Klick here and listen while reading.

In a previous life, I was a travel writer. One year, my German Hamburg-based publisher asked me to write a book about Australia. It was a follow up on Ibiza. Easy. Both were islands. Both were kind of hot. Both were fun. Both guides were to be 98 pages long. Exactly. Piece of cake, I thought. So I went to Melbourne, saw my sister in law and her family, flew to Tasmania for a few days, back to Adelaide, then on to the Indian Pacific Railway. First Class. Courtesy of my Australian Family. Steak for Breakfast. In bed. In my single berth, shower-equipped super-deluxe compartment. It was unreal. As was the landscape passing by. I had wanted to see Australia’s wildlife. The dramatic country side. The reality was that for two nights and three day, each time I looked out the window, the country passing by looked exactly the same. Exactly.

The highlight of the trip was the longest straight section of railway in the world (478 km, or 297 miles). There is a youtube video capturing the excitement of this trip in 1:42 minutes – it’s far too long, because nothing, absolutely nothing ever changes. On the way, the train stops in Cook (named after former Australian Prime Minister Joseph Cook) a town so desperate to attract people that the put up a sign saying “Please get sick. Our hospital needs your help!”

The Nullarbor and the Indian Pacific are the opposite to the roller coaster. They go on. And on. And on. And on. Until you surrender. Time disappears. Vast space morphs into never changing pictures. You are tempted not to even expect anything different.

Today was such a day. It could have gone on forever. Valentine’s Day. A visit to Whitfriar’s Church in different times with the whole family (nobody had received a card back then either:). It’s a matter of “keep going”. Staying strong. Beir Bua. No change today. Tomorrow, the world will still keep spinning, keep changing. So will we, so will he.

16 February Coffee Morning for Pádraig Schäler
Aideen Cassidy
12h00 – 15h00
26 Iona Drive
Dublin 9

Today’s German Music Tip
Tangerine Dream, Das Mädchen auf der Treppe (1982). An absolute classic. It was one of those moments on TV you’d never forget. And the music! Tangerine Dream is, along with Scorpions, one of the few German bands who became famous internationally – well… 🙂 The full Tatort film, “Das Mädchen auf der Treppe” from 1982 with Schimanski and Thanner, my favourite Kommisare (yes, one is a bit macho, the other not less stereotyped, and both are a bit too much, but what the heck).
What’s hot
Schimmi und Thanner; Brecht und die Dreigroschenoper
What’s cold
Banks
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
“Was ist ein Dietrich gegen eine Aktie? Was ist ein Einbruch in eine Bank gegen die Gründung einer Bank?” (Die Dreigroschenoper (Druckfassung 1931), III, 9 (Mac). In: Ausgewählte Werke in sechs Bänden. Erster Band: Stücke 1. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1997. S. 267)

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

No two days are the same, and if one day is really really good, you kind of can guess that the next day won’t be like that. I know someone who would not go to the same place twice, a place where it was really nice, just in case the second time might not be as good as the first time, which would take away the good memories. Personally, I would take the risk – and, there is a chance that the second time might be even better. On the other hand, since you know this one is good, there’s no need to try again – you’d be better off trying something different, it’s more fun, more adventurous, more exciting. Repeating what is good becomes routine: it’s safe and predictable, but, essentially, boring.

Pádraig has been and is anything but boring. He’d go for something new, exciting, unknown, adventurous. (But then again, someone wrote saying he was playing the same two songs for one full year again, and again, and again, NONSTOP. And he had witnesses! – at least that is what he said.) So, today was not like yesterday – no surprising and encouraging hand movements today. (We all knew this was not going to happen again today, right?) But I showed RTE and German TV news to him, and, for whatever reason, I felt he was following the pictures with his ‘good’ left eye. He even opened the right eye for a good while. I could have been just the light coming out of the iPad shining into his eyes, but even a reaction to just the changing light from the small monitor would be brilliant.

