Bood pressure: check. Heart beat: check. Oxygen: check. Food and drug supply: check. X-ray: check. Drainage one: check. Drainage two: tbc. We are almost ready for departure. Mobiles switched off, all bags stored away safely, we are beginning to relax a little and to look forward to get moving again.

We are taxiing on the runway, to take off for the Schön-Klinik in Hamburg-Eilbek once the second and last drainage can be removed. They are about to get the good-bye flags and balloons out in the UKE to celebrate our departure which, we all hope, will not be delayed much longer. Of course, we all have been there before – and we will not believe it’s going to happen until it actually does.

Céad Míle Fáilte we had – now, it’s time to leave the UKE soon, we hope

Today, the nurse asked me was I also ‘vom Fach’ (of the medical profession) when I  asked about his ‘Blutwerte’. I said ‘no’ – and added that I had just picked up a few things along the long long road we have been traveling. The strange thing is that I am not sure whether I would ever want to become a ‘professional’ health carer, although, of course, I have got to value good health care like never before in my life over the past months. The reason for my doubts whether I would want to work as a nurse or a doctor is the (health care) ‘system’, which would most likely drive me bananas. There are ways to deal with systems that are so big you won’t be able to change them – where you have to find ways to live with them, without making your life hell and without loosing your sanity. This is what the Irish are really good at, and the Germans will never master:)

_________________________________________________________________
Another event has been added by friends caring for Pádraig:
A Table Quiz will be organised in Na Fianna GAA club on Friday 31/01/2014 at 8pm. Entry €20.00 per table. There will be prizes for the top three winning tables and a raffle.
_________________________________________________________________

For the time being though, and probably until the end of the week, we’re still here, in the early morning’ rain, on run way number nine, a long way from home, but getting ready to jump onto the ‘plane’ that will bring us to where we wanted be: in early neuro rehab in Eilbek.

Today’s German Music Tip
Ton, Steine, Scherben, Keine Macht für Niemand (1972). One of the first and most successful German Rock Bands, with one of their first songs: no power to nobody. The lead singer, Rio Reiser and his band lived for a long time in Fresenhagen, not far away from Tating.
What’s hot
On the road
What’s cold
Standing still
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
(Heinrich Heine [1797-1856]: Deutschland, ein Wintermärchen, Caput III)

Noch immer das hölzern pedantische Volk,
Noch immer ein rechter Winkel
In jeder Bewegung, und im Gesicht
Der eingefrorene Dünkel.

Sie stelzen noch immer so steif herum,
So kerzengrade geschniegelt,
Als hätten sie verschluckt den Stock,
Womit man sie einst geprügelt.

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

Here is one of my favourite stories, about ‘those very generous times’, about a great singer, one of the world’s greatest hotels (I once just about survived one night in:), and told by one of the world’s greatest poets (and an abysmal singer).

‘About a thousand years ago I used to live in this hotel in New York City, a very good hotel. In the elevator of that hotel, early in the morning I used to bump into a young woman. After about a week, I gathered my courage and I said to her, “Are you looking for someone?” She said, “Yes, I’m looking for Kris Kristofferson.” I said, “Little Lady, you’re in luck. I’m Kris Kristofferson.” Those were very generous times as you may have read. So she never lead on that she really knew I wasn’t Kris Kristofferson. Maybe I was Kris Kristofferson. I wasn’t wearing cowboy boots until that moment. – A couple of years later I was sitting at the bar of this Polynesian restaurant in Miami Beach, some place I hope I never bump into you. They serve drinks in ceramic coconut shells. All up and down the boulevards there are real coconut trees with real coconut shells. There is some arcane meaning in all of that but I couldn’t penetrate it. I was sitting at that bar and this young woman’s presence became very strong and I wrote this song for Janis Joplin at the Chelsea Hotel.’

The story came back to me when I caught up with the preparations of two big concerts Pádraig’s friends are organizing in Dublin for him, with some of Ireland’s best musicians (details to follow soon).

