off for the Schön-Klinik in Hamburg-Eilbek once the second and last drainage can be removed. They are about to get the good-bye flags and balloons out in the UKE to celebrate our departure which, we all hope, will not be delayed much longer. Of course, we all have been there before – and we will not believe it’s going to happen until it actually does.

Today, the nurse asked me was I also ‘vom Fach’ (of the medical profession) when I  asked about his ‘Blutwerte’. I said ‘no’ – and added that I had just picked up a few things along the long long road we have been traveling. The strange thing is that I am not sure whether I would ever want to become a ‘professional’ health carer, although, of course, I have got to value good health care like never before in my life over the past months. The reason for my doubts whether I would want to work as a nurse or a doctor is the (health care) ‘system’, which would most likely drive me bananas. There are ways to deal with systems that are so big you won’t be able to change them – where you have to find ways to live with them, without making your life hell and without loosing your sanity. This is what the Irish are really good at, and the Germans will never master:)

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Another event has been added by friends caring for Pádraig:
A Table Quiz will be organised in Na Fianna GAA club on Friday 31/01/2014 at 8pm. Entry €20.00 per table. There will be prizes for the top three winning tables and a raffle.
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For the time being though, and probably until the end of the week, we’re still here, in the early morning’ rain, on run way number nine, a long way from home, but getting ready to jump onto the ‘plane’ that will bring us to where we wanted be: in early neuro rehab in Eilbek.

Today’s German Music Tip
Ton, Steine, Scherben, Keine Macht für Niemand (1972). One of the first and most successful German Rock Bands, with one of their first songs: no power to nobody. The lead singer, Rio Reiser and his band lived for a long time in Fresenhagen, not far away from Tating.
What’s hot
On the road
What’s cold
Standing still
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
(Heinrich Heine [1797-1856]: Deutschland, ein Wintermärchen, Caput III)

Noch immer das hölzern pedantische Volk,
Noch immer ein rechter Winkel
In jeder Bewegung, und im Gesicht
Der eingefrorene Dünkel.

Sie stelzen noch immer so steif herum,
So kerzengrade geschniegelt,
Als hätten sie verschluckt den Stock,
Womit man sie einst geprügelt.

Twitter: @forPadraig
#caringforPadraig
http://www.caringforPadraig.org
Upcoming events: http://www.caringforPadraig.org/events