What if

the extraordinary becomes ordinary

the notion of ‘second life’ becomes a reality

despair turns into a daily experience

rays of hope, fun, love, and solidarity provide are your survival kit

instead of money, greed, or power

What if you took time for what matters

I was thinking about this today. Never, in my life, would I have expected to be able to survive anything even close to this. Not just that but I believe I became a stronger and, likely, better person because of Pádraig. He, reduced everything to the essential. It gave me focus, single vision, clear priorities.

Today, I showed his two physios how to put him on his feet. It worked. Was I proud? Was I proud, or what?

He also managed to hold his arm up on one of those triangle hanging down from an ‘arm’ over his bed, not for 1, not for 2 or 3, but for nearly 4 minutes.

I was proud of Pádraig, so proud, because with his own single-minded never-let-go so-immensely-annoying attitude he is now able to do things that are close to miracles. Just think about proposed organ donations – on second thoughts, don’t. That would have finished the job started by the van that hit Pádraig.

Today, he ate two bowles of semolina and broccoli soup, as well as some of his carrots and meet, all minced (he didn’t touch the mashed potatoes), and then washed it down with orange and plum juice.

So I went for a short run (remember the marathon?) and got so lost on the UKE grounds that I had to ask someone for the “Notaufnahme” (A&E) – explaining that despite my exhausted look, purple red face and fast breathing I did *not* require urgent medical help…

We’ll both sleep well tonight.

Whatever it is, it seems that the older I get, the more I worry. So, is worrying a sign of getting old?

Day 3 in the UKE, the day the operation should have taken place. It is not clear yet when it will happen now, but the earliest will be Thursday, possibly Monday.

Last night, Pat and I bought tickets to attend the civil case against the driver of the truck that hit Pádraig. It is scheduled to start on 13 April in Boston and will most likely take at least a week, probably longer.

In the evenings, I never know where the days went. They seem long in the morning but then accelerate a lot: before I know, it’s evening and I am so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open. Each change, each new location we end up in, is like starting all over. It takes days before we have all the ‘stuff’ together: blankets, pillows, suctioning gadgets (to clean his mouth), food, drips, and the list goes on and on, not to talk about physios and logos, and new nurses, new rules, new helpers, new new new.

For Pádraig, these changes must be really tough – or, maybe, and thinking about it again, they aren’t? He wasn’t one that worried too much about things. Even when flying with Ryanair, he never queued and always walked in last, in a very relaxed way, to find his seat – and who, who is ever relaxed on a Ryanair flight I ask you?

Worrying is a sign of getting old. So I’ll stop right here and now. (Though I’m not really sure whether that’ll make me feel younger, at least I’ll stop wasting time worrying, and get onto the Dreamboat instead:)

Another day at the hospital, another tale.

All of this morning, there were meetings and forms and tests. As a result, the doctors decided that Pádraig needed to be treated with an antibiotic before the operation. Nothing too bad about this, only that it means that tomorrow won’t be the ‘big day’ and that the operation will be postponed until Thursday at the earliest.

This feeling of timeless drifting in space I had forgotten about is creeping back in. There is no ‘Pflegedienst’ here and I have been appointed Pádraig’s personal nurse. The ‘real’ nurses stick in their head from time to time, maybe 3-4 times a day, to check if we need anything and if we do they get it. Food is served equally often: breakfast, lunch, Kaffetrinken, and dinner.

But when the door is closed, this room could be anywhere. There is no connection to the outside world, except the internet and a big window. It’s so weird and strange that last night felt as if I had woken up every half an hour, checking where I was.

This evening, we organised a few journeys: Pat is going to see a therapy centre in Pforzheim, which I visited last year with a friend and to where a number of Irish parents are now bringing their children who can’t get adequate treatment in Ireland.

We also bought tickets to Boston where the civil case against the driver of the van that knocked Pádraig off his bicycle will take place in mid-April. When I think about this… I won’t tonight. Tomorrow is another day.

This day last week, Pádraig’s grandmother died when I was on the way to see her.

For today, the German word is “Entwarnung”.
One of the most famous German groups these days is Deichkind, and their last album “Niveau, Weshalb, Warum?” has become a huge success.

They had an IT problem and were half an hour late (where will it all end???) but they did arrive eventually. Unfortunately, not with the collapsable stretcher and not with the bigger car – which meant that the stretcher could not be brought into Pádraig’s room (we had to carry him out of the room in the lifter instead) and that Pádraig’s legs had to be slightly doubled because otherwise the door of the ambulance supposed to carry him to the UKE would not have closed. All of this stuff is really predictable, we’ve been there and done it. Why it happens again and again, although this time I had highlighted his height when ordering the ambulance, will remain the secret of the ambulance companies:)

Each time we arrive in a hospital, it’s the same procedure: attempting to gather all the ‘stuff’ Pádraig needs. Usually it starts with the extension to the bed. Then it’s ordering a special mattress (as he will not move much in the bed). And it goes on …

This time, we have a double room. I have been admitted as a carer, with a bed and an ‘all inclusive’ food deal. It makes so much sense for the hospital. They don’t have the staff and the capacity to look after patients like Pádraig, so they get the insurance to pay my all-in stay.

Pádraig was a bit apprehensive but then it seems that he like where he was. For the first time – yes, another first!!! – he finished a full bowl of broccoli soup for dinner. Something seems to be happening these days: he is really into strawberries (well, who isn’t?), he manages to finish a cup of tea, and had no problem finishing the freshly squeezed orange juice his friends had bought for him. OK, I hear you say, this is just premium food that smells nice, has a great texture, and tastes like heaven – who would not eat or drink this?