29 January 2014
The Workman’s Club. Concert for Pádraig. With Seo Linn, Members of Kila, and others…

05 February 2014
Concert in Coláiste Eoin

And there is another really great, imaginative event being organized by his friends: “Snámh Phádraig” – a sea swim in every county of Ireland with a coast line over just two days. When they told me about this, I thought that just doing it was quite some challenge. When I heard that they wanted to get a full bus load of 53 friends to join, I thought they were, well, let’s say ‘ambitious’. – Then the website went life today, and guess what? At the time of writing, they had 55 people signed up already. Not sure what is going on? Who on earth would want to go for not just one, but for dozens of swims in April, and in Ireland’s absolutely freezing coastal sea waters??? There seem to be enough crazy people around that they might have to organize a second bus if people keep signing up!

Pádraig is getting better and recovering from the operations. They stopped flushing out the lung, adjusted the drainage to make sure all fluid could get out of his lung, he is off the breathing apparatus now all of the time (or: until he’ll need it again, and if it was only for a few hours to relax). Later in the week they will continue with the ‘drill’: the removal of the first drainage, then the clamping of the second, finally the removal of the second drainage. Everybody would really like to see him back in Eilbek as soon as possible so that he’ll be able to (re-)start his early rehab – but (here is the ‘but’ again) we asked to be sure to be sure at each step along the way, in order to avoid as much as possible any nasty surprises. He’s had enough of them for the foreseeable future.

These are generous times. Nobody knows I’m not Leonard Cohen. Maybe I am. Who knows? Maybe I am. Although – I’m not wearing one of those fancy hats right now. What is beyond any doubt: These upcoming concerts for Pádraig and this Snámh are going to be magic. There will be live links to Hamburg, Germany, and the rest of the world, beaming strong positive vibes around the world from Ireland.

Ryan announcing Seo Linn and Colaiste Lurgan on the Late Late Show in August of 2013.

If you watched Brendan O’Connor on last night’s Saturday Night Show (I know, I know, you had better things to do…), you’ll know already that the one Irish person who got a one-way ticket on the next available flight to Mars is Ryan ‘Tubs’ Tubridy – or so Brendan wished. Judging by the reaction he got from the audience, he wasn’t the only who’d love to wish Ryan all the best for his new career on Mars TV. But (and isn’t there always a but?) this morning I discovered a Late Late Show clip from 13 September of last year of a performance demonstrating the best of what a Late Late Show can produce. Maybe not all is lost? I guess, Ryan will have a bit of time to re-consider whether he really wants to leave or not. I cried watching this clip…

Wake me up!

We were listening to German NDR radio and they were playing Avicii’s song ‘Wake me up’, which – in addition to making me look up the Late Late Show clip – also made us remember that Seo Linn – who have an Irish version of this song that has attracted 3.3m hits on youtube – will be playing at a concert that friends of Pádraig will be organizing for him.

When I watched the two videos, the original Seo Linn video and then their performance on the Late Late Show, I was in awe watching the fun, energy, and carefree-attitude on display here which are just incredible. And how apt: WAKE ME UP!

‘Feeling my way through the darkness
Guided by a beating heart
I can’t tell where the journey will end
But I know where to start’

Wake me up…

This morning, we rang the hospital and were told that Pádraig was well, everything was getting back to normal, and that he had been recovering well from the operation. What a relief! When we went to see him in the afternoon he looked well and seemed to be well on the road to recovery. His nurse was one of the kindest people you could meet. He said Pádraig was about his age. He then showed us how to do his mouth hygiene. We used about two dozen special swabs and two toothbrushes to clean Pádraig’s mouth using special liquid – all readily available in one of the many drawers in the cabinets of Pádraig’s room. The scary moment came when the nurse asked whether I wanted to shave Pádraig. I had never in my life done anything like it to anybody else – it’s bad enough to end up with a bloody face myself every so often. But it worked out fine, and as strange as it may sound, it felt good. Although it was really nothing, it was so good to be able to do something concrete for Pádraig. And I was really grateful to the nurse who had – instead of sending us out, as usual – decided to make us part of caring for Pádraig.

