Accidents with devastating sequelae often leave you with a ‘what if?’ feeling, which is a waste of time because we can’t re-spool time and do things differently.
I took my husband to Amsterdam for three days in March to see the Vermeer exhibition, and to thank him for being my carer. I’ve had disability of hands and heart and lungs and removal of colon and leg and loss of fingers and toes for many years.
On day one, my NHS prosthetic leg came off in my hotel room as I was walking out of the door. It went flying into the adjoining bathroom and I went flying onto the ground, where I managed to shatter my only remaining tibia and fibula. Two weeks in a hospital in Amsterdam followed (A and E was hellish, I was told to be quiet by the nurses as I sobbed in agony) but the ward was fantastic. Who would guess that in Amsterdam you can ask for not one kind, but for different kinds of psycho/social support: psychologist, social worker, religious figure, or spiritual guru.
I was not fit to fly back, so had to pay £20,000 to get back by ambulance, helped by beautiful friends who had a collection and raised 8K.
And since then, I’ve been unable to walk . Casts caused five pressure sores. One of these was in the Achilles tendon and necrosed right through, so I now have foot drop and wouldn’t be able to place my foot flat on the ground even if my bones were healed.
After six months of non-healing, they erected an external fixator on my leg with 16 pins going into my bones and what looks like a three storey gerbil hutch of cages. I haven’t slept more than an hour since. A lot of it is the pain of the Achilles tendon which seems to not respond to morphine.
Anyhow, I know there is no point in mulling to myself ‘if only...’ Yes, if only I had been given a prosthetic leg which fit properly; if only I had not sent my husband out of the hotel room minutes before so I could have a nap (and then realised I missed him and put on my prosthetic leg and headed for the door), if only someone had realised that the cast was giving me five pressure sores - I complained about the pain in tears every night to the junior doctor on call and she always said she would tell the person she handed over two in the morning, but the message never reached the consultant.
But really, any sort of wistful musing leaves me feeling unhappy. Yesterday I watched the film Breaking Glass, which came out when I was a teenager writing for the New Musical Express at school. I heard later I was going to be offered a staff job the year I left London to study medicine in Edinburgh. I feel melancholy when I think that I could have had two careers and ended up having none- I had to take early retirement just three years after becoming a consultant anaesthetist, and I was also trained as a physician. So I had more letters after my name than in my name but I could no longer write my name because of losing the fingertips to gangrene and the swollen, ulcerated remains going into contractures.
Sometimes it’s hard to see the right side, even though I still write - book reviews for The Spectator. I spend a lot of time in tears nowadays, which I can’t remember doing in the past ever, unless I was thinking of a discrete trauma such as a break-up.
Tonight I have invited friends round. We will drink and I will order in delicious Indian food. I know my life is coming to an end, but I’m determined to live it before I leave it.
My goodness Leyla, what a devastating series of events for you. I’ve never read your words before this comment on Hanif’s Substack but thank you so much for writing them. I too have had a series of mishaps and accidents and loss over the last few years, which don’t compare to yours but you write so well of the many ‘paths not taken’. Beautiful writing. Brava 👏
Thank you so much. Writing is such a useful form of catharsis. Sometimes, when I am feeling anxious or something, I write things down and then they are out of my system. I have a substack blog where I review books, art, current affairs, and talk about other subjects. Everyone is welcome to become a free subscriber: leylasanai.substack.com m
I hope that your own mishaps and loss over the last few years have not been too devastating. Talking to loved ones is such a precious commodity. And even writing out into the Internet to strangers can reap rewards, such as coming into contact with fellow souls.x
Oh Leyla, you poor thing. I think I have come across you before, somewhere, somehow. I am glad you are still writing. The universe is not fair. You are showing amazing dignity and courage in the face of all this. I also suspect it is very tiring to be so ill and that you are worn out of it all. I understand the need for delicious food and friends. I hope you enjoyed your night. Hugs to you. Hannah x
Thank you so much, Hannah. You are very kind. Sometimes I don’t feel very dignified when I cry - I’m an ugly crier.