Well, Pádraig would not have just a few weeks ago, at least not with this relative ease and natural-being-himself ‘gusto’!

Tomorrow, there will be a few conversations with doctors, planning the operation, as well as a few routine tests. Nothing too stressful, I hope, but probably time consuming.

Finally, another first: This is the first time that Pádraig is in an ‘open’ room – no isolation, no “Kittel” or aprons, face masks, and gloves. Can’t believe it.

Today’s move was good. Here is to hoping that the next few days will work out well!

PS 1: I almost didn’t manage to get back home, but this morning I managed my 25k run in preparation for the Hamburg Marathon. – Just checked out Andrew’s fundraising page and got a bit of a shock: just 35 days to go!

PS 2: Hopefully, I will be able to reply to your very kind comments you posted over the past few days, following the death of my mother. I really appreciate each and every one of them. They gave me the strength I badly needed to get through the past week and the coming weeks and years. Thank you!

The Day After and it is still not real.

There was the day itself, organised and arranged. There was the event.

There are those who have gone before her: her brother, her husband, one of her daughters.

There’s us, left behind to do the best we can in the time we’ve got left.

Pádraig got a new wheelchair, a “Netti”, the day before yesterday. It took the technician around 2 hours to set the chair up for Pádraig – and we already wonder how we managed with the old on. It’s a brilliant chair!!!

Tomorrow afternoon, Pádraig and myself will check back in to the UKE, this time on a urology ward, pre-op on Monday, and the operation on Tuesday. Hopefully, we’ll be back out in a week. I hope and pray that all will go well.

I did not have the energy yet, to answer all who sent us their best wishes but will do so soon. In the meantime please let me thank you for all your kind words and messages.

It was a long day today. A day when Pádraig was missed a lot. He and my mother really did get on so well. Since the accident, my mother was constantly asking for him, constantly telling people about him, constantly praying for him.

Pat stayed with him in Hamburg, but in spirit they were with us all day.

I am not sure whether you have experienced this, but it seems like that when remembering difficulties fade, even more so when persons died, to a point when you wonder about your own memory. Which is what happened to me during the remembrance.

German funerals are also distinctively different from Irish, as are the people attending.

Tonight, I am not sure whether I am grasping the enormity of what has happened.

Back in Hamburg, back with Pat and Pádraig. Yet, the world ain’t as it was and will never be.

This is the day before.

Pádraig had a great breakfast this morning with his two visitors from Dublin, with lots of chat and good humoured laughter. When they left, I did a bit of work and then left myself to collect our daughters on the way to my sister’s where we will be staying tonight.

We’re going to bed early and will be driving to the cementary through the early morning rush hour. Because the funeral will be early, the mass will take place afterwards in Nordkirchen. We’ll then have soup and sandwiches. – It’s all quite different from what a funeral in Ireland would be like.

I wonder what the day and the day after will be like.

There are a few things that I wanted to write about. Some revelations from the German health system the German magazine “Stern” reported about in late February. Or our preparations for going on the train, the special train, to Lourdes in May. The new St. Patrick’s Trail that the Irish Media reported on recently – because of the millions of euro it’s going to generate…

They’ll have to wait for another day.

Two of Pádraig’s friends are over for their now traditional St. Patrick’s Day visit. It’s really great how they keep their visits going and show Pádraig how much they care for him. It was a warm, sunny day today in Hamburg. Warm enough to explore our roof terrace and go for a walk on it, discovering it measured more than the 12 steps up and 12 steps down of the Schön-Klinik’s equivalent. But, at the same time, their visit, their stories from Dublin made me home sick, and I can just imagine what the visits meant for Pádraig. The visitors brought some recordings from a show his friend did with Pádraig on Raidio na Life years ago. Can’t wait to listen to the recordings with Pádraig.

One thing that is certain in life is that it will end one day, at least in the physical sense. But there are sensations, music, pictures, even smells that bring back memories, that bring back people to life. In a spiritual way, people that mean something to you, people that have influenced you, those who made you who and what you are, these people will never ever leave you. Whether they are with you in person or not, they are always right beside you, with you, all the way.

Today and tomorrow feel like in-between-days. The kind that let you drift away for a short time.

I’ll collect the girls tomorrow afternoon and drive with them to my sister’s house. We’ll be ready for the funeral on Friday morning. Pat will stay with Pádraig. What I wouldn’t do to have both of them travelling with us tomorrow.

What a Lá fhéile Pádraig. The first one since his accident Pádraig did not spent in hospital. Unfortunately, I was only with him for a short time today. I drove back to Hamburg at noon but it took almost 6, rather than the usual 3 hours because the autobahn was completely shut down and traffic diverted to country roads…

Thank you for all the messages of support you sent to us.

I can’t really think straight tonight – it’s difficult any night, but tonight I’m not even trying.

You might have seen a picture of Pádraig in newspaper article about the accident. That picture only tells half the story, and it’s only half the picture.

The full picture has my mother in it and was taken by my sister when Pádraig visited my mother just before he went to Boston almost two years ago, because he knew that he wouldn’t be able to see here for her birthday during the summer.

So here, there are the two of them. My mother kept the pictures beside her in her room where she prayed for him every day, where she told me every time I saw her that he was going to get better, where she held my hand and comforted me, even during her last days when she could hardly talk.

Another reason not to, never to give up. “Dranbleiben” is what makes the difference.

Deirdre just came on RTE Radio 1 talking about Pádraig.

Life is a journey.

On the road, the autobahn, from Hamburg down to my mother’s, my sister rang. I had talked to her several times in the morning. My mother was not well, but well enough to hear my voice on the phone. Even though, I decided to drive down to see her.

There were tears in my sister’s voice. I knew, I was going to be late. My mother had gone.