And then, when I turned around, there they were. They looked really odd. Strange. But hand made and fitted. If you were in Beaumont when Pádraig got the ‘mitten’ to protect his hands, and compare these to the high-tech, hand-fitted, tailor-made Terminator-style arm and wrist protectors, you wonder (or maybe not).

I wrote the other day about the three ‘projects’ I was going to work on over the coming weeks (J1 insurance, open season on cyclists on Cape Cod, and lack of rehab facilities in Ireland). Today, I added a fourth ‘strand’ to the mix: I am going to plot a revolution in Ireland. From abroad, as any decent revolution is. If you think about it and look back in history, it is also what any self-respecting-forced-into-exile-patriot used to do.

Ireland? – Bermuda?

There were two items in the Irish news, which broke the camel’s back: one was a new study finding that “US firms ‘paid effective tax rate of 2.2% in 2011’”, prepared by comrade Prof James Stewart of the British-protestant Trinity College, and as published by the equally Brit-dominated and Ireland-hating tabloid The Irish Times yesterday. The study even suggested parallels between Ireland and Bermuda – which went a bit to far I thought. Ireland and Iceland – maybe (the only difference between these two is the ‘c’) . But, come on, Ireland and Bermuda??? Hello???

Never mind the people trying to convince you that the tax is “much higher” , or that it was next to impossible to establish what it effectively is; it’s not that difficult to establish, and it is quite well known. The other bit of news was that more than 2,500 children are waiting for HSE mental health services, 413 for more than a year – more than a year.  Sounds so familiar. It’s time to stop complaining and to do something positive.

Are you in?

In the meantime, and just in case you’d be looking for a nice coffee on Sunday, in even nicer company (you could spread the word there):

16 February Coffee Morning for Pádraig Schäler
Aideen Cassidy
12h00 – 15h00
26 Iona Drive
Dublin 9

Today’s German Music Tip
Christina Stürmer, Engel fliegen einsam (Lebe Lauter Live Tour 2007).

What’s hot
craft
What’s cold
machines
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Na, wenn es sein muss…!

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

I was going to add another few “RollercoasterRoalercoaster” just to see how long of a title you can put into this blog before it decides to cut it off itself. Well, that is one reason. The other reason is that Pádraig’s ride must be a Guinness-Book-of-Records roller coaster ride.

Today, it was up. – Was it because I was all on my own with him? My Karma?

When I arrived today, I had a long chat with the Occupational Therapist, they call themselves Ergotherapists here. She explained to me that Pádraig is getting 45 minutes a day of Physiotherapy/Occupational Therapy and respiratory therapy – each. Physio and OT are given simultaneously, as there is not much difference between the two for patients such as Pádraig. She also told me that a ‘Schiene’, I think it’s called a ‘splint’ in English, arrived today for each of Pádraig’s lower arms, wrists, and hands – though they had to return one of them as it did not fit properly. Take note: these splints had been *made* especially for him. And then somebody had checked and returned them, so that they would be re-done. The anti-thrombosis stockings which – take note – are also *made* especially for him are not ready yet either but should arrive within a few days…

So I had close to five hours ahead. We started with some music. Then it was time for a turn during which I went out for a break. Back in, I did a few simple hand and arm exercises with him. Then I read him out some news from home.  I noticed some trembling in his lower arms. He was sitting up in his bed, with his back almost as high up as it would be in the Thekla. His arms folded into the centre. One over the other. The trembling came from the enormous effort he made to lift his lower left arm.

He then did what we had not seen before: when I asked and encouraged him to lift his arm higher, that’s what he did, with his hand reaching up to his upper chest. I then asked him to lower it back again and to rest it a little. Then I asked him to do this again. He did it again. And a third; and a fourth; and a fifth time. With breaks in between. When I asked him to move his tongue out, he did it too – not too far out, but enough to disperse any doubt that he had moved it by accident. He did this a few times too.

I know, this is tiny, in the big scheme. I know, it was not my karma either that made him do this (imagine: me and karma). He was just up on the roller coaster. But I was with him. And from up there, we could see beyond the horizon. And what a wonderful, wonderful sight it was!

