Shopping at Lidl is always an adventure. Some of the stuff is to similar to what they say in Ireland. Some of the stuff is really different – like the “Irländer”!
We listen to the early RTÉ morning radio, then Morning Ireland, and the news most mornings. This morning I thought that there was one murder, one raid, one bomb disposal after the other. The German news are really tame in comparison. As if nothing really news-worthy was happening. What the Irish news are missing in ‘good’ stories, the Germans are missing in ‘interesting’ stories.
We had hoped to have heard about the apartment by now. We had hoped to have heard about the move to the UKE for the operation by now. Neither of it did happen. We’ll have to be patient.
Pádraig has been really alert and awake over the past days, including today. He is getting really stable again now, and will have plenty of time to demonstrate to everybody how he is getting not just stable, but better.
Wednesday, 03 December is the official launch of the Dreamboat, the Amhrán do Phadráig, in Dublin, in The Grand Social. Be there!
We went for a walk on the North Sea this morning. It was like a scene from “The Road” or “The Book of Eli”. The sky was so grey, there was no sun, the sand was as lead-like as the sea, and it was almost impossible to see where the beach ended and the sea began. We were the only people on this vast beach. Not only because it was a bit early for a Sunday morning, but also because this was a really miserable day.
We went back to Hamburg early. With Pádraig, the day turned into something very different from where it had started. Pádraig was as alert as he had not been, at least not for some time. He had his eye open and moving, he really tried to talk, and – I know you have waited for this for a long time – there was another first:
Sitting in the wheelchair, he lifted his right foot completely off the ground. Of course, I was not there to see it; but even Pat almost missed it because he was squeezing her hand so tight trying, that she was watching his hand – until she saw what was really going on there.
And that was not all.
The nurse looking after him remembered, when we were telling him in the evening how well Pádraig was doing today, that the morning nurse had told him that when she had told Pádraig that she was going to re-arrange the blankets in his bed and whether that was ok, he answered very clearly and unmistakably “JA”.
Then, in the afternoon, Pat finally translated the letter to me that had come with the brown envelopes and CDs. I can only imagine what it said in Irish, but even in English translated by Pat for me it was wonderful. And when she read it out in Irish, Pádraig was there listening.
Just shows that something that starts like as if it was the end of the world can turn into something quite wonderful. Ja?
Amhrán do Pádraig is fast becoming an international bestseller. To make it easier for your non-Irish speaking friends to find the website and buy their copies try http://www.songforpadraig.com – and should it turn out that the Irish name gives trouble, try out http://www.songforpatrick.com. – I’d recommend to order a box of a dozen CD, that way shipping is easier and you’ll have enough CDs for all of your friends!
I wanted to show you a picture of our back garden – we share with about a hundred people. Yes, a hundred people! When we moved in, we were really afraid about all the noise from the people in this garden and the kids playing in the playground. That turned out to be completely unjustified. There are hardly any people in the garden. – But one morning, at around 7h30, after a long and fast run, when I was sitting on this bench completely exhausted, someone from across the garden opened the window and asked me whether I was ok! So completely un-germanic! And so so nice! And such a great support!
Pádraig is keeping ok. No major changes. Only that his hear frequency continues to go so low that he triggers off the alarms. The nurse said that this happens frequently with top sports people when they relax. On Monday, his doctor will call the UKE to check when there will be a slot available for Pádraig to be operated. They want to put in the artificial bone plate and might also look at his catheter.
Also early next week, we will hopefully hear about the apartment that we applied for.
Can’t wait.
Pim Hoppe and his Band played tonight at Lütt Matten in Garding. One of his songs is Das alles und so vieles mehr saying that life can be difficult but that we should always see that there is so much beauty all around us.
Can I tell you or would that wish not work if I did?
Mmmhhh – I know. I’ll tell you about one wish I have. If that wish should not be granted because I told you about it, then I’ll just keep my wishes for myself.
I wish to find out about this apartment; and not just to hear about it, but to get good news about it. Initially, we thought we’d hear about it last week, then this week, now it’ll be next week…
I also wished my Irish was better. In case your Irish is a bad as mine (practically non-existent) you’ll have wondered what last night’s blog was all about. I thought, I’d try what the Irish Government did with its website promoting the 1916 Easter Rising celebrations: getting it translated using Google Translate. [In case you don’t trust Google Translate, but still want to find out what the ‘original’ was, I’ve copied the original text to the end of this blog.] I just thought that it was hilarious that they first get a Minister for the Gaeltacht who does not speak Irish (but is, apparently, very keen to learn the language), and then get the website for the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising translated by an online machine translation programme. It’s pure genius.