Two of his friends arrived later in the afternoon from Dublin who are taking out time from work and exam preparations to spend time with Pádraig. Friendship!

Today was a good day.

Today’s German Music Tip
Avicii (feat. Aloe Blacc), Weck mich auf (2013). Of course, this version is not by Avicii, but by a German singer (and his friend); you can check out the lyrics here. The really interesting bit is the contract between the German and the Irish language versions:).
What’s hot
Waking up
What’s cold
Worries
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Litfaßsäule – something I had completely forgotten about, not just the word but also the concept, until I saw two in a row this morning when I was walking to the Bäckerei.

‘This is like normal life, isn’t it?’ A few hours of chat, laughter, conversations about every-day-like topics: carefree, unworried, light-hearted, young. What a difference that must have made to Pádraig: no beeps, no bells, no trollies. Just plain, simple, lovely, creative conversations, full of energy and enthusiasm, as only young people, and those young at heart, can have them.

There have been friends with Pádraig almost every day for the past weeks and months, and if you check out the calendar you’ll see that this will continue. His friends come a long way, and they stay for days. A nurse said that in her many decades of work she has never seen anything like it. ‘If I got sick, you could count the number of visitors I’d get on your two hands – it’s really amazing what’s going on here’, she said, and then she corrected herself: ‘one hand would actually do to count the people that would visit me’. I tell her that it wouldn’t be different in my case, and how happy Pádraig must be to see that his friends, the one thing he values more than anything else in his life, are staying with him, and go through all this trouble to be with him and show him their support.

It’s easy to loose perspective if you are spending months on end in a hospital, a lot of that time in ICUs. Days disappear in a haze. This couldn’t be 11 January?! What ever happened to Christmas, the New Year, the ‘holidays’?? The idea I had of ‘normality’ has morphed into something completely different from what it was six months ago. Only when I am reading up on a condition or a procedure do I realize that what is happening to Pádraig is far from ‘normal’. A prolonged stay in an ICU is not normal. The number and kind of operations he has had are far from normal. Being in bed and in a coma for more than six months is not normal. This serious and prolonged lung trouble is not normal at all. His vulnerability is not normal either. What would be ‘routine’ in the case of a healthy person becomes high-risk in his case. But because he is the young, strong fighter that he is, and because he has the support of so, so many friends who believe that he will be able to pull through all of this in the end – he is overcoming all the obstacles put in his way, and he keeps fighting.

Today, all the ‘figures’ were wrong and troublesome: heart, breathing, temperature – yes, postoperative stress, a  reaction like that in the case of an infection, bound to disappear over the next 12-24 hours, but still high. It’ll be all right tomorrow. All right.

Today’s German Music Tip
Glasperlenspiel, Freundschaft (2012). Techno (if this is ‘techno’) is not really my kind of music, but it’s not a bad song, especially if you’re dancing to it. The lyrics are a bit ‘in your face’ but nothing wrong with that either.
What’s hot
Tomorrow
What’s cold
Today’s worries
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Wunderbar

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

Just heard from a doctor that Pádraig’s third operation in less than two weeks went well and Pádraig is ok. They removed blood effusions, or hemorrhages, from the lung and loosened it up so that it could fully inflate again. – We are waiting outside to see him. Isn’t that great news!

Don’t trust anyone above 30! – The generation of ’68

“If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it… Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh never mind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked….You’re not as fat as you imagine.”

You’re in a captive space. There is nowhere out. For the next 10 hours you’re going to drive down this road and he will sit beside you and nothing and nobody is going to stop him from playing his music. Have you ever been in a situation like this? Do you know what I’m talking about? I had brought my music, really great music I wanted to share with the rest of the family – only that nobody wanted to share that experience with me. There was no contest. We were going to listen to Kila, The Script, Mundy, BellX1, TG Lurgan, MGMT, Ham Sandwich, and: Baz Luhrmann.

