It’s one of the great stories Jon Krakauer investigated and published in a Hiking Magazine before gathering them into an amazing book. Then someone turned it into the most romantic, heroic, and epic film I know. Into the Wild is right up there with Easy Rider (even if you don’t like the film, just close your eyes and listen to the music!) and Into the West (again, great music and a really pathetic, romantic and moving story line). Christopher J. McCandless (February 12, 1968 – August 1992) was an American wanderer who died near Denali National Park after hiking alone into the Alaskan wilderness with little food or equipment, living in an abandoned bus in the middle of nowhere. This is the short version. The longer version is much more exciting.

Just to demonstrate what a close knitted and agreeing family we are: I have tried for years to organize a really amazing and romantic evening of film and longing, watching films that start with Into…, only to be told to shut up and hand over the remote control. There is nothing quite like a lovely, tender-caring family. So, here I am writing, listening to RTE Gold playing Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, The Byrds, and Steppenwolf, Robbie Robertson and The Band, and Roger McGuinn. Here I am, the last of the romantic. And longing.

I never played that music to Pádraig, and when I tried, it didn’t really go down that well. You can imagine my amazement when I discovered he was reading Into the Wild with a really good friend on Cape Cod, and the friend was reading it to him in the ICU. So the plan is to get Pádraig ready to go onto this trip. To Alaska. (I kind of discussed it with his friend, and I think he might join us – that is if Pádraig and his friend will allow me to join them:) Klick here to see where we’ll be going.

It was incredible today to see the effort Pádraig was making. Over the past few days, he had rested: really low pulse, very quiet. Today, we found out what he had been doing. Gathering his strength to get ready. He moved his feet and toes, and trying very very hard to lift up one of his legs. The latter didn’t work out quite yet, but he is clearly getting there. You could see the effort in his whole body. We called in his nurse to show her and together we watched how Pádraig was trying to move so very hard. He even moved his left hand and arm, his eyes were open, and there was a great presence there. – And then, for no reason, the nurse started to talk about this weird movie with a story back from the eighties, apparently a true story, of this lad that left everything behind, this movie she had watched by accident one night, at home, on her own, and she so like it! Isn’t that strange and wonderful? Today was a turning point, one of those days when I know that Pádraig will make it – into the Wild.

Today’s German Music Tip
Helene Fischer, Atemlos durch die Nacht (2013). No – I don’t like this song, but Helene Fischer is one, if not the most prominent singer. The music – it’s like what my parents would have listened to 30 years ago during their holidays on Mallorca. This song has almost 4m clicks on youtube. A lot of grandchildren must have spend long afternoons with their grandparents, showing them how youtube works!

What’s hot
Alaska
What’s cold
Helene Fischer
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Labskaus

Twitter: @forPadraig
http://www.caringforPadraig.org

Kids write mother’s day cards. So did ours. And before you ask, they don’t write father’s day cards.

One year, our two daughters bought and signed a card for Pat, which Pádraig signed as well. He had been extremely busy with all sorts of other really important and urgent things, and had not managed to get his own cards. His name was very obviously written on the card with a different pen, just added at last minute. Or rather, second last minute. Because the real last minute action on the card was the scribbling out of Pádraig’s name. The girls had bought the card, and they would not get this last-minute-brother get in on the game. – Another year, Pádraig got his own card, saying something about the nicest mam in the world! Just to make sure that Pat appreciated the trouble he’d gone into getting this card, he noted that he had spent hours finding a card saying ‘mam’, rather than ‘mom’!

Those were the happy times.

Today wasn’t.

Though, Pádraig is doing well, in the big scheme of things. Last night, he held up his head for quite some time all by himself. We play the Marino Waltz by the Dubliners to him most nights. Last night it looked like as if he was moving his head in the rhythm of that tune. He is also very stable physically. We are hopeful of things to come.

I’ll keep it short tonight. Read yesterday’s press release if you haven’t.

There was a lovely fundraiser last night, which I hadn’t been aware of. See the picture! Thank you, Aodhán!

PRESS RELEASE
Dublin, 29 March 2016; 13:15 IST
For immediate release

Ireland Celebrates Neuro-Rehab Services – Pádraig returns to Ireland

Staff Reporter
Ireland is celebrating the opening of the new 235-bed National Rehabilitation Hospital and a 25-bed acute neurorehabilitation unit in Beaumont Hospital (both referred to originally in a publication with a foreword by Minister of Health, Mary Hearney).

