Christmas Mass in Germany is different. Well, at least in a catholic church in protestant Hamburg. We went for the 9 o’clock mass. You know the one you go to because you want to go early, before you stick the turkey into the oven and put the ham into the biggest pot and onto the fire to cook both for hours. It’s all about timing. Getting the turkey, the ham, the potatoes (boiled and roasted), sprouts and carrots and broccoli, getting it all ready at the same time. Although – that’s the easy part. Much more difficult is it to get all the people around the table all at the same time and not too long before the dinner is ready.

The organ playing was impressive, the priest’s singing was quite good (he sang everything, from hymns to the Our Father). This was the short early mass, before the Hochamt later on, so it just took over an hour. Half an eternity by Irish standards.

Instead of turkey and ham, we had a big breakfast and went to the hospital to join Pádraig. He has received so many cards and present that there ain’t enough tables to hold all the cards. Thank you to all, on behalf of Pádraig, who sent him great cards, great presents, and really really nice messages. You know the song Ronnie Drew sang about Spanish being the loving tongue (or something like it). Well, I think that Irish must be the loving tongue because many of the good wishes that Pádraig received were in Irish. It is brilliant to have such a bond and to be able to express it in such a beautiful language. It means 1000 times more than just ‘words’.

Pádraig continues to do well. There hasn’t been a dramatic jump in how he is. But there have been slow and steady improvements. He has been eating twice for (I think it must be at least close to) a week now, and not just stewed apple but mashed carrots and potatoes and, for the first time today, bananas. When we left him this evening, I was sad, as I always am when we leave him, but we knew that he is getting better.

He is the guy with the hat looking towards me 🙂

To celebrate Christmas, we went to have a drink in our favourite bar in our favourite hotel – and guess who we saw and talked to: Udo Lindenberg, you know him if you had a look at some of the music links in previous blogs. He looks great, is extremely polite, and moves and talks very much like the Udo Lindenberg you would see on stage. He is who he is. And I hope he’ll continue for a long time!

Check out the Interview (in German) with Udo im Atlantic, the Highlights of MTV Unplugged recorded here, or the song “Mein Ding” featuring the hotel.

Maria and I went down South. It sounds like a trip to the Rio Grande and the border to Mexico. In a way it was. After all, everything south of the river Elbe is foreign territory – at least that is what the people living north of the river say.

We left Hamburg towards the end of the day. Pádraig was in his wheelchair when we left and had eaten a full ‘Gläschen’ in record time: 45 minutes. He was managing ok on the capped tube, breathing in and out through his mouth. All of us were happy that he was doing ok. Doing ok. Was hat die Zeit mit uns gemacht?

I am staying with a really good friend tonight, one of the real ‘old’ ones, the night before Christmas Eve. I had planned to do this for the best part of the past year, and it never worked out. To be honest, I could have stayed up for the rest of the night to talk, about anything, no desire to sleep (sleep is over-rated anyways), no desire for it to end. We have known each other for a long long time. And the welcome, meeting his family, talking the night away, was just great. Was hat die Zeit mit uns gemacht?

Today’s German Music Tip
Udo Lindenberg, Was hat die Zeit mit uns gemacht? – Der Winter kommt, der erste Schnee der kommt…
What’s hot
Talk
What’s cold
Sleep
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Nu komm endlich ma zu Potte!

I was looking through pictures I took since the end of June of last year. There are hundreds of them. One of them would have been enough. One of those roller coaster rides would have been enough.

The fact that we are in Germany and Pádraig is getting the care he is getting is a privilege. But it is a scandal, too. He is separated from his friends and his sisters and family.

When we listen to Irish radio and television these days, we hear about so many people coming home for Christmas. One of the songs that’s always aired is ‘Driving home for Christmas’.

Pádraig is keeping well these days. Slow and steady progress with eating and the capped tracheostomy tube. A few hours in the wheel chair, a short few stroll in the wheelchair on the roof terrace.

There is a lonely plastic tree on the ward.

It almost looks like another one of those hundreds of pictures I should never have taken, when one of them would have been plenty. More than enough for a lifetime.

Think about it: what do the Dreamboat and today have in common?

Last night we didn’t manage to get into Lütt Mattens in Garding. It was Christmas Song night and it turned out to be so popular that by the time we arrived, it was so packed that there was no way to get in and sit down. Last night was also an extremely stormy and rainy night and we thought that there was no way that, today, we could go for our early morning walk on the beach of the North Sea.

