Tag Archives: germany

Stayin’ Alive

07 Sunday Dec 2025

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To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.
Alan Watts

Pádraig is going to a pool as often as possible. It’s one of our favourite days of the week.

He stands, he walks with a little assistance, and he floats. He really enjoys his time in the water.

For the first time since his accident, he recently relaxed so much that he managed to float on the water just by himself and just supported by a “swim noodle” under his arms and legs.

It was an impressive and a massive first. There were no uncontrolled movements, no spasms, just pure and balance.

Staying Alive

Feel the city breakin’ and everybody shakin’; And we’re stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.

This weekend I am at a seminar for parents of those with a brain injury. I’ve been going to them for some year now. They are organised by the ZNS Foundation and they are completely free.

I got to know a few parents by no. When I am back in Germany, getting a bit of a distance helps me to see our situation at home more clearly. I am always learning something new.

This weekend’s seminar took place in Bad Bevendsen, a smalll sleepy spa town in the north of Germany , but a town with a difference.

The local cultural and music association run concerts and events that are out of this world. This weekend, there was a concert by a band that played the best of disco and Motown music.

Germans go dancing. Even Germans over 50. And the place was packed.

One of the best songs of the night the band played was Staying Alive.

What a powerful message on the eve of the second Sunday of Advent.

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

We have arrived

11 Monday Nov 2013

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Pádraig and I have arrived in Hamburg, Germany. The staff at Beaumont Hospital had got up in the middle of the night today to prepare Pádraig for his second big trip in four months. An ambulance picked us up at the hospital and we arrived safely at Dublin Airport a few minutes later. We had to wait 45 minutes for airport police to complete some paperwork, and then they escorted us to the air ambulance waiting for us on the tarmac. The flight was relatively uneventful and took less than two hours. Out of the plane, into the German ambulance, and off to Hamburg-Eilbek’s Schön-Klinik (no paperwork this time).
Pádraig was brought to the neuro ICU, located in a 2-year old building. Upon arrival, there were about eight hospital staff who checked him in and made him comfortable. I had a 30-minute ‘welcome-talk’ with an ‘Oberarzt’ (senior doctor). She explained to me that they will test Pádraig for multi-resistant bacteria and that his room will an ‘isolation’ room until the swabs will come back. This means, you can only get into this room with a special disposable apron and a face mask for the next three days or so. Once Pádraig has settled in, she is planning to run a number of tests and scans to get a better picture of Pádraig’s condition.
Following a very long day for both of us, I had to leave Pádraig to look for a hostel. It took a while, but with the help of hospital staff who let me use their computer and internet, I found one.
So here we are, Pádraig in his new bed in the Schön-Klinik, me in a hostel not too far away from Hamburg’s main train station – both of us absolutely exhausted. I am writing the first entry into our hospi-tales, something I intend to do every day from now on. I hope these tales from the hospital will help us to stay connected with Ireland, and the town Pádraig and I loved so well. This is a new beginning, with new hope. It’s a new beginning but with a heavy heart.