I spent most of the afternoon in bed, just got up in the evening to get something to eat. I found it amazing how long I slept or dozed without really noticing time passing by. Having something stitched up inside me, without having much external evidence of it, also feels really strange. It hurts but without the visible evidence. – Good thing is, it’ll be ok and back to normal in a week or two, fingers crossed.

Talking about fingers: here’s a really imaginative solution of a staff nurse for wearing ‘jewellery’ when you’re having an operation, and you don’t want to take it off (because it’s your wedding ring:). Ignore the wrinkles on the hand, it’s the angle the picture was taken from!

In the meantime, and as always, the world keeps spinning ’round. Some carers arrive, some are sick, some have been sick since Pádraig arrived home and haven’t met him yet. They are having ads on the radio asking people to get their flu vaccines.

The community team, various therapists and a dietitian, have been here a couple of times and are really making an effort to help as much as they can. Tomorrow, we’ll have a rep in here for the n-th time to measure the height of the room for Pádraig’s soon to be ordered standing bed. We’re not giving up hope, though patience is really required here.

In the meantime, Pádraig has not been standing. Not in the NRH (he has been discharged and put on a waiting list for outpatient therapy); not in the community physio facilities (no physios available to supervise him standing); not at home (no standing bed). We rang around various suppliers in Ireland to see whether we could get a more difficult to handle, but more economical, tilt table, and were told they are not available second hand; getting them would take between 3 and 6 weeks (depending on supplier); they might not be long enough for Pádraig (were going to check but didn’t get back to us).

What do you do when stuff like this drives you around the bend? – Correct: you do it yourself. So we found a supplier of tilt tables in another European Country. They responded to all our queries within minutes. They will, wait for it: manufacture an extra long table for Pádraig; supply it with special supports for the lower limbs, hips, and head; have it ready to be shipped within two days; ship it to Ireland where it should arrive within a week; and all for less than half the cost of the cheapest tilt table available here. I am not sure whether they work the way they do because they care or because they want to do business. But to me it seems that someone who takes weeks to move or doesn’t get back to you at all, does neither care nor is he interested in doing business – maybe it’s because they think they have it all stitched up in a monopoly?

Finally – no positive news yet on premises for the An Saol Sarah Walsh Therapy Centre.

But – Planning of the charity cycles in the US is making progress. Please click here to sign up if you want to join us in Boston in June.