It was Happy Birthday all over again.

Finally, a short note on an event that friends in Iona are organizing for Pádraig. Please let your friends and family know about this, and join if you feel like having a cup of coffee with some friends on Sunday!

16 February Coffee Morning for Patrick (Pádraig) Schäler
Aideen Cassidy
12h00 – 15h00
26 Iona Drive
Dublin 9

Today’s German Music Tip
Sting sings Brecht, Die Moritat vom Räuber Mackie Messer, Music by Kurt Weill, Dreigroschenoper.

What’s hot
Roller Coaster
What’s cold
Up
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Winter Barbecue

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

There are loads of things you could say about shapes. At the end of the day, you can’t argue about taste, right? The shape of things to come. The shape of things. The shape of yourself. Shape.

So, today is my birthday. And I have one wish. Tonight we went out for a meal: five, the ‘five’ is in my age now, too often, Irish: one living in Australia, one just back from Australia and New Zealand, one originally a German, one living in Germany, and one living in Ireland; including myself; in Germany; in a Greek restaurant; with a waiter from Southern India, a Sikh. And I have one wish. Somebody tell me that the world is actually not completely and utterly confused, upside down, turned inside out, mixed up. We had a lovely evening. Remembering our trips as singles, down to Greece, on the train, and on to the islands. Shirley Valentine. Mama Mia. Oh my God. Back home, an old friend (both really old, and old in the sense of long) rang. I never hugged him (and probably never will:), but tonight I felt like doing it. Good job, he didn’t know, and I will never tell him. I have just one wish.

Down at the hospital, Pádraig is doing ok. Pat and I were trying to nail down in our own minds, how we see him improving. He opens (at least) his left eye when one talks to him for a few minutes, he has moved his head and can sustain it, he moves his leg/foot just a little bit (we think to the music), and there is definitely a great sense of presence there that hadn’t been there before. – The other good news today was that a music therapist was there to see Pádraig today.

So, we are looking for music Pádraig likes. We have our own ideas, but would welcome any advice you could give us!

I have just one wish… And – talking about music: a very good friend recorded parts of the Concert for Pádraig of Wednesday, 05 February 2014, in Coláiste Eoin. Tonight, I listened to The Bonnymen, who created and played a wonderful song about one of the blog entries: the dream boat…

It was the best birthday present ever!

Today’s German Music Tip
Berthold Brecht, “Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera): Die Ballade von der Unzulänglichkeit des menschlichen Lebens” (1928).

Ja; mach nur einen Plan
sei nur ein großes Licht!
Und mach dann noch´nen zweiten Plan
gehn tun sie beide nicht.

What’s hot
Birthdays
What’s cold
Birthday presents
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Körperfettwaage (what my sister in law dared to give me as a birthday present!!!!)

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

Lidl getting a little ahead of itself?

Today I reminded myself that I need to plan stuff and then follow that plan, check on progress, and – most importantly – cut down the list to a manageable level. It’s easy to get me going on exciting ideas, at times there are so many brilliant ideas that it is difficult to let some of them go. For years, if not decades, I’ve periodically decided to cut down on things and to concentrate on what are the important things, the really important things, and to start moving away from what just looks important. Needless to say, I never managed to do this. There were four exceptions: when each of our kids were born, and last June. In a weird, wonderful, sad, and amazing way, Pádraig is giving me the courage to do what he once wrote to me when he was a kid. (I’ll get back to that another day.)

Nurses and doctors are so supportive of Pádraig, it’s nothing short of amazing. They share our believe that he is making progress and are telling him and us to be patient, to recognize even the smallest step of progress and to realize how all these small steps will be adding up to one giant leap for Pádraig one day. They continue to work on the speech valve and his swallowing and are planning to increase the time he uses the valve instead of the ‘standard’ breathing through the trache over time. A doctor today said that his leg and foot are definitely getting smaller, slowly but surely, which means that he is dealing well with the thrombosis. Another really important change over the past week or two is that Pádraig’s heart rate came down what I would call almost dramatically to close to normal. It’s hard to say why this is happening, but it can only be good. Friends keep visiting, keeping him company, and many are in touch with us planning their visits to Hamburg. It is a truly humbling experience. The energy, the love, the support, the good humour in what are really sometimes desperate times, the believe in a better future – if man can shape destiny, Pádraig will go down in history as the prime example of what friends can make happen for you.