This follows a radical overhaul of the Irish neurological rehabilitation system, the “revolution in rehabilitation“ called for by National Director of Clinical Strategy and Programmes, Dr Áine Carroll, in 2011.

In addition, the Department of Health, together with ABI patients and their families, celebrated the first anniversary of the community-based, long-term and intensive neurological rehabilitation centres run by the ABI Network in Dublin, Galway, Cork, and Letterkenny. They were established following an intensive period of consultations between the Department of Health, the Neurological Alliance Ireland, and ABI patients and families.

In a surprise development, Apple and Google had decided to provide funding for the centers established by the ABI Netork stating (actual figures, not direct quotes, from Ireland’s top business website Finfacts):

We in Apple paid just $713m in overseas corporation tax on foreign profits of $36.87bn in our 2012 fiscal year ending last September. That’s a tax rate of just 1.9%. So we decided to give a little dig out to our Irish friends working for neurological rehabilitation. Brain injury can hit anyone, at anytime. We want to do our bit to help those who most need it.

Google had a foreign tax rate of just 4.4% in 2012 and it provided for foreign tax of $358m in 2012 compared with $2.5bn in the US, thanks to our Irish friends. Anyone can be affected by a brain injury at any time, just out of the blue. It’s a terrible injury and so hard to live with. We wanted to give something back to our friends in Ireland, and especially to those most in need.

 In a letter to the parents of Pádraig Schaler, a young Gaeilgeoir (23) who was virtually emigrated to Germany by his Irish Health System because it could not provide adequate treatment for him in his own country, the Taoiseach had stated two years ago:

“Thank you for your letter regarding your family’s experience with the health system in Ireland. My office has discussed the details of the letter with the Department of Health and I am after asking the Department’s officials to get in contact with you without delay. The anger, dissatisfaction and frustration that you feel are clear and understood. You are right that Pádraig should be able to receive care here in his own country, the place where his parents and friends live. But, as your experiences show, the health system that we have here at the moment is unsatisfactory; it is not able to provide health care for its patients when they need it most.”

At the celebrations today, the Taoiseach stated:

“So for a change, this new health service will be ready and waiting if you and your family need it.” We are happy that Pádraig can now return to the country that he loves so much and to his friends who staid with him in his German exile. We are also so happy to see his family reunited in their Dublin home, a family that was sadly split into two when Pádraig’s parents had to spend time with their son in Germany.

• The Department of the Taoiseach, Government Buildings, Upper Merrion Street, Dublin 2.
• The Department of Health, Hawkins House, Hawkins Street, Dublin1.
• ABI Network ℅ caringforpadraig@gmail.com, 087-6736414

———————— ENDS ——————–

Sadly, the above is fiction, an imaginary, future press release from the year 2016. In the meantime, it’s day 19 of our wait to be contacted by James Reilly’s Department of Health, following the Taoiseach’s request to get in touch “without delay”.

Interestingly, the quotes in the press release are correct with two exceptions: the last statement from the Taoiseach is from a letter sent to us on 10 March 2014 (just the bit in “quotes” though, I made up the rest), and while the “statements” by Apple and Google contain the correct figures in relation to the companies’ tax rate etc. (as reported by Finfacts), their statements in support of the ABI Network were in fact not issued by the companies, yet. – It should be stated that I am writing this on an Apple computer and gather the data using Google. What an irony.

Today, the reality of rehabilitation services in Ireland is, sadly, still a scandal and a horror for those depending on it. Even worse: we as a country seem to have given up hope that these services could ever be brought up to a level that would be even close to that of our European neighbours.

Mr Macey said that neurorehabilitation services in Ireland are recognised to be the worst in Europe. And even if the improvements being sought were implemented, they would still be worse than those in any other European country with the exception of the UK.

“For example, we currently have 7 consultants to serve specialist neurorehabilitation needs across the whole country. But even if we had 50 we would still have the lowest number per capita in Europe with the exception of the UK. And if it increased to 150, we would still be behind countries like Estonia, Latvia, Czech Republic, Croatia and Serbia.

“In other words, what we are really aspiring to is not to have services that any country could be proud of, or even services that are mediocre – but to be the second worst country in Europe for neurorehabilitation.