A captive space – from Seyfried’s famous ’68 book ‘Wo soll das alles enden?’

“Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as
effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing
bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that
never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm
on some idle Tuesday.”

Now, years later, I think: those were the days. This is the music. I would still be singing Dylan songs were it not for those long, captive hours when I was condemned to listen to all this really really hot music.

Pádraig, the man of the music, is breathing today on what they call a T-piece, just oxygen support, no pumps nor pressure, all by himself. Which is really good news. The consultant didn’t show up today and one of the junior doctors advised us they would keep flushing his lungs to remove whatever ‘stuff’ they could flush out, until tomorrow morning. They will then reassess the situation and decide whether he will need another operation.

Three of his old (!) friends arrived today, all less than half my age; they said they are beginning to feel old. How I feel for them. Two have been with Pádraig half way around the world. They staid with him almost around the clock in Hyannis; visited him in Ireland; and are now back with him in Germany. I wonder whether he ever realized how privileged he is having such good friends.

Where will this all end?

“Understand that friends come and go,but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.”

“Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who
supply it. … But trust me on the sunscreen…”

PS: Just came across this clip from John Q. A down-on-his luck father, whose insurance won’t cover his son’s heart transplant, takes the hospital’s emergency room hostage until the doctors agree to perform the operation. – A bit on the extreme side, but Denzel W. definitely has a point.

I know that some of Pádraig’s friends were freezing cold in there; for me, walking into the hospital from the subtropical heat of Hyannis in July felt like a big  relief. The building was completely sealed and kept at a constant freezing temperature, compared to the hot humid air outside. Going in and out put you under serious risk of catching pneumonia – or a nasty cold at least. We were thinking of this today, nine months later, in the winter, in Hamburg, when we walked out of the cosy, warm UKE building into the freezing winter of northern Germany. The contrast couldn’t have been bigger, like hot ‘n cold.

In Hyannis, doctors and a social worker talked to us on several occasions about organ donation. Here, we are being told that it is impossible to make a prognosis, that we need a lot of patience, and that in the case of someone as young as Pádraig it will take at least a year before anything even close to a prognosis could be made.This is six months up from what we were told in Dublin. It seems that in the case of ABI at least, the Germans are trying harder. The contrast couldn’t be bigger, like hot ‘n cold.

They removed the last of the two drainages he had today and checked that his lung was alright. They will check again tomorrow morning and then start with the arrangements for a transfer back to the Schön-Klinik in Hamburg Eilbek. Pádraig today had a great nurse, as old as us, with 30 years experience and three kids. She was competent, caring, understanding and highly professional. What a difference that made to yesterday. In the morning, I had reminded myself of our priorities: changing the personalities of certain nurses or trying to reason with control freaks did not even figure.

This morning, Padraig received a packet from Colm Ó Snodaigh with his book Istigh sa Cheol, two other books (I won’t mention the titles:), and loads (probably all) of KILA’s  and Colm’s music on CD. (Seosamh added Ronán’s latest solo album to the mix before he left today.) What a nice present. Hamburg will soon become KILA land!

Going back to work will be hard. One colleague sent me a text today saying she hoped I got a bit of time to relax over the past few weeks. It’s like being stuck between hot ‘n cold to freely quote Katy Perry.

Listened to one of the songs from the early eighties again. What an innocent time this was.

Mit dir in der Südsee stehn in den Abendhimmel sehn
oh guter Mond am Firmament spür wie meine Sehnsucht brennt
oh komm Czigan spiel für uns allein
die Melodie brauch ich zum glücklich sein

Ich seh den Sternenhimmel Sternenhimmel Sternenhimmel oh oh
ich seh den Sternenhimmel Sternenhimmel Sternenhimmel oh oh

Today’s German Music Tip
Hubert Kah, Sternenhimmel (1982). ‘Neue Deutsche Welle’. When we were young. Observe the really cool dancing.
What’s hot
Life – it’s hot ‘n cold
What’s cold
Life – it’s hot ‘n cold
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Sternenhimmel

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