In the meantime, I have started to work on three important issues that I believe have to be raised in connection with Pádraig’s accident:

1. the empty promise of insurance companies to young students going on a J1 to the US, and how they can be rained in;
2. the open season declared on bicycles on Cape Cod, and how that can be stopped;
3. the lack of adequate care and support for ABI patients in Ireland, and how that can be improved.

We believe that the SUI will take up the issue of insurance; I am in the process of writing an article for a well-know publication in the Boston area on accidents involving bicycles on Cape Cod; we managed to get some press coverage on what I would call forced emigration of patients from Ireland.

Unless you work in computing or localization, you might not be too familiar with Unicode and ISO 10646, both encoding system for international characters for the digital world. You might not be too familiar with ISO either, although this is one of the world’s most important standard committees. Well, through dealing and wheeling, Ireland’s representative on the 10646 committee managed to get the ISO to agree that they would provide digital encoding for Ogham – an ancient Irish writing system. One of Pádraig’s friends left a message for him and a reminder to stay strong: it Ogham, and it says Sláinte, Health.

Today’s German Music Tip
Hannes Wader, Dat du min leefst büst (1974). One of Hannes Wader’s most beautiful songs in ‘Plattdeutsch’, the language (the dialect?) of Northern Germany.
What’s hot
Sláinte
What’s cold
Breoiteachta
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Illegale Steuertricks (from the recent cover of the Spiegel magazine)

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

A man who had not seen Herrn K. for a long time, greeted him with the words: “You have not changed a bit.” – “Oh!” said Mr. K. and turned pale. – Bertholt Brecht, The Reunion (Das Wiedersehen). – It’s one of those very short stories the fabulous Brecht wrote about Herrn K., raising in them and with them questions at the core of the human reason of being. It’s one of the few stories I remember from my German classes, and it’s one that came back to me recently. Herr K. was shocked and went pale when an old acquaintance who he had not seen for a long time told him that he had not changed at all. If you are over fifty, you would probably look at this remark as a compliment – on first sight. When I first read this story as a teenager, however, I fully endorsed it: I just wanted to get older, being able to do more things, being able to change, to grow, to experiment with life. The last thing I wanted was to remain the one I was.

Today, a friend came for a visit who had been away for more than two years. He had followed Pádraig’s journey since the accident from a distance and had regularly sent his best wishes and thought, but he had not been able to visit him until today. With him, during the first few minutes of the visit, I think we all lived through the horror once again. The horror of someone dependent on technology for survival, that someone being someone you had seen last time as someone full of life and energy. But then, something amazing happened when we talked about the fantastic times they had spent together: there was no doubt, absolutely no doubt whatsoever that Pádraig would one day be back right into the middle of where the action is. If there had been any doubt in my mind before, after this conversation full of conviction and determinedness there could not have been any doubt left over, doubt on Pádraig’s rehabilitation.

Sunday is a quiet day in hospitals, Germany included. No sitting out today, no therapy. But he was keeping well and was delighted to see is old pal from downunder. As it happens, his aunt, also from downunder, also arrived today. It’s great to see how Pádraig’s friends are staying with him. Didn’t have the time yet, but will put up pictures and videos a friend send on soon to the website.

Both Pádraig and his friend know that they and there relationship to each other had changed quite a bit since they last met. At the same time, they would never ever have expected that next time they’d meet, circumstances would be so dramatically different. – At the end of the day, what matters is the feeling of being together again, planning the next card games and outings. What a wonderful afternoon this has been!