(Extract from a Press Release by the Neurological Alliance of Ireland, dated 20.02.2013)

Instead, it seems that the Government is happy not just to emigrate its unemployed, but also its sick. Here is another extract from a press release by the Neurological Alliance Ireland (NAI), of 01. May 2013:

NAI Development Manager, Ms Rogers, said that although the Government blames the economic collapse for the failure to improve services, many cost-free proposals in its national neurorehabilitation policy published at the end of 2011 still haven’t been implemented. “We’re almost halfway into the three year lifespan of the policy and not only has the crucial implementation plan not been published – the Government still hasn’t even set up an implementation group.” Speaking on the launch video for the RED CARD campaign, supported by members of Sunday’s winning Dublin GAA team, Emma Rogan, a young person with multiple sclerosis, said: “As a young person with a neurological condition in Ireland I am afraid for my future. People have said to me that the best thing you can do if you are diagnosed with a neurological condition in this country is to emigrate”.

Now – what kind of indictment of our government is this? For how much longer will we tolerate that, in addition to the unemployed, we now also emigrate our sick people?

Finally, to the most important part of this rather (with apologies) long blog: Pádraig is doing well. There have been no dramatic changes in his condition, but steady progress. He is still moving, for example his tongue, his hand, his foot, when we ask him to do so. He opens his eye when we come into his room and talk to him. He has started to swallow much much better, to a point that when his carers try to take out subglottic secretions (which he should swallow), they find very little (because he is swallowing so much better). His legs are still bandaged because of the clot in his left leg, but his special stockings have been fitted and ordered, and they should arrive any day now. As will his specially-made wheelchair. The roses are showing their first buds, the date in the rose garden is getting closer.

It cannot continue like this. What we want is change.

I lived my life twice. Moving to Ireland made me re-live much of my earlier life for a second time: at the beginning I wasn’t sure whether I had understood correctly but then there was no doubt: homosexuality was a criminal offense, condoms were sold by Trinity Student Union illegally, Nell McCafferty and her friends were bringing them down to Dublin from the North, abortion was exported to England, divorce non-existent.

Today, investment in neurorehab is a human right, but a bad investment. We just cannot afford more than three beds, for the whole country. To reduce waiting time, we reduce the time that patients are being treated. To three months. That should be enough.

When I meet James Reilly and his officials, ‘without delay’, I will tell them, with a dignified sense of urgency, that the country will have adequate neurorehabilitation facilities. Whether he wants it or not. It will have these services exactly because providing this service to those who suffer most is an ethical imperative.

Someone who knew what she was talking about mentioned Kant in this context recently. In his Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, Kant posited the “counter-utilitarian idea that there is a difference between preferences and values and that considerations of individual rights temper calculations of aggregate utility”, a concept that is an axiom in economics: “Everything has either a price or a dignity. Whatever has a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent; on the other hand, whatever is above all price, and therefore admits of no equivalent, has a dignity. But that which constitutes the condition under which alone something can be an end in itself does not have mere relative worth, i.e., price, but an intrinsic worth, i.e., a dignity” (p. 53).

The care for those amongst us who most need it does not have a price. It is a question of dignity.

Perceiving it as a bad investment to care for old people (who are going to die soon anyway), very sick people in hospices (they will be dying of their decease very soon and cannot be healed) or patients like Pádraig (with very severe brain injuries who require urgent early neuro rehabilitation) is either utilitarian, or daft, or barbarian.

We have not seen Pádraig’s oxygen levels as high and his pulse so low for a long time. I is totally relaxed having been looked after by a nurse that really knows him and really cares for him. The difference that this makes in incredible. He also had an old (no offense:) friend visiting him, bringing Gaeilge into Pádraig’s room again. We all fell Pádraig’s presence, his ear for interesting and not-so-interesting things. His nurse has booked a dentist to call in next week (a dentist, imagine!) because she is worried about some of his teeth. Now, how nice is that? I remember the answer we got in Beaumont when we asked for a dentist. The question itself was beyond comprehension in Pádraig’s circumstances. A dentist?

Today’s German Music Tip
Jazzkantine, Im Frühtau zu Berge (2012). Really very different version of an old German folk song.

Werft ab alle Sorgen und Qual,
Falera
Kommt mit auf die Höhen aus dem Tal,
Falera
Wir sind hinaus gegangen
Den Sonnenschein zu fangen
Kommt mit und versucht es doch selbst einmal.

