Otherness

12 Friday Dec 2014

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Totally confused.

It was obvious when I came to Ireland in the eighties. I was German and this was a different country with different customs, people had a different way to deal with each other, and they didn’t stop asking me whether I liked it in Ireland (sometimes, people still ask me, and how do you like it here?:). And back then, when I told my Irish family that in Germany police was wearing pistols and everybody had an ID that they had to carry with them all the time by law, they looked at each other and said something that sounded like ‘police state’. But I was in a new country and I was still learning English and didn’t stop wondering about my new country.

It was a bit less obvious when we brought Pádraig to Germany and (re-)discovered what it means, in Germany, to rent an apartment, to buy a mobile phone contract, to make sure that there is no condensation on the windows (‘lüften, lüften, lüften’). I thought I was German, but looked at what was going on with my Irish eyes (often smiling at the German way of doing things).

It was completely messed up, durcheinander,  when I was in Ireland this week. What is the ‘other’ and what is ‘mine’? I kept taking pictures: at the airport where Connect Ireland in an attempt to lure new foreign investment to the country was trying to connect JFK, Enda Kenny, and Martin Sheen; then, when I got to my Aer Lingus flight, it all felt and looked like as if it was Ryanair in the old days: every bag was measured and checked for the maximum 10kg weight; and on a German magazine they were making fun of Germany’s most treasured seasonal symbol, Oh Tannenbaum, the christmas tree…. Is it me who is durcheinander or is someone, some dark force, trying to mess with me. All of a sudden, all was foreign, all was the ‘other’.

 

To be back with Pádraig was good. And then: he finished a huge portion of pureed apple with chocolate yoghurt, no bother. It was so good that we’ll try some ‘normal’ pureed food at noon, and the pureed apple in the afternoon tomorrow. It would be brilliant to get him back eating more regularly and, eventually, to get rid of the tube feed, the PEG.

And, Pádraig managed to get into the wheelchair for the first time after his operation. For just for a bit more than two hours. It was great. He must have felt really good. And now, after the operation, he doesn’t need a helmet anymore either. A whole new feeling.

Today’s German Music Tip
O Tannenbaum without and O Tannenbaum with, subtitles
What’s hot
‘Otherness’
What’s cold
Confusion about the ‘otherness’
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
O Tannenbaum

Turner

11 Thursday Dec 2014

Posted by in EarlyNeuroRehab, Hamburg, North Sea

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Loads of meetings and talks over the past two days. It is good to do ‘normal’ things though I wonder… For example, this morning I bought a coffee in the cafeteria in UL where my office is. It was €1.85. Going up to our meeting, I bought another coffee in the same cafeteria and I paid €1.65. The first was a ‘sit-down’, the other was a ‘take-away’ coffee. No other difference. Then I looked at the prices of stuff on offer. Remember, this is the university, most clients are students.

In case you can’t read it: Can of Coke €1.20; Smoothie €3.45; 7up €1.70; and – talking about water charges – a bottle of water for €1.70. The coke is cheaper in a corner shop, and the water is cheaper in the airport.

Then I bought the paper and got a brilliant Martyn Turner’s 2015 calendar with it for free. For each month, there is a cartoon, with a bit of an explanation underneath.

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Underneath the cartoon, he writes that he was asked once to draw a cartoon for Christian Aid. Apparently, if all the multinational companies operating in Africa were made to pay their taxes their, there would be no need to pay rent. Turner connects this to Apple in Ireland…

Pádraig was good when Pat got back this evening. She told him a few funny stories, things that had happened here in Ireland. And for each of the four stories, she got a gerat smile. So, not only did he understand what Pat was telling him, he also still has his sense of humour.

It is great to be here, to see (or at least speak with:) our daughters, and just to be at home. But it’s also as sad as it can get. There is Pádraig’s room with is stuff. When I was cooking for us tonight, I could here the door to the kitchen being pushed open and a big guy coming in asking what was for dinner and when would it, eventually, be ready… How can he be in Hamburg, in a hospital, in a bed?