Today’s German Music Tip
Turns out that Hamburg is the country’s capital for indie distributors, among them Soulfood, Indigo, Edel and Broken Silence; together with Indie-Labels like Buback, Grand Hotel van Cleef, Audiolith and Tapete. Here is an example of the music they are producing:
Alcest, Shelter (2014).
Have to find out more about this…

Remember yesterday’s mention of the bar in Garding? The owner is a singer/song-writer. He is looking for venues, he says that he wants to tour Germany, but who knows… http://rainermartens.de

What’s hot
Love
What’s cold
Hate (Love/Hate)
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
DieWennNichtDannWannJetztTour

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

An “Optimist” – a small Olympic class boat we got as a present from our German family who thought it would entice the kids to pick up sailing. It didn’t.

Honestly, for how much longer are you going to read this blog? Have you ever asked yourself this question? Or: for how much longer is he going to keep this up? One question I have asked myself sometimes late at night. Sometimes, I think I’m going to run out of stuff to write about. Then, there is so much coming into my mind but before I can remember it, it’s gone.

Yesterday, I picked up the latest issue of ‘ZEIT Wissen’ which had a lead article on Optimisim and Pessimism which got my attention. They interview psychoanalyst Wolfgang Schmidbauer on what they called “one of the central questions of our time”. I didn’t want to buy the journal but flicked through the article. Schmidbauer made a few points that got stuck in my head. He said that, in principle, pessimists were right: even your life starts with a birth that is so dangerous that you can count yourself lucky for having survived the hours of suffering before seeing the light of day. From then on, each day gets you one day closer to your death. But, just getting closer to your own death would be too easy. Instead, as you are slowly dying, you see your parents, your family, good friends, acquaintances all disappearing around you, before it’s your turn. Schmidbauer asks his interviewer, how anyone, anyone could not doubt even for a split second that the pessimists are right. The outlook is not great at any rate. But being right is not good enough, he says, pointing out that Optimists have more fun. People who can ignore, at least for periods, what is going to happen to them, on a random day in the future, are happier, often healthier, and generally good company – that is, except pathological optimist who just do not ever life in the ‘real world’. When the interviewer asked Schmidbauer whether he is treating those way-over-the-top ‘optimists’ in his practice, he answered: “They never show up in my practice. Why would they?”

Pádraig is waiting for this Sunday to come, and with it some of his dearest friends, as well as his aunt now living in Australia. He continues to sit out, getting physio now even on Saturdays (not everyone gets that), and waiting to leave the high dependency ward in order to start proper early rehab.

I forgot to mention that I met Joe O’Connor, SUI President, during the week. We want to work with the SUI to make students going on J1s to the USA this summer, and purchasing J1 packages, aware that they should not rely on the promise of a 6.5m euro cover as part of their J1 package. Pádraig, and us, thought that in case the worst possible thing would happen, at least he would be covered by this multi-million euro five star policy. It turned out that he wasn’t. Because in the middle of the small print somewhere on page 13 or so, cycling without a helmet was excluded as a ‘sports activity’ – even though he was not doing any sports at the time, did not do anything illegal, he was, like thousands of other young Irish students, just cycling to work on a bright morning in June – an ‘activity’ the travel agency had sold him a whole five star package for… but then declined cover.

Just in case you were wondering: I’m not planning to give this writing lark up anytime soon. And I am trying to be optimistic, without burying my head into the sand. “Living one day at a time” (Reinhold Niebuhr) I hope you’ll keep reading, and keep staying with Pádraig.

Today’s German Music Tip
Crazy Horst, Nirvana (2013). Georg Dittmar alias ‘Crazy Horst’ recorded this song in Soundworksstudio Husum (just up the road from Tating; remember Tating?) with Frank Bossert. Published on the famous Silverware Label. This fantastic song is the record holder for the song with the lowest number of hits on this blog: 417. Crazy Horst played recently in Lütt Matten in Garding, one of Germany’s smallest cities, with one of the best music scenes, in Lütt Matten and the Kontor, next to Tating (yes, Tating.)
What’s hot
Optimisim
What’s cold
Pessimism
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Zuversicht

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

2 o’clock in the morning. Red watch. In the middle of the Atlantic. Pitch dark. Our watch is bored and has trouble to stay awake. The boat, an old herring fisher converted into a sailing ‘yacht’, is in the middle of nowhere, on its way from Halifax to Belfast. Two old men, one from Germany and the other from Canada, and two women from Belfast are on the watch. One of the girls proposes a game to help us getting through these hours of nothing. Let’s all make a confession.