What’s hot
Dentist
What’s cold
Utalitarianism

The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Schmuckstück

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

When I woke up, the world was my oyster. I went out to the beach in front of the hotel and joined friends and colleagues for an early morning workout. This was bliss. I had never been in Sanya before and I began to like it although it was really very different from anything I had ever experienced before. The conference I had been invited to was going well, my talk about Skyfall (yes, I did play Adele’s song and showed a few stills from the movie) was well received. Little did I know how this day, exactly nine month ago today, was going to end.

23,673,600 seconds, 394,560 minutes, 6576 hours, 274 days, 39 weeks.

At around one o’clock, Pat rang. Two hours later I had booked flights and a car. At 8am I was leaving Sanya. I stopped eating, my stomach was not taking in any food. For days, weeks.

I rang Cape Cod Hospital. The nurses were too nice. What had happened to Pádraig must have been devastating.

They were talking about organ donations. The insurance declined cover following dozens of phone calls costing hundreds of euro.

Friends and Irish doctors helped us to get Pádraig admitted to the country’s centre of excellence for neuro surgery. There was a hold up because another young Irish man who had had a terrible accident in Thailand was also going to arrive. When his arrival was delayed, we got the green light.

A Learjet brought Pádraig, heavily sedated, with duck tape holding his head against the stretcher, his legs also taped together, via Goose Bay and Iceland to Dublin. He had survived.

We never ever would have thought that four months later there would be another flight, this time leaving his country not by choice but because of the scandalous lack of neuro rehab and the threat of serious injury.

Pádraig is making progress, painfully slow, but he his most definitely getting better. His doctors, nurses, and therapists are amongst the best in Europe and they have access to the resources they require. The system here works. Not always – and we would have many ideas about how it could be improved – but it works most of the time. That alone significantly reduces the pain, the stress.

Pádraig has been in Germany for more than four months. He had three operations on his lung, and a SIRS/Sepsis that nearly killed him. But he is a fighter, he is young, he is stubborn, he has no patience, he is determined to show to all of us what you can do if you really put your mind to it. And that’s is exactly what he is doing.

Thank you for staying with him. Thank you for your tremendous support. In so many different ways. He could not do this on his own, we could not do this on our own. For me, apart from the obvious, the past few months have been a lesson in solidarity, compassion, generosity and love to a level that I never thought would be possible.

Someone once said that there is no word in Irish, or Hiberno English for that matter, that would even come close to the sense of urgency expressed by the Spanish word and concept of ‘mañana’.

It’s true. Look at it: the Taoiseach of our country asks his Minister of Health to get in touch “without delay” with us, on 10 March. 16 days later, on 26 March, nothing has happened. It’s like as if the Department of Health operated in a very different time zone.

Today, at Leaders’ Question Time, Gerry Adams raises with the Taoiseach Pádraig’s case, the insurance mess and the lack of neuro-rehabilitation services available to patients such as Pádraig, and the Taoiseach “will bring the matter to the attention of the minister”. It seems to me that the Minister is not listening. – If you want to listen back to Gerry Adams’ question and the Taoiseach’s answer, click here. (I hope to have the video available soon.)

Today, Snámh Phádraig was introduced to listeners of RTÉ Raidio na Gaeltachta on the popular afternoon show Rónán Beo@3 by Aodhán Ó Deá who is organizing this mad, crazy swim off the coast of every Irish county that’s got one. Over just two days in April. Click here for more information on the swim (or if you would like to join). Click here to listen back to Aodhán and Rónán.

We’ll keep up the pressure on the insurance, and will be doing something on what I consider to be misleading advertising: I don’t believe for a minute that they have ever even considered paying out anything even near the €6.5 million they use to advertise and sell their policies.

I kept the best for last: Today, Pádraig did what he had done a few times over the past days – he moved his foot up keeping the heel on the ground (on the foot support of the viva-la-Thekla), with one tiny but very very important difference: he lifted it up when we asked him to do so, and he put it back down, when we asked him to do so, and not just once or twice, but several times. And not just when Pat asked him in English, but also when I asked him in German. And he would have done it as Gaeilge too, I am sure.  It would have been a small step for us, but it’s of a giant leap for him.