This morning, though, was very different. It was one of the most beautiful Sunday mornings we have seen here during the autumn/winter months. The sun was rising, the sky was blue, the sea roared because of last night’s storm, but the wind had quietened down, and it was just gorgeous.

The point? Probably no need to explain…

Pádraig was keeping well. There is a whole lot of things that he is not able to do, like walking, controlling his body, or walking, giving out, arguing, going out, debating. But he understands what we are telling him. He can eat. He can drink in sips. He can communicate with us, saying yes and no to things, using his tongue. He can, sometimes, lift his arm. He can squeeze our hands. He can hang on to my hand when I left it up. He can let go. He can breathe. He can cough.

We were devastated. Then we were full of hope. Now we are living a new life. An Saol. With you, with his friends, never on our own.

At 23:03 (GMT) today, this year’s winter solstice will take place. From now on, we’ll have longer, brighter days. Good for sailing. Down the stream. On the Dreamboat!

Solstice.

Today’s German Music Tip
Chakuza, Dieser eine Song 
What’s hot
The gorgeous morning after a dark night
What’s cold
Dark nights
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Du alten Dussel!

Saturday. The last weekend before Christmas. This time last year, we had just moved in to the apartment close to the hospital. Smoke alarm testers arriving just after 7am; a ring at the door by the man from the Wohnungsbaugenossenschaft who had just passed by the house and had noted condensation on the window; building work going on in the apartment next door starting at 7am and never ending.

All this seems to be so far away.

In a month, we’ll be moving again. This time not into a ground floor apartment, but into the one on top of a newly built house – with a nice roof terrace of our own and, what’s even better, with a lift Pádraig will be able to use to go out for a walk, onto the street with other people, old and young, dogs, cars, traffic, noise – life.

Pádraig has been using the ‘cap’ every day for more than four, almost five hours. If he can manage that for some time and manages ok, we hope that it’ll be easier to remove the tracheostomy at some stage. We also went out onto the roof terrace. It’s a long walk pushing Pádraig down the corridor in his wheelchair, picking up the key at the nurses’ desk on the way, and out into the cold, quite dark, and windy Hamburg afternoons, afternoons that look and feel like nights. It’s great that Pádraig manages to sit in the wheelchair for many hours every day without any bother. Sitting out and moving around a bit must be so much better than lying in bed. It’s not just better for circulation, it must also bring some diversion to these long days in his room.

Today’s German Music Tip
Clueso, Du bleibst (Did I post this ‘tip’ before? I hope I didn’t:)
   Du willst mehr von der Welt seh’n, leb’ deinen Traum. 
What’s hot
Moving
What’s cold
Being stuck anywhere
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Jez höa mia abba ma gut zu, mein Freund!

‘Tea’ is not ‘tea’.

It took me years to understand that.

So when Pádraig was having ‘tea’, he was not actually having ‘tea’ but what I would call ‘Abendessen’.

We had ordered it and it promptly arrived for 6pm. I had never seen anything like it before. The nurse who brought it in said it was Vollkornbrot. Before I passed it on to Pádraig, I decided to taste it because it certainly did not look like anything near bread. Amazingly, it tasted exactly like bread although the texture was utterly different.

So, Pádraig had bread, and I added it to the long and longer becoming list of ‘firsts’!

We re-discovered Santa’s boot that someone sent to Pádraig last year. – Can you help us to find the person who sent it to him? Here’s a picture of it!

Today, Pádraig almost had two hours of music therapy. In the first hour, we sang German, English, and Irish Christmas songs. “Everybody can sing, but not everybody can not sing”, said the music therapist for encouragement. The second hour almost happened but we were on our way to the roof terrace, all rapped up, when the music therapist arrived and we decided that it would be too complicated to get back into Pádraig’s room and take off all the heavy clothing…

Today’s German Music Tip
Udo Lindenberg, Stark wie Zwei – Die rufen gleich an und sagen es war doch nicht wahr…
What’s hot
Bread
What’s cold
Tea 🙂
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Vertrauen ist gut, Kontrolle ist besser. – Attributed to Lenin who apparently never said this – but something quite similar: “Nicht aufs Wort glauben, aufs strengste prüfen – das ist die Losung der marxistischen Arbeiter.” (Werke, Band 20. Dietz-Verlag Berlin 1971, S. 358)

Pádraig had an early start with a double session of physio starting at 8am. We made it, and so did the two therapists who were going to work with him for the best part of an hour and a half.