(In case you didn’t know and were wondering what is going on here, “it is a primary objective of the Department to support the implementation of the 20 Year Strategy for the Irish Language 2010-2030 and, within that context, to promote Irish as the main language of the Gaeltacht.”)
There is a bit of good news (this has got something to do with the wish I didn’t tell you about). Pádraig’s main doctor here told us that they did another EEG and it turns out that especially that part of his brain that was less injured is beginning to show what would be considered to be ‘normal’ activity on the scale they use. Is this a sign of things to come?
If the Irish Government can do it, so can I. You might have heard in tonight’s news that the official Irish Government website for the 1916 commemoration was translated into the first official language of the country by Google translate. It’s incredible. Thank you Google. Thank you Irish Government. You make technology work!
I won’t be writing that much tonight because I’m not sure about how much of what I’m writing will be understood by the fantastic programme that has now replaced human translators, even in the Irish Government offices.
Und warum schreibe ich überhaupt auf Englisch? Und übersetze das dann auch noch ins Irische…
Patrick ist heute offiziell ein Hamburger geworden. Er hat seine leichte Erkältung so weit hinter sich gebracht und wirkt insgesamt sehr viel gesünder.
Bueno, voy a dormir. Será otro día mañana.
This is not Libya or Iraq, it’s main street in Hamburg and the police is obviously getting ready – for what I’ve no idea, but it seems pretty serious!
Más féidir leis an Rialtas na hÉireann é a dhéanamh, mar sin is féidir I. D’fhéadfá a chuala i nuacht na hoíche anocht gur aistríodh an láithreán gréasáin an Rialtais oifigiúil na hÉireann don chomóradh 1916 isteach sa chéad teanga oifigiúil na tíre ag Google aistriú. Tá sé dochreidte. Go raibh maith agat Google. Go raibh maith agat Rialtas na hÉireann. A dhéanann tú an obair teicneolaíocht!
Ní bheidh mé ag scríobh go bhfuil i bhfad anocht toisc nach bhfuil mé cinnte faoi cé mhéad ar cad tá mé scríofa a thuiscint an clár iontach go bhfuil ionad anois aistritheoirí daonna, fiú sna hoifigí Rialtas na hÉireann.
Agus cén fáth a scríobh mé ar chor ar bith i mBéarla? Agus a aistriú go ansin freisin go Gaeilge …
Tá anois Patrick bheith go hoifigiúil hamburger. Tá sé ag a thug a fuar beag go dtí seo taobh thiar agus rinne a lán níos sláintiúla.
Bhuel, tá mé ag dul a chodladh. Is Amárach lá eile.
There was a brown envelope on Pádraig’s desk today. Packed. I ask you, what do you do with a packed brown envelope? Make sure no-one else sees it and you’d put it away in a safe place? Or would you ignore it altogether?
I decided to open it.
And inside, inside were five copies, wrapped in protective plastic, of the new Christmas No. 1 CD, Amhrán do Phádraig.
I played it a dozen times and thought that Pádraig was singing along. Is it only just a dream?
I had heard so much about it, had seen the pictures on the website, holding the cover in my hand and listening to the poems, songs, and music was something else.
Even if I wasn’t who I am (and who knows who I am:) I would buy a box of these CDs and give them as a present to all of my family and friends. It’s incredible stuff. Absolutely incredible.
Pádraig was humming along, and it was a sign of things to come.
If there is one thing you’ll be getting for your family and friends this Christmas, make it the Christmas No. 1 album, Amhrán do Phádraig.
I got up in the middle of the night. It was dark and cold outside. We made our way up to the hospital. It was completely deserted. No-one to be seen. Until we got up to the ward. A therapist had come in at 5am to get Pádraig ready. Over the weekend they had given him a ‘bath’. He looked his best.
There were many people on the ward who wouldn’t have been there on a regular Monday morning. They were there to say good-bye to Pádraig, to wish him all the best, to pray for a safe journey. Good people. Decent people. The ones who would do things differently if they were in charge.
Not the ones who wonder why on earth people are even thinking about brining their loved ones to a place where they’d get timely and appropriate treatment and care; not the ones who tell you that, sure, the only things your loved one need are “medicine, sedation, and a PEG”. Try to make this up – I’m sure you couldn’t.
Threatening sanctions in case of Negligent Overcrowding – the lift in the A&O Hostel, a year ago tonight.