Today’s German Music Tip
Klaus und Klaus, An der Nordseeküste (1985). They reached number 21 in the German Top 50 in 1985: An der Nordseeküste sind die Fische im Wasser und selten am Strand. Well,… trust me: this is not a Musterbeispiel for German Kulturgut.

What’s hot
Moving your foot
What’s cold
Urgency in the Department of Health’s Timezone
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Mensch, ich hau’ Dir den Kopp zwischen die Ohren wek! (Dortmunder shouting, in a nice way, at a tram driver who didn’t let him board, instead pulling out of the station.)

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

One down – two to go.

Today, the Irish Independent on their website, together with the print edition of the Evening Herald (p. 10) and the Evening Herald online, printed an article by Luke Byrne: “Insurer refuses to pay medical bill for student in US coma”. Tonight, just a few hours after it went life on the Independent’s website, it has attracted 46 comments and was tweeted from that site 184 times.

The absolutely unbelievable part of the article is a statement by Ciaran Mulligan, joint managing director of Blue Insurances, who told the Herald that it was the underwriters, ETI in London, who decided against paying out on the policy. Luke Byrne quotes Mr Mulligan as saying that ‘the wording on the policy had since been changed to clarify that cycling helmets need only be worn on biking holidays.’ And, “We felt that the wording was too ambiguous, so we asked the underwriter to change it. The wording has been changed for this year,” he said.

When, after a week of trying to make contact with the insurance company from the ICU in Cape Cod Hospital, where we did hardly sleep, fearing for Pádraig’s life, in absolute shock at about what had happened to our son, having been asked to send and having sent to them the policy they had sold to Pádraig (yes, I know, it sounds unbelievable), and then being told that they would decline cover – it made our hearts stop and put us into a state of shock.

Now, almost to the day, nine months after the accident, they change the policy to cover casual cycling (with or without a helmet) because the wording of the policy sold to Pádraig was ‘ambiguous’.

Here is some very personal and very hurtful insight and memory: During our last days in Cape Cod Hospital we panicked. We were desperately trying to arrange an air ambulance for Pádraig who was barely in a condition to be flown half way around the world, who had to be fitted with a special helmet (to protect his brain) which eventually had to be taped against the stretcher on the tiny plane, after it had taken the best part of two hours to maneuver our 2.04 or 6’7″ tall son into this tiny aircraft, with his mother carrying his bone plate from his skull in a large styrofoam container on dry ice on her knees because there was no other space on the plane. We were wondering whether we would be able to pay for his hospital. How much were the operations to fit him with a PEG and with the tracheotomy carried out just a few days before he was repatriated going to cost us? He was on a ventilator, and being looked after by three staff who could not really move in the plane  at all because it was so small. What if something was going to go wrong during the flight via Goose Bay Canadian Air-force Base and Iceland? It was a very risky evac operation, with Pádraig being very heavily sedated, an operation you only would consent to under huge distress.

We spent hundreds of euro on phone bills trying to talk to more than a dozen people in more than half a dozen companies all acting on behalf of Pádraig’s insurers, nobody prepared to make a decision for the best part of a week. Later, and following many email exchanges, a meeting with Go4Less and Blue Insurance, as well as an internal investigation, they would admit that there were some regrettable communication difficulties. – There still are communication difficulties, and there still is an outstanding bill from the hospital of more than US$100,000. And Pádraig has not received one penny out of his ‘five star’ €6.5m policy because of an ‘ambiguous’ wording that has now been changed: not for his hospital treatment, not for his devastating injuries, not for his family’s expenses to be with him – all of which should have been covered by his policy, had it not been for this ‘ambiguous’ wording that has now been changed. Instead, we suffered the most insane and almost unbearable – but utterly avoidable –  distress: first being virtually ignored, than asked for a copy of the policy they had sold to us, then being denied cover in a situation that could not really have been any worse.

I am outraged. They take your money to sell you a €6.5m travel insurance – but they never pay a penny when you most need it.

At the same time:
Today we have achieved the first of our three goals:
No student traveling to the US on this insurance policy will ever be denied cover again for serious injuries acquired when doing
what thousands of young people do:
cycling to work.

Back to Pádraig: he is keeping ok, no major changes. However, today we were called into a meeting with an Oberärztin standing in for the Oberärztin that knows him and has been looking after him so well for the past months. We were told that there was a concern about his bone flap possibly not healing and connecting with the rest of his skull. They are going to do another CT, the first in three or four months, to check this out. While they are doing this, they will also check the condition of his brain chambers including those where cerebrospinal fluid is being produced.