Run

10 Wednesday Dec 2014

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Some, well: many, very many years ago, I decided to buy a CD with the movie Shrek in Germany. I thought it was so funny and entertaining that Pádraig and his sisters would like it so much that they wouldn’t mind that it was in German. It would be a great way for them to learn more German, in a fun way.

They were delighted.

Pádraig took the wrapper of, took out the CD, pushed it into the CD player connected to our telly, selected ‘English’ – and off they went having a great time, watching ‘Shrek’, laughing their heads off. Only that they movie was running in English. The tech guru that I am had not even thought about the possibility that CDs come in different language versions. Well, they do…

When I watched ‘Shrek’ in German (on my own:), I realised who badly translated all the nursery rhymes were. ‘Run, run, like the Gingerbread Man’, for example was translated literally, word by word. Good job, I thought, the kids had not watched it in German!

I had to think of that story yesterday, when Pat and I saw the German version of the Gingerbread Man, called ‘Stutenkerl’, with the typical pipe (the kind I had once used for my first smoking adventures).

Tonight, Pádraig’s big sister is with him. She’ll be there with him until Pat goes back tomorrow. Today was such a busy day that I can’t think clearly, my head aches, my eyes hurt.

Just before I switch off the light, a thought about the scandal ‘discovered’ at this home in Mayo. What I haven’t heard any commentator saying is that there was nothing to be ‘discovered’. Everybody working there, including the management, knew what was going on, and if they did not participate, they allowed it to continue. In the same way that everybody in the ‘system’ knows that long-term patients in hospitals and homes, patients with severe acquired brain injuries, people who cannot protest, get injured and suffer with dropped feet, dangerous bed sores, and injured shoulders. Everybody knows… “how the State treats the most vulnerable people” (RTÉ news at 9, tonight).

Today’s German Music Tip
Udo Lindenberg, Gegen die Strömung – As a song, it’s ok. As a title, it couldn’t be better. The world needs more people moving against the current, against the wind, being themselves, knowing what is right and what is wrong.
What’s hot
Skrek
What’s cold
Run, run, Gingerbread Man
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Stutenkerl

Separation

09 Tuesday Dec 2014

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We separate for you! (So you don’t have to do it yourself.)

I am on my last trip away from Hamburg and Pádraig before Christmas. There will be a family visit tonight (probably over by the time I manage to send this), a very very very early drive across Ireland to the West, over to Limerick at lunch time, overnight stay there, back to Dublin in the evening, and back to Hamburg on Friday. (Just took a deep breadth when I finished writing this list. It’s longer than I had thought.)

We went to see Pádraig this morning before we left for the airport. He had been with a couple of therapists and they could not get over how alert he had been: movements and reactions all as per their requests. It was one of his really good days.

Handy: The Germans separate for you - at Bremen airport.

Handy: The Germans separate for you – at Bremen airport.

Tomorrow will be one of the very rare days when neither Pat nor I will be with Pádraig. We’ll be separated, in a way. But one of his sisters will be with him, and Pat will be back a day ahead of me.

It’s just after midnight now, time to go to bed. But before I go, I wanted to just mention that in between a hectic, long day, tonight I met with one of Pádraig’s great friends from whom I collected some of the CDs. When I write from Hamburg, I think about and feel the friendship and energy, and I know Pádraig does. However, being in the company of his friends is a completely different kind of thing. And I can probably not even just imagine, how that would be for Pádraig.

And two very last notes on what has been on the RTE +1 channel – we missed most of the report from that ‘home’ for people with disabilities, but watched the discussion. What the RTE investigative unit discovered was called by the reporters assault. – What would you call ‘treatment’ that leads to dislocated shoulders, haematoma, dropped feet, and spasms? I’ll stop here and go to sleep. It’ll be another day tomorrow.

Pull-up

08 Monday Dec 2014

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What do you think when someone mentions “pull-ups”? Seriously.

Body builders? People who want to pep up their muscles?

