Another Sunday almost over. Months ago, Pat and I spent half an hour each Sunday writing up a weekly update on how Pádraig was doing to make sure all family and close friends would know about his progress. At that time, we were anxious for Pádraig to have access to the right treatment and therapy. We saw how the Irish health system was making it extremely difficult for the people working with patients like Pádraig to do a good job. There were shortages everywhere. There was no place to go – in Beaumont, we were told that we were among the lucky one. Because we lived close by, we did not have to move Pádraig to the ‘periphery’.

We’ve been in Germany now for a bit longer than 9 months. We have learned more about hospital systems in different countries, more about neuro rehabilitation, and more about brain injuries than we ever thought was possible.

Over the past weeks, we talked a lot about what we’d learned and how we could make the best use of all these lessons. We started to write it down. It’s becoming the blueprint for An Saol. More about it some other day.

I’m back in the apartment after eight hours of driving and five hours in the hospital, absolutely exhausted. It was nice talking to our daughter on the way down to Weeze. My plan to use the quiet time on the way back to reflect and think, however, had to be changed. I drank a litre of Diet Coke and really concentrated on traffic, and just about managed to stay awake.