Here we are. A year ago, tonight, I was trying to find a place to stay. I came that prepared. A&O beside the train station. On my own. Pádraig on a respirator in the Schön-Klinik. Between then and now, he nearly died, at least once. But he also started to eat (little and soft), to communicate (yes/no), to breath (no O2 most of the time), to use an unblocked cannula / speech valve (all the time); he rarely has infections, no bed sores, no dislocated shoulder blades. He receives therapies every day, including physio, OT, music, and, I think too little, speech. He has been seen by a dentist several times, a urologist, a surgeon, and a dermatologist.
He most definitely needs more than medicine, sedation, and a PEG.
And so do all the other people in Ireland who are in a similar situation to Pádraig’s.
On a different note, and before I forget. For some reason, I thought of Saints when I was walking to the apartment tonight. The strange thing is that I’m not even sure whether I believe in Saints. What I thought was that, maybe, Saints are not the ones who do all the good stuff at all. Maybe it’s the ones that make us do good.
What do you think?
To finish off, here is a short video clip that looks and sounds like taken straight out of a science fiction movie. In fact, it’s a message the Irish Government wants you to hear just before you leave the country.
Last night, Pádraig’s oxygen levels apparently went down quite a bit, to a level where they thought that maybe he had had another set of seizures. They added a bit of oxygen to his air for a few hours, not a lot, just to keep him comfortable. In the morning they did an EEG and that turned out ok. No reason to worry here.
They also did blood tests which turned out ok too. He has a bit of a temperature but all still within acceptable limits. I think he might have a bit of a cold. Same as many people around this time of the year when the temperatures change.
It’s so hard though to find out what is going on. It’s not as if there was anyone who wanted not to tell what’s going on, I think they genuinely don’t know. Which makes you think.
Eventually, we met the new Stationsarzt who will look after Pádraig as part of his day-to-day work. He explained what had been happening and that there was nothing to worry about. They just ran tests to make sure there was nothing serious going for which the low oxygen levels could have been a symptom.
It’ll be exactly a year since Pádraig and I arrived here in Hamburg tomorrow. What’s a year? What does it mean? Is this a lot? Is it really no time at all? I don’t know. I thought that I knew what time meant. Today, I’m convinced no-one knows.
I played Rónán Beo@3 for Pádraig this evening. The songs, the poem, the interview with Maitíu. Pádraig was wide awake. I had doubt but he believed… It floated like a dream…
Dreamboat
Check out the Amhrán do Phádraig / Song for Pádraig Facebook site
Get a copy of Amhrán do Phádraig / Song for Pádraig here
Intro: G———Em———–G———Em———— (same chords for all the little interludes!)
At a press conference in the afternoon, this day 25 years ago, Günter Schabowski announced that citizens of the GDR were allowed to travel freely. When asked by a journalist when this new arrangement was going to come into force, he hesitated for a second and then said that it was coming into force immediately.
People listening to this did not immediately understand what that meant. But it took just a few hours until thousands of people gathered at the bridge of the Bornholmer Straße and the border crossing to West Berlin. At 21h20 they let the first people pass, at 23h30 tens of thousands of people were passing without any further checks or passport control.
Lit helium balloons marking the trajectory of the Berlin wall tonight.
Bridges have also be important for Pádraig in the past 16 months. Many of them were missing or closed for a long time, but then opened unexpectedly for reasons still unknown to me. Those bridges were built, or re-built, for him by the hundreds of people around the world. When I look back over the past 16 months or so, he has moved on so much. Many, many things no-one thought were going to be possible, were made possible by people who did what they could do to help him – whether that was a prayer, a visit, a donation, a song or a poem, a swim, a run, a party, a coffee afternoon, a raffle, a table quiz, a text, tweet, call, or just a thought.
Pádraig is coughing quite a bit today. Maybe it’s just the change in temperature. We still went out with him onto the roof terrace, if only for 15 minutes or so. The weekend is very quiet here. There are no therapists and no doctors – unless in cases of emergency.
We’re going to continue to build bridges for Pádraig (and persons like him) with your help. And we won’t stop doing it, ever.
Today’s German Music Tip Karat – Über sieben Brücken musst du geh’n They probably were the GDR’s best known rock group. What’s hot Bridges What’s cold Not trying The German word/phrase/verse of the day Ostdeutsch – The Deutsche Welle has a great article on the differences of the German language between east and west.
Pádraig did the usual routine today: getting up into the wheelchair, out onto the roof ‘garden’, a bit of food (yoghurt), the ‘ride on the bike’. He is getting less of this medicine that is supposed to lower the risk of seizures and I think he is slowly getting back to where he was before the doctors started trying out all the different types of medication.