The evening with friends was so therapeutic. It makes me realise I should do it more often. Being with other people brings you out of yourself and helps you forget your disabilities for a short time. x
Hi Leyla, thanks for your response, I don't mean you should be dignified by not showing emotion, more that you have an elegance and acceptance about the situation which is quite rare. (although I'm sure that also wobbles). I think a display of ugly crying is entirely justified. Hugs, Hannah x
I slipped on a wet floor in my favorite library one day on my way to do my research. I cursed all the people with umbrellas who had shaken them just as they walked in the door. A few weeks later, I tripped over one of the new bike bumps in London that were meant to protect bicyclists but broke my cheekbone because I hadn't realized they were in my way. You're right that every day there are a thousand ways the world can thwart our future life, limb, movement, even our ability to process ideas. Your writing gives hope to so many people who have been thwarted by accidents, both material and immaterial. Every letter you send makes me sure you have the power to move that mouse a little further tomorrow and take one step and then another in the weeks to come. I hope you have wonderful music to accompany you now in the hospital of accidents and I thank your family & friends for helping you to get these messages to all of us who cheer you on. Know that what you write matters immensely.
it's possible that your friends' injuries after visiting you were not entirely accidental but born of unconscious guilt about their relative health! Yes, I'm a psychoanalyst
I once worked in the oncology department at a hospital. For a while there was a patient who would come in for her Radiotherapy, who was always very chatty. One day she turned up with her arm in a sling. I asked her what had happened. She told me she had broken her elbow, while reaching for a hat box on a high shelf.
Later on, I worked on a neuro-rehabilitation ward. Occasionally there would be patients who had suffered severe head trauma, mostly accidental, though a few of the injuries were the product of assaults. One man – an illegal immigrant from Eastern Europe – had been bludgeoned with such ferocity, by the people to whom he owed money, that the surgeon had no option other than to remove a large part of his skull. It looked like one side of his head had been planed-off at a steep angle.
The accidents that brought people onto the ward were almost always prosaic. Most of them had tripped over and banged their head. It's the kind of thing that could have happened to anyone. I tripped this morning on the rug in the hallway, though I managed to regain my balance. It if I hadn't read this blog post, I would have thought nothing more of it, and yet it could have easily turned out differently.
I recall a severely brain-damaged man who had fallen and banged his head on a patio. There wasn't really much that could be done for him. His daughter informed me that she didn't want him to be discharged from the hospital until he was back to the way he was before the accident. I said nothing, as I was not qualified to give medical opinions. Privately, I thought: “Have you not been listening to anything the consultant has been telling you?'
A combination of witnessing the disproportionately severe outcomes of what appear to be very minor accidents, coupled with the mandatory safety training that I was required to take on an annual basis, while working at the hospital, has turned me into an intolerable person who will walk into a room, identify any trip hazards, and then taken steps to remove them. I have done this in other people's homes, and I am sure it has been noted and remarked upon in my absence.
There is a horrifying universal injustice at work in the random manner in which life-changing injuries are meted-out: At the age of 18, whenever I had a free period at school, I would drive my car at speed around some country lanes nearby. One time, I rounded a corner to discover that a lorry had shed a load of bricks. I was going pretty fast. I slammed on the brakes and, more through luck than judgement, managed to avoid a collision. A couple of years later, Kai – who I'd gone to school with – died when his motorcycle collided with a reversing tractor. The same year, Fung Yee, who was a good girl with a fatal attraction to young men who treated her like crap, died in a car accident. Her boyfriend was driving too fast when he lost control and ploughed into the concrete pile of a bridge. I survived my own recklessness. They didn't. There is no reason or rhyme to it. That's just the way it happened.