Check out the cover page of Seachtain, the Irish Language Supplement coming with The Independent tomorrow, Wednesday. The crazy swim adventure in ice cold waters off the coast of every county in Ireland with a coast has made it to the Front Page!

What a day.

When the economy went down the tubes, there was a famous sketch on Irish radio with the then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern (well, it wasn’t really him) who was giving out to some of his colleagues about what was going on. Nobody seemed to be able to do anything right, nobody was going to fix the broken economy. Bertie was really getting annoyed, so annoyed that he finally exploded and shouted “well, if nobody can do anything about this mess, I’ll ring up Joe Duffy meself!” – that is what Liveline and Joe Duffy are about. If nothing else helps, you just ring Joe and he’ll fix it.

Well, today it was Joe (or rather one of his researchers) who rang me.

Joe had heard about Pádraig’s story and thought it was worthwhile sharing with the country. For our friends who are not familiar with Joe and his programme: it is probably the programme with the highest number of listeners in the country, and Joe is one of the highest paid radio presenters. To be completely honest, I looked at this as an opportunity to tell not so much Pádraig’s story, but to highlight the empty promises made by insurance companies and the broken health system that does not care when care is most needed. Both look at victims like an investment. You make them pay, and when they need your help, you bail out.

It was good to hear Pádraig’s friends ringing in to tell Joe and the nation about their support for Pádraig and the events they have organized for him – one of the more unusual one being the swim in every county of Ireland with a coast.

I hope that many heard the story and many are going to ask their insurers and their TDs (members of parliament) about it. There is a question that will be put to the Taoiseach tomorrow afternoon at Leader’s Question time – and we can’t wait to hear whether he will take it and how he will answer it. Since he asked the Department of Health to get in touch with us “without delay”, 14 days have passed.

Today, Pádraig had another visitor from Ireland, a good friend who had basically moved in to Cape Cod Hospital with two other friends, when the accident had just happened. If I look back to that time, we stayed day and night with him by his bedside, because we did not want him to be alone, we wanted to be beside him all the time, he was so frail, so injured, in such a bad shape from this hit by the van to his head, that he could have died at any time. Today, he is reacting to us, he was moving his hand and arms for his friend who had come to visit. Yes, it has taken an awful long time, but we can wait, we have become very modest in our expectations as to the time it will take, but we know that he will make a good recovery, that the clouds will move and let the sunshine in.

His friends and family are his liveline. He is a liveline for us. And he will do wonders, not just for himself, but for all who need treatment and care, and are denied it by “this broken health system”.

Today’s German Music Tip
Elaiza, Is it right (2004). Germany’s entry into the 2004 Eurovision. How did they make it?

What’s hot
Liveline
What’s cold
Resignation
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Et küt wie et küt (Es kommt wie es kommt – From Karneval in Köln)

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

On Saturdays, we drive up north (yes, you can go further north than Hamburg!), onto a small peninsula called Eiderstedt and a village called Tating. We check for post, go for walks, try to clear the head. Just before getting into Tating is Garding, one of Germany’s smallest cities – Pat and I have endless arguments over this, she keeps calling it a town! This is all in the middle of nowhere, especially during the winter when there are no tourists. On the way, we often stop in Garding. During the summer, there is the world-famous Musikantenbörse when open air music takes over the whole city (or ‘town’, just to keep the peace:). During the winter, Lütt Matten (Rainer’s Pub – Rainer is one of the main organizers of the Musikantenbörse) is full of smoke, full of people, and full of music: it has live music inside on Saturdays, and sometimes Fridays too. So, we stop by for a pint. Which is where the problem starts. No pints. In a pub! Not even for Guinness. They do have 0.4l or 0.2l glasses yes, but the Guinness looks like cola – not my words, the bar woman’s.

So I asked her did they not have proper pint glasses? Maybe there was some German rule saying you could not sell beer in pints? Liquid had to be measured in liters? – I had completely forgotten that German rules did not apply on Eiderstedt. – She said they were just impossible to get. She thought for a minute and then she said that they had one (!) pint glass once upon a time that someone had brought over from Ireland all the way to Eiderstedt for himself. Then, after a few years, he moved away from Garding – and he took the pint glass with him!

End of story.

