By now, Pat and I had arrived. It was no movie, no nightmare, no misunderstanding. No more. We went into shock. We stopped sleeping. We stopped eating. No more.

By now, we are looking into the future, into the wild, Alaska. Happiness is only real when shared. There’s no way back.

At 09:30 today, all was ok. At 15:30, his temperature was up, his heart rate into the sky, bloods not looking good.

Weekend. Senior doctor we’ve never met but who apparently knows Pádraig really well decided over the phone that he needed an antibiotic. Weekend Ferndiagnose. The first time for months, we think since January. The bottom line is that no one is prepared to take a risk. We staid until 9pm, his heart rate had come down, so had his temperature, oxygen levels back to normal. Still, the decision was confirmed over the phone: antibiotics. From our point of view a set back, not a big deal for doctors. It’s correct not to risk pneumonia, but, in Eric Burdon’s words, he needs to get out of this ‘place‘ that he’s in, he needs to get better, he will get better, in his own time. We’re back in the apartment, no Tating tonight. Helpless, like the town in North Ontario, blue, blue windows behind the stars, yellow moon on the rise, big birds flying across the sky, throwing shadows on our eyes.

“And now on to Sports. Soccer first, with Dundalk….” The news don’t make much sense, less: sports news and soccer, BUT Dundalk? Did I miss the end of the FIFA world championship?

Wrote letters to request medical records from all hospitals Pádraig has been in over the past year, four in total, in preparation of a civil case in Boston later this year. As if anyone needed proof that this is a heartbreaking, gutting, mind-blowing. Tragedy.

Don’t forget the practice session tomorrow morning at 11am at the Conradh in Dublin, and the music season on Tuesday night that will raise funding for the two days in the studio on Wednesday and Thursday!