Try this. One night, when you are sitting around a table with your friends, when it’s getting late and everybody getting a bit tired: play this game where each of you has to make a confession.

In our case, on the herring yacht, the two Belfast girls knew each other, at least they had met before. The German and the Canadian were both new. So what did they confess to? The confession of the first girl was so un-interesting that it was immediately forgotten; the Canadian confessed to really like the Bee Gees; the other girl from Belfast confessed to have, one evening, read the test messages on her boy friends phone – and yes, they did split up once she was finished reading; the German had to think quite a bit to come up with something he could confess to. He was tempted to make something up. Nobody on this boat had checked his past; nobody on this boat knew who he was; nobody could check whether his confession was a made-up confession. When they all got on board just a few days ago, nobody had checked their luggage, not even their passports.

He wondered what his watch mates would say if he told them that he was a convicted drug dealer; or, maybe, just a drug dealer (without any convictions). Or a smuggler, a thief, a killer, a terrorist, an agent… It was the perfect moment to make up a whole new life. He could leave everything behind and become somebody else. It’s happening to us every day anyways. We don’t go to bed as the people that we wake up as. But this was different: it could have been a radical change, in a split second.

Sitting our for more than 4 hours. Breathing wiith minimal oxygen by himself. Slowly but surely managing the thrombosis. Good breathing, heart rate, blood pressure. Two friends from Ireland who visited him over the past few days said that they thought he looked much better than a few weeks ago back in Beaumont. It’s difficult to see the small but continuous change when you are with Pádraig all the time. So it was really good to get this feedback from them. – Today, we stayed in the room when the nurses moved Pádraig from the viva-la-Thekla back into his bed. That and the daily evening hygiene and bedding took an hour altogether. Half of that hour, two nurses were working with Pádraig. – I had to think of the pictures the physios in Beaumont had taken of Pádraig bedded correctly for the nurses on the ward (never looked at by them), and the sign they had placed above his bed asking nurses not to pull Pádraig up by his arms but by placing their hands behind his shoulder blades…

Oh, I don’t remember what I confessed to. I didn’t make up a ‘second life’, I remember that much. – I just had to think of this night on the boat, in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, this moment where I could have re-invented myself. In a split second. However, change, especially radical change, is not of your own choosing. It happens to you when you least expect it. A lesson that life had not taught me yet back then.

Today’s German Music Tip
Tokio Hotel, Beichte (2006). One of Germany’s best known ‘rock’ groups with their take on confessions. One of the best known songs of Tokio Hotel is Monsoon, ‘singing in the rain’ from 3m30s which ruins Bill’s hair do. (Imagine Hellmut Hattler playing bass on this song… if even the thought is not too outrageous.)
What’s hot
Red watch on Tecla
What’s cold
Lack of courage to embrace change
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Ostereier (the first of this year are making an appearance in the German supermarkets)
Ab in die Falle

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

It is beyond my comprehension. But then – this is probably not about comprehension anyway. On a morning in December of last year, a few friends met in Coláiste Eoin to plan the most incredible event. They started to talk to people who were on board immediately. They got bands and choirs to commit to a free concert. They organized an event for 600 people, and when the tickets had sold out, added another hundred chairs to the hall. Together, dozens of musicians and singers with hundreds of enthusiastic supporters lifted the roof of the school hall. The interval took place at a time the concert was supposed to be over – when it finished just after midnight, something must have happened that is way beyond comprehension. But all about community. I had so much wanted to, but could not join the audience. I would not have been able to control my emotions. When teachers and staff of Coláiste Eoin told me today about what happened last night, it was clear that something wonderful had happened in the school, something way beyond what anybody would have expected. Something that the school, the staff, and its students must have been aware of before, but might have found difficult to capture or put into words. What a spirit of community and care and support! It don’t think that anybody of those present or involved will ever forget this. Neither will we. Neither will Pádraig.