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To be honest, I don’t think I ever managed a pull-up in my life. I haven’t given up on it yet, but it’s still going to take some time before I’ll get there.

Well, I was thinking about that when I was doing those really mindless exercises with Pádraig. Fingers, hand, lower arm, upper arm. About ten times up and down. Not that they wouldn’t be good for him. They are. But it’s very passive. And boring. And sooo un-challenging.

So I thought: why not try some simple, easy ‘pull-ups’. Just starting with the arms.

And while doctors and physios are still discussing whether he is able to open and close, and close and open, his hands, or at least one hand, and which hand works better than the other… I put my hand into his. I lifted my hand up. And guess what? Pádraig held on. All by himself. He, by himself, held on to my hand (I did not hold on to his) and when I lifted my hand and arm up, his arm went up to.

There was no difference, absolutely none, between the left hand and the right hand. He held on to my hand (I did not hold on to his) when I lifted my arm up, and he basically pulled himself up (well his arm, at least) by holding on to my hand when I lifted it.

Today, we did it 20 times on each side. Another first!

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By Christmas, at least some of his muscles will be back (and I’ll have built up some on my own too:).

Today, his doctor stopped one of the drugs Pádraig had been getting to control possible cramps. We don’t know, of course, whether this was just coincidence – but today, Pádraig ate really well, a full plate of chocolate pudding and mashed apples. No problems with swallowing at all. And he spent another few hours with the cannula blocked off. No problems with that either.

We had a short conversation today with his doctor on his tracheostomy and the different views we got from a speech therapist and two nose, throat and ear doctors in the UKE. We’ll keep exploring all the options and working on the best solution for Pádraig.

Today’s German Music Tip
Udo Lindenberg, Baltimore. – A German version of this great Randy Newman song, about the seagulls coming into town for survival in a city where you really don’t want to be – because its end is near. They steal a car and get away, far away. Take my hand.
What’s hot
Pull-ups
What’s cold
Pull-downs (is this a new word?)
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Klimmzug

Watt

07 Sunday Dec 2014

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So watt?

Last night there was someone trying to play Neil Young (the younger) in Lütt Matten in Garding. You’ve probably been at gigs where you felt like “I could do this”. “Only better”. Last night was one of these nights. As much as I like Neil Young, it was also the wrong place for his (early) songs. And the performer was somehow stuck with the earlier Neil. Had he taken out the electric guitar, he would have had a chance.

Early this morning, we went out into the Watt. It’s different each time you go. Today, it was so windy that the ground seemed to be moving. Magic.

And, in the middle of it, in the middle of nowhere really, platforms on stilts, for the Strandkörbe, those big seats protecting beach goers from the wind in the summer. They are rented out by the day or the week. All deserted in the winter, of course. Imagine anything like that in Ireland.

Pádraig continues recovering well from his operation, the swelling on his head continues to recede, slowly but surely, he continues to breathe well for hours with the cannula in his trachea blocked off, and all his ‘vital signs’ are in the green – unless one of the sensors goes crazy.

He has some visitors from Ireland. Two old friends (hope they don’t mind me saying so:) who were his first swimming coaches when he was small. I know, it’s hard to imagine Pádraig was ever small, but he was. They have known him for a long, long time and have always kept in touch. What a great sign of true friendship.

When they left they said they would ask one of his swimming friends from way back then to visit him. And guess what: he smiled and ‘said’ “yeah”.

Today is, of course, the second Sunday of Advent. There is no better time to be in Germany than Advent, for atmosphere. Unless, of course, you wanted to be somewhere else, and with all of your family. One day.