Yesterday, the two people in charge to organise his care at home visited and we had a long conversation about how that will be organised. The preparations are getting into gear.
I let a shout out of me as did everyone there.
A friend sent me a link to a story reported in the journal.ie about a boy who suffered an acquired brain injury in an accident. He recovered, it seems, to a degree where he was able to tell his story in the Oireachtas Committee for Health. It reads like a Dejà vu of Pádraig’s experience with a distinct lack of resources, care, and therapy – to put it mildly. When is this going to blow into the faces of people who can affect change? How can a government be allowed to ignore its citizens when they most need to be supported by it? – One teenager’s ‘terrifying journey’ through Ireland’s health system after brain injury.
A few days ago, on 02 November 2014, Máirtín Ó Muilleoir, towards the end of his blog NewBelfast.com, wrote about Amhrán do Phádraig and especially the wonderful poem Marcus Mac Chongail wrote about Pádraig. For those (of us) who wouldn’t be able to follow the Irish, here is the translation provided by a fried which I first posted on 25 April 2013.
Pádraig
I have never met you
But for 9 months (ráithe= 3 months =quarter, trí ráithe=9 months I think!) now
The long silence that is coming from you
Is being filled by people who don’t stop talking about you
Kíla- playing music for you
As you were laid down in Beaumont Hospital
A chirp(?) or two from the toilet of a train (I can’t remember what exactly the story was with Aodhán except that is was very funny!)
From a friend without a ticket who is on his way to see you
Tonncheol (not sure what this means, something to do with music, maybe melody) and harmony (literally “together-music”) from the men’s choir
Singing a healing health to you from the Workman’s
Daily letters from your father’s limbo
Sieving the words, wanting to feel (understand) it all
Seosamh from the club just back from Hamburg
After seeing you
Describing it with his mouth (words)
But his eyes looking (seeking) for a different story
And the 50 brave Spartans
Who traveled in a line from coast to coast
And who swam deep into the spring sea
And your name was on everyone’s lips – your name
I went out to the finishing point of your swim
And I let a yell (shout) out of me as did everyone there
And I let out that shout again on paper for you,
That you, Pádraig, will return home safe and well.
Marcus Mac Chongail
RTÉ had a long report about Pádraig and the support he receives by his friends just two days ago, on 06 November. Rónán, another wonderful person, spent the best part of half an hour on his programme Rónán Beo@3 playing songs and poetry from the Amhrán do Phádraig, the album Pádraig’s friends put together during the summer, starting off with the Dreamboat – and then just went on and recorded a whole collection of wonderful music, songs, and poetry, for Pádraig.
Even if you (like myself;) are not that fluent in Irish, to put it mildly, you should still check it out. You’ll recognise some names and, of course, you’ll hear extracts from this wonderful album. People who say that Spanish is the Loving Tongue, like our friend Bob, must never have heard Irish.
The show kicks off with Conamara (00:00:23 to 00:03:50); it continues with the interview with Maitíu (00:10:00), with Dreamboat playing in the background from 00:15:50; Ní Bheidh Tú Riamh leat Fhéin (You will never be on your own) starts at 00:26:00; Marcus reads out his poem starting at 00:28:55.
I must tell you, and I don’t want to sound too pathetic here (I’m sure I often do), but I am crying my eyes out listening to Rónán’s programme, to the songs, the poem, to Maitíu’s account. Reading Marcus’ poem.
How lucky Pádraig is to have such friends. They are the stuff of pure legend!
And he, Pádraig, will return home safe and well. Go bhfille tú abhaile slán, a Phádraig.
The ideal present for all your friends and family!
Extracts from the Amhrán do Phádraig album, put together by 50 of Pádraig’s friends during the summer were played for the first time live on national radio on 06 November 2014. Listen to the beautiful interview with Maitíu O’Casaide of the Bonnymen by Rónán Beo@3 on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta playing live on air extracts from the album, including Conamara, opening the programme, by Claire Hyland and Aisling Ní Laoire), the title track Dreamboat, in the background during the interview with Maitíu, by the Dreamboaters; the poem Pádraig (by Marcus Mac Conghail); and Ní Bheidh Tú Riamh leat Fhéin (You will never be on your own), by Lauren Ní Chasaide and Fiona Pain.
Shopping at Lidl is always an adventure. Some of the stuff is to similar to what they say in Ireland. Some of the stuff is really different – like the “Irländer”!
Hospi-Tales 