He was sitting out for a bit over four hours today, and taking it really well. The doctors ordered specially fitted pressure socks for his legs because of the thrombosis. In the meantime, they use supportive bandages on the affected leg. He continues with strongish doses of blood thinners to keep the risk of an embolism as low as possible. Today as the last day of his current course of antibiotics; we hope he’ll be able to stay off this medication for as long as possible.

Today’s German Music Tip
Die toten Hosen, Steh auf wenn Du am Boden bist (2013?).
What’s hot
Bigger than ‘real life’
What’s cold
Being on your own
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Mach voran

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

For someone who, at times, and in a good way, most times, could be just that little bit impatient, when others, being just ordinary people, occupied with ordinary things, that constrained their ability to look beyond the horizon, to see what he could see, could not keep up with him, not just because they were slow thinkers, but also because they were only mere mortals, rather than teenagers in their early twenties, who were full of doubts, deeply worried about the world, nothing less, but full of confidence that the future is theirs, even if they didn’t really want to grow up, because they enjoyed the moment they live in so immensely, the friends they could talk to, drink with, play cards with, plan stuff, run with, learn with, find them with, and whatever else, for someone who is taller than life, so tall that neither ordinary clothes, no bed, no shoes, no desks, and no space, no idea, no goal or aim or heart, was big enough for him, for someone who had to share what he thought, who would not hold back on his opinions, who enjoyed arguments, in a good way, not being able to move (much) by himself, not being able to speak, or even make sounds, for more than seven months (with some very small exceptions), not being able to smell, not being able to taste food or drink, not being able to tell you that what you are doing or just said made absolutely no sense whatsoever, looking at you in amazement because you just made the most outrageous statement ever apparently, and not to give up on life is nothing short of a miracle, I think. But, who am I?

All the figures are fine, no need for intervention, no need for a respirator. A kind of rehab is kicking in: physios in the morning, speech therapist in the early afternoon, and sitting out in the viva-la-Thekla again in the early evening. A word on the speech therapists (I know, I know): they do not teach Pádraig to talk (what an insult even the idea of it would be). Instead, they swap the “Feuchte Nase”, the gadget in his trache that ‘stands in’ for his nose so to speak, they swap this with a speech valve which allows him to breathe in through the trache, and to breathe out through his mouth. What a feeling that must be after such a long time. They also teach him to swallow again properly, so that his saliva goes down the right tube. The plan is to do this about three times per week, increasing the time he uses this speech valve from 15 minutes to half an hour to several hours, and so on. The ultimate aim is, of course, to get rid of the trache altogether.

Tonight, a concert for him takes place in Coláiste Eoin, his secondary school, the place where he really started to discover how much fun learning, friends, and life can be; where her developed his deep love for Irish and Ireland. He is there, right in the middle of his friends.

He will not be silenced for long. Maybe he is using the silence to listen for meaning in a world full of noise?

I can’t wait.

Today’s German Music Tip
Samy Deluxe, Stumm (2009). German Rap?
“Und sag mir bitte wieso scheint es,
als ob du hier nur reich wirst, wenn du schon reich bist,
in einer Welt wo die Mehrheit arm ist
und in der du ohne Bares nur ein Scheiß bist.
Und so ist es und bleibt es
und jeder weiß es, aber ich sag es und mein es.
Jeder hier hat eine Chance verdient.

Und das ist was sie mit uns machen man sie waschen uns den Kopf,
sie regieren und manipulieren uns, überwachen uns mit Cops.
und es gibt niemand der was tun kann, die ganze Welt ist im Konsumwahn.
Alle sitzen vor der Glotze oder sie hängen vor ihren Computern.”
What’s hot
Voice, smell, taste
What’s cold
Lack of sense(s)
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Träumer

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