I sit and wonder....: Progress is always positive

Friday 17 December 2021

Progress is always positive

I have a Traumatic Acquired Brain Injury. I was given it in 2006.

Since, I have been learning to live with it.

I have had a variety of ‘therapies’ but have maintained great focus on Physiotherapy.

I am so incredibly lucky because there is nothing greater than ‘improving’.

I may never even walk again, but I do, potentially, always have it as a target.

By moving forward, you can always stop, review where you have come from. There is no better.

Progress is always positive.

Even sporting champions at the top-of-their-game, reach an end-point. Fortunately this is not me!
2019 was a crazy year for me. I fell a number of times. I broke bones. I had surgeries, followed by further stays in hospital. If you investigate this blog, you can read my posts of the time (archives - http://patrickgoodacre.blogspot.com/p/annual-archive.html).

Personally, the year was highlighted by the joy at my brother’s wedding, and attending the Green Party Conference in the late Autumn.

A short while later, I fell as I was getting into bed, one night…

I had taken my ankle/foot splint off, as I didn’t sleep wearing it. I had worn it everyday since 2008. For 11 years, I had supported my ankle by wearing this plastic splint. Without it, my foot could not be flat on the floor, I couldn’t stand properly. Vital, it was vital for me. I had always felt slightly alarmed that I would need this splint forever!
Insane levels of gratitude are paid to Kingston Hospital, who had found incredibly weak bones in my ankle (I hadn’t been ‘using’ my ankle, for eleven years). It was decided to surgically insert a pin (a ‘hind-foot nail’). I warned the surgeon that he would likely struggle against my spasticity which I know I have to live with since my Brain Injury of 2006.
Then, I come out of hospital, and the world is going crazy! Coronavirus.
It should never surprise me, that I feel slightly overwhelmed by my situation!
;)

Music.

A brilliant summary by David Byrne, inducting Radiohead into the Hall Of Fame
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WvE9X9SFKg

One of my all-time-favourite Radiohead tracks.
Originally, I only had this song recorded on a tape cassette, which I played so much, that I think I wore it out!
I had a VHS video of the ‘Meeting People Is Easy’ during my early obsession with OK Computer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IukmT0Jgwyg