Today’s German Music Tip
Radio. Geht ins Ohr. Bleibt im Kopf. Wattenmeer.
This is for an advanced lesson in German, really great for learning about “Kölsch” – not the beer, but the German dialect spoken in the Cologne region. It’s a play on the word ‘Watt’ – which means both ‘what’ (in “Kölsch”) and ‘mudflats’ (the mud flats covered and uncovered by the tidal movements of the sea – for which the north sea cost is famous). It’s a recording of a series of advertising radio advertising on German radio, if that makes sense…
There’s another one, for our English-speaking readers:)
What’s hot
Watt
What’s cold
North Sea water
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Watt isn hia los? (‘Watt’ moved to the Ruhr:)

Nikolaus

06 Saturday Dec 2014

Posted by in ABI and early intensive neuro rehab, EarlyNeuroRehab, Hamburg, Uncategorized

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It’s all Martin Luther’s fault. Really. He decided that we should live without saints. Imagine. So he decided to move away from the Heiliger Nikolaus as the one that brought the presents and make that the job of the “Christkind”, baby Jesus, instead. And, apparently, when the Dutch went to the newly discovered continent across the big water, they brought Sinterklaas with them. After a while, he became Santa Claus. And we all know how Coca-Cola transformed him into this big guy in a ridiculous red dress and a white beard.

Today, we used the ‘blue cap’ to close Pádraig’s tracheostomy/cannula completely. He managed really well over several hours. We only put the ‘speech valve’-type top back on before we left in the evening. The fact that he can breath sufficiently well despite the cannula in his trachea, when the cannula is closed off, in my mind doesn’t leave any doubt that he could breath without it in his throat – and probably much better, because he would not have this constant irritation and, in effect, narrowing of his respiratory tract. We’ll keep at it. At least it would be worthwhile to try and see how he would manage without the tracheostomy.

And, with the ‘blue cap’, he finished a full yoghurt.

In the spirit of Advent and Sant Claus, multi-culturalism, and the idea of ‘otherness’, here is an ad from a Hamburg mainstream newspaper advertising the “Große Adventsaktion” during the weekends in Advent.

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Whatever it is, it’s not an add for your traditional German “Weihnachtsmarkt”!

Today’s German Music Tip
G. F. Händel, Tochter Zion – if you want to practice German Christmas songs, here is one, with subtitles:)
What’s hot
Nikolaus
What’s cold
Coca Cola’s Santa Claus
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Wer gutes tun will, muss es verschwenderisch tun. (Martin Luther)

Head(s)Up

05 Friday Dec 2014

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I visited my mother this morning. She didn’t stop asking for Pádraig. How he is, whether he understood what we are saying to him, whether he can move, how strong his voice is… She stopped every nurse passing by (and there were a few of them) to tell them that I was her son and that my son was very sick in a hospital in Hamburg. We spent a few hours together and we talked about Pádraig. Going over the same questions again and again. Memory doesn’t get better with age.

Seeing your parents get old and fragile, not being able to help themselves anymore, when they had, all their lives, helped you with anything you had ever asked them for (and sometimes with things you hadn’t ask them for:), seeing your parents in such a situation is terribly sad and breaks your heart.

When I had to leave her to drive back up to Hamburg, I wasn’t myself. I couldn’t be because I would have been too upset. I switched off. For self-protection.

Back in Hamburg, Pádraig was doing well.

I know, I know, you have been waiting for this for a long time: there was another “first” today. During the physio session he managed to hold his head up for a minute or two, without any support. He was sitting in the bed, with a physio supporting his back, and another moving his legs when, all of a sudden, they noticed his head – and almost couldn’t believe what they saw!

A bit like Santa coming early this year. In fact, there were a few of them on their motorbikes coming down from the North pole riding South, with Mrs Santa on the back seat. I’d say they’ll take the ferry to Ireland from France, so they should be there in time for Christmas!

TheDayAfter

04 Thursday Dec 2014

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Pádraig is recovering well from the operation. Today they took out the iv catheter and stopped the antibiotics. The swelling on his head is still there but it is going down. He can’t get into the wheelchair yet, but he has started his attempts to talk again. I only realised how much he is trying when he couldn’t anymore during the days around the operation, because they had put in a ‘safe’ canula (tracheostomy) that they could block for the operation.