I think back to my 20s – and even my early 30s – when I was still gung-ho. Some of that perceived invulnerability returned after I was diagnosed with PSC and I became quite nihilistic. I concluded that I was a dead man walking and that's how I carried myself – with the unerring confidence of someone who was too dumb to realise that he still had plenty to lose.
I tried to conjure god into existence, after my friend, Cat, died, as a consequence of her own battle with PSC. I thought it was unfair. My grief, which thankfully went unwitnessed, assumed the form of extreme melodrama, though there was nothing performative about it. I was devastated. I begged the deity I had conjured into existence for the opportunity to swap places with her. I argued that I that deserved it more. I cajoled and threatened the progenitor of creation. If Cat had been around to witness this undignified spectacle she would have probably instructed me to stop being ridiculous..
She worked for a cinema. A dead-end job. A few months before she collapsed and never woke up, she slipped on a wet floor in the concession area and broke some of her teeth on the tiles. The management attempted to write the whole thing off as an accident – not their fault. Life chipped away at her until there was nothing left.
Sometimes, the furies will take a big chunk out of someone who is just minding their own business, while sparing a person who actively tempts fate. I have been lucky. Reading this Substack over the past year or so, is confirmation of that basic truth.
This was heartbreaking to read. I agree with you, Mr. Kureishi, that accidents can happen and will happen any time and it is hard to believe that all this is a God's will. There is too much suffering in this world and we surely can't do much about it. Wishing you all the best from Hungary.
I heard interviewed on radio some months a remarkable young woman who had the misfortune to be left paralysed after a man jumping from the top floor of a shopping store landed on top of her on the ground floor. She recounted how, in hospital afterwards, she overheard a nurse comforting a young mother who, if I recall correctly, had lost a baby.
What happened to you was a million to one chance, the nurse was telling the mother.
'Yes, but what use is that information to me?' replied the mother.
I read/heard her too. I believe she’s an NHS Dr now. I’m sure her experiences bring much to her professional life - agreed she was a remarkable young woman with an extraordinary story.
Without wanting to be unduly gloomy, I got an acute and sudden sense of life’s fragility when my brother drowned in an accident aged 36. I lived in visceral terror for quite a while - I was 33 and although of course I understood loss through the sickness and death of elderly relatives, and in the abstract events and mishaps of others, this new realisation was something I experienced almost physically along with shock and grief. I think it subsided over the course of a year or two, alongside the constant movie spool of thoughts and memories of my brother - but I’ve never forgotten that sense of how anything can happen to any of us at any moment. I was terrified for my friends, I was terrified that something could happen to me which my parents couldn’t take on top of my brother - it was very close to the surface. However I suppose that psychologically these things will recede over time, the longer we go on and the more we get used to things - as humans we’re surprisingly adaptable when it comes down to brass tacks. A lot of people have shared their pain and suffering here - solidarity to everyone. There’s community here.
I only recently found out about your terrible accident and amazing blog, and have been plucking up the courage to send you a message ever since (your books and films really marked my student years in the late 80s – I’m a huge fan). I’m so sorry to hear about what happened, and hope your courage, humour and loved ones manage to help you through this. Your descriptions of hospitals and now the rehab facility are particularly resonant for me, as my 24 year old daughter had a rare but massive stroke 20 months ago, so I have been spending a lot of time in various places like this. Her last rehab facility was an amazing place on the beach in France, a few hours’ drive from where I live. A lot of her fellow patients were survivors of accidents of various degrees of bizarreness (from driving to diving, from climbing mountains to climbing up stepladders and yes, from just sitting in a chair. Nowhere is safe!) but she loved the camaraderie, solidarity and evenings spent playing Cards Against Humanity… so I hope you can find something similar to brighten up your days and nights while you’re there. My daughter can only use her left arm, and every day I realise how complicated this makes life, so I can only imagine what it must be like not to be able to use either arm. Wishing you luck… Unfortunately, I only read about your short story competition after the deadline had been and gone. I’m trying to write a memoir of my experience, as a mother, when something unexpected and life-changing occurs, and it’s very interesting