This morning Pádraig’s friendly hospital nurses took a different measure. They decided that it was hair-washing-morning. What a difference clean hair makes! Pádraig not only looks so much better, he must also feel so much better with clean hair. And, indeed, he is sitting up very relaxed in his bed, resting, taking in the Sunday feeling. – A friend brought over a set of different stones, together with a book on “Healing Crystals” by Michael Gienger. The set of crystals was very thoughtfully put together, the stones that were selected address very clearly all the areas Pádraig is fighting with at the moment. Not just his physical help but also spiritual well-being. I thought, instinctively, that the book had been written by an Indian guru, when I discovered that the author was German and published it first in Saarbrücken. So much for German lack of spirituality! The stones must work: Pádraig today opened both of his eyes, well – the left eye more than the right one, but he did open the right eye too – the first time in a long time. And there was movement in his left hand and arm; again, not that much – but there was movement.

02 June Run the Mini Marathon For Pádraig More than 30 brave runners have already signed up to run the Women’s Mini Marathon for Pádraig. (Will they run in miles or in kilometers?) Join them today or support their effort. Visit their Facebook site.

Today’s German Music Tip
Unheilig, Als wär’s das erste Mal (2014). This is another really well-know German group that has been around for 15 years. It was founded by ‘Der Graf’ in Aachen, a town at the Belgian border. Unheilig cam 2nd in the German competition for Eurovision this year.

What’s hot
Healing
What’s cold
0.2l glasses
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Jeder Jeck ist anders. (From Karneval in Köln)

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

It’s one of the most successful German music groups apparently – although they look older than I will ever feel. They are from Flensburg (north of Hamburg) and appeared on the scene after I left my Vaterland. They wanted this song to get them a ticket to the Eurovision in Copenhagen. Lots of people thought they’d made it because they are so famous. The description of the song on youtube by Germany’s public first TV channel ARD is that it’s a “pathetic folk song about yearning, wanderlust” (here is a German word that is not connected to Germany’s unholy past that made it into English!), “and irrepressible perseverance”.

“Die Sehnsucht trägt uns hinaus, in der Ferne sind wir zuhaus!” If you listen to the music, you’ll hear some Irish connections (they probably wanted it to sound a little “viking”). But really, and in all honesty: Would the Greek’s have given Germany 10 πόντους? Or the Spaniards, or the Portuguese? Never to mention Israel? A German song called: “We will never go down” would probably not have gone down that well in most parts of Europe. And the music? You can see them marching down Unter den Linden with torches singing this song. Really laut.

Somebody pulled the plug and stopped their march over the border from Flensburg into Copenhagen.

Although… I like the idea of wanderlust, of never giving up, of yearning. I am almost sure Pádraig wouldn’t like the music, but what this song is about would be right down his alley.

He is working on this right now: the only way is up for him. He is trying so hard and he won’t give up. He won’t go down. I can only image what it is like to be in bed for months on end – and the will power he has to keep going. – He was good today, pretty relaxed. It seems that his legs have reached a state where they are not getting thinner or thicker, so finally, they were able to order his specially adapted and fitted pressure socks to help him with the thrombosis. Although weekends are quiet here staff-wise, they managed to sit him out in the viva-la-Thekla which was really good.

Please – check out the upcoming events Pádraig’s friends have been organizing. They are truly amazing:

There are less than 2 weeks to go for Irene and Lynn to swim a mile for Pádraig in the National Acquatic Centre in Dublin on 04 April at 7pm!

Here is what one of the two ‘master’ swimmers wrote in an email  last week:
On Christmas Day my ‘darling’ husband gave me the most unromantic present ever, he had registered me for the ‘Swim a mile challenge’. As most of you know I am no fish! Since the New Year I have taken the plunge and started to train. My first lesson was with the impatient Fergal and I managed to put my face in the water and swim 5 meters but not at the same time. I have trained hard since and in the process I have provided lots of entertainment for onlookers and fellow swimmers.
I think this is a heroic effort that deserves your support.

The next event on the calendar after that will be the incredible swim around Ireland. There are still a few last places left for Snámh Phádraig: if you would like to swim for a few minutes off the coast of every county in Ireland with a coast over two days (12-13 April 2014) check in here.

Today’s German Music Tip
Santiano, Wir werden niemals untergehen (2014).

What’s hot
Wanderlust
What’s cold

The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Schweinerei

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