I played the videos to him this afternoon and he was wide awake and alert listening to the music. I keep telling him how much you, his friends, are doing to support his recovery, and how lucky he is to have such a loyal crew on his Dreamboat.

Me – I just made it before the first snow. Back to the garage near my German family’s home that has kept the winter tyres (remember the winter tyres?). After one of these long drives on a superfast German autobahn (wir fahrn, fahrn, fahrn, auf der Autobahn… see below) in a super small Korean car, I’ll be leaving again tomorrow, with proper winter tyres.

0 PadraigBut before, there’ll be time tomorrow to visit my mother who is in a nursing home since she had a stroke that paralysed half of her body. She is always asking for Pádraig, always praying for him. One of the last pictures we have of Pádraig is from his last visit to my mother, just before he took off to Cape Cod – he knew he wouldn’t be home for her birthday, so he went to see her and wish her all the best.

I will show my mother the videos and play her the music, and I know she’ll be thrilled.

Andrew posted something on Facebook that I want to share with you.

 

(ENGLISH BELOW)…Bhuel a chairde. Bhí oíche aréir DOCHREIDTE. Slua ulmhór daoibh ann. Go raibh míle maith agaibh as ucht teacht. Níl figúr crinn againn ar cé mhéid a d’ardaíomar, ach beidh go luath. Rinneamar taifead ar an rud ar fad agus beidh físeáin thuas go luath. Déanagaí CINNTE rá le gach duine gur féidir leo brontannas álainn a fháil don Nollag – ordaithe ar líne agus seolta sa phost ag www.amhrandophadraig.com

…………………………………………..ENGLISH…………………………..

Well friends. Last was INCREDIBLE. So many of you turned out, It was fantastic. Thank you so much for coming. We don’t have an exact figure on how much has been raised, but we will soon. We recorded the whole thing so videos will be up soon for anyone who missed out. Remember to remind everyone that they can get a BEAUTIFUL Christmas present for a friend or colleague at www.songforpadraig.com. Order it online and it’ll be sent in the post to your address!

 

He is right, of course. Thank you for coming, thank you for singing, thank you for your great company!

And here are the short videos I managed to get from last night’s launch. You’ll enjoy them. There’s one in there from Brooklyn, sent by Gabriel Corcoran, with his own rendition of the Dreamboat.

The Brooklyn “Dreamboat”

“Raglan Road” by a young Luke Kelly re-incarnation

“The Dreamboat – live”

Sailing

03 Wednesday Dec 2014

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Let’s sail and have some fun!

As the Dreamboat is being launched tonight, Pádraig is listening to the incredibly beautiful songs, the music, and the poetry his friends put together for him.

Tonight, he is back on the ‘old’ canula (so that we can hear his voice), he doesn’t need any more oxygen, tomorrow they’re going to take him off the antibiotics he got after the operation (just in case), the swelling on his skull is receding, and on Monday they’re going to remove the stitches.

Over the past days, there have been uncountable tweets about the #dreamboat and #AmhrándoPhádraig, song for Pádraig. People have been traveling from Europe and all over Ireland (even from Dublin’s South Side, I heard!) to get to the Grand Social on the River Liffey’s north bank for the mother of all album launches this side of Christmas.

The Irish Times reported about it.

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The Herald reported about it.

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It made it to the front page of Seachtain

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And Newstalk had a special feature on it.

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And there have been tweets, re-tweets, FBs, LinkedIns in their hundreds from people and friends from around the world who are with you, the Dreamboaters, tonight in the Grand Social.

To be honest, I have no idea what is going on here. Ich passe. Whatever it is, I’ve never seen anything like it ever before, even in my wildest dreams. (Maybe it’s because I doubt, even when I’m dreaming:)

Lights! Action! – Get onto the Dreamboat. We’re all Dreamboaters. We’ll keep going. And on the way, we will always care for each other, no-one will ever be on their own no matter what and no matter where, and – we will have some fun. Mar an fear a bheadh féin a bhí. Dreamboaters, ahoi!