What they often do when they have a bit more time (double session:) is to get Pádraig on to the tilt table. That’s what they did today. They also told us that they are trying to stand Pádraig up three times a week, which is really great because it’s great for a whole wide range of things, not least his blood circulation.

To make it easier for Pádraig to hold his head, one of the therapists positioned himself in front of Pádraig, at eye level (the therapist had to stand up on a chair for that:), and then put Pádraig’s arms stretched out on his shoulders. I had never thought of it that way but it did take off some of the weight and pull on his shoulders and neck – which allowed him to keep his head straight for quite some time, without any help or support, which was really brilliant.

He just had a few minutes of rest after all this before the speech therapist came in, just to check what kind of food Pádraig could eat and whether it was ok for him to drink. So she took a spoon and gave Pádraig some water. And to all of our surprise he was able to handle it, no probs.

Well, there is another first.

In addition to the two-meals-a-day, we’ll start giving him some water to drink, a bit every day – who know’s where that will get us to! Isn’t it great?

Water, water, water,…. what does that make me think of…?

Today’s German Music Tip
Rolf Zuckowski, Nikolaus und Weihnachtsmann – a song we sang driving for hours on end around Christmas…
What’s hot
Drink
What’s cold
Water
The German word/phrase/verse of the day

Ich kenne die Weise, ich kenne den Text,
Ich kenn auch die Herren Verfasser;
Ich weiß, sie tranken heimlich Wein
Und predigten öffentlich Wasser.

Ein neues Lied, ein besseres Lied,
O Freunde, will ich euch dichten!
Wir wollen hier auf Erden schon
Das Himmelreich errichten.

(Heinrich Heine)

The day started badly. I woke up in a panic. It happens so often that I get mixed up with the time that I got paranoid about it. There is always this hour: one ahead in Germany, one behind in Ireland. Since my calendar started to schedule appointments for me it never managed to make up its mind whether it was making the appointments for me in German or Irish time – all of which also depends were I am at the time in question.

I kind of relaxed thinking that the appointment could not have been made for 7am. Yes, I know, the people checking the smoke alarms in our apartment arrived just after seven, and when they were renovating the apartment next door, the workmen also started at around that time. But a garage? Never!

I decided to play it save and guess what the guy in the grey kittle (it’s white for doctors, grey for engineers) said to me when I arrived at the garage at 7.20am? He said: I am so sorry but I cannot check the car out right now, the next appointment will be arriving in 10 minutes and that will not give me sufficient time for your car. Leave the keys and the papers here and I will squeeze you in some time during the day. Would you believe it?

It was 7.20am in the morning!

On the way back home on the bus, I thought for a moment that Michael O’Leary of Ryanair had taken over Hamburg bus: there were ‘stand-up seats’ at the back of the bus!

Thankfully, the day got better.

Pádraig once again got the magic 66/99 heart rate/oxygen levels ratio (that’s the figure you can turn onto its he’d and it still means the same, remember?). On a couple of occasions he even reach 100%. It literally couldn’t get much better than this. He continues to eat twice a day – and we are determined to make that ‘3’ next week! We’re also asking could he not drink!? Not completely liquid-dy things, but there is stuff you can put into drinks to make them a bit thicker so that there is less of a danger for it to end up in the wrong tube. We went out for a walk again on the roof terrace: 13 steps in each direction, a bit like Sing-Sing.

We asked would there be a Christmas event, with songs, smells, o tannenbaum, and general feels-like-Christmas type of stuff. There will be one on the ward tomorrow just after lunch, but Pádraig will not be able to join in. We won’t be able to bring in any Christmas tree look alike, and we won’t be allowed to take him out even for just a few hours. – We promised Pádraig that this will be the last, the very last not-so-much-fun-in-hospital-kind-a-Christmas!

Got word today that An Saol is now a registered non-profit. A bit of progress on this front too, so. A beginning!

Finally, just heard on the Irish News that Beaumont Hospital is asking patients not to attend its emergency department because of overcrowding. Leo agrees that this is not the ideal situation. But is he doing anything about it?