I’ve been here too long, since January 10th (my accident was on Boxing Day last year). My sanity, such as it is, has been severely tested. Unfortunately I’ve been unable to go mad. More than anything I’m desperate. I want to get out and come back to London, though London is probably something of a fantasy. I imagine things will be better once I am in my home city, back with my friends and family, but I also know that that might not necessarily be the case. Things will inevitably continue to be difficult.
I’m afraid of leaving here. I am afraid of staying here. The boredom is overwhelming. I am having less physiotherapy than before; the course I was on has come to an end, which means I am lying in my bed for hours of the day, with not much to do.
It is difficult for me to read. I’ve sort of figured out how to read the newspapers using voice control. A friendly paraplegic from Milan sent me a MacBook Air which I can use with the help of Siri and my speech. It is quite hard work yelling at a computer for hours, and it is not always so efficient. I listen to audiobooks, but somehow my situation here sours them. They are not as much fun as I thought they would be. They are somehow rendered morbid by my gloomy state of mind.
The Maestro has left my room; he has pneumonia again and has been moved to a general hospital for more serious treatment. Miss S is leaving next week, to a flat in Rome. Since my significant friends here have gone, I feel left behind. I’m trying to move into a hospital in London, but it’s proving to be very complicated and slow. I can’t just move from here to there; I have to get in through the NHS, probably via a general hospital for an assessment before moving into a rehab facility outside of London.
I’ve been told that I am making progress, and I’ve been going on the Lokomat, the walking machine, which supports you and moves your legs. My dizziness has gone. It’s wonderful to have the illusion of walking again, and as I “walk” on the machine, for about thirty minutes each time, I imagine I am striding along beside the river at Hammersmith with our dog Cairo. I miss the ordinary things. There is nothing I can do to get back to them.
I talk on the phone to my analyst once a week. I’ve been in conversation with him for almost thirty years and I still have plenty to say. He continues to say fresh things that surprise and stimulate me. Several of these blogs have come out of our conversations. It’s a unique relationship: I’ve spent more time talking with him than I ever did with my parents, and talk more intimately with him than I do with my friends.
My kids and family visit most weekends. Some of them have made the trip to Rome five times. It’s incredibly generous of them and it passes the time agreeably. I feel like a normal person chatting to them, rather than a patient, or someone whose life has been totally upended by a random accident.
The blog and the work Carlo has done to keep it going has been really significant for me. Substack is a remarkable thing because it means I can write something quite quickly, as I am doing with this, and publish it to a large audience - around fifteen thousand people on Substack, seventy-two thousand on Twitter - without having submit my work to a magazine or an editor. I receive responses from people all around the world, some of whom write quite long, moving pieces in their replies, about their own lives, accidents, hospital experiences – material that Carlo and I always read.
Carlo arrived yesterday and shaved me, as did Sachin last week. We walked around the garden, talked, I love to hear about their lives and what they’re doing. It also gives Isabella a break from taking care of me. It’s horrible to be so helpless, losing the use of my hands is the worst thing that’s happened to me. I pray that I will have more movement in them in the future, or at least in one hand.
Your loving writer,
Hanif xx
Every time I get a head cold, I remind myself I should be swimming in gratitude each day that I am well.
I’m glad you tell the truth about the situation. I’m glad you don’t pretend to be feeling better than you are.
If good wishes and thoughts were cures, you’d be walking without assistance and writing with your hands. I am VERY MUCH hoping you get back the use of your hands.
I don’t know what else to say. Except this:
I am stunned at how arbitrary life is. How just a freak accident can cause this amount of dreadful.
Oh, another thing: thanks for taking the time to yell at your computer. Your readers are grateful.
Hi Hanif,
I’m not sure if you’ve come across this poem.
Wishing you well.
“The Thing Is
BY ELLEN BASS
The thing is
to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms , a plain face ,
no charming face , no violet eyes ,
and you say , yes , I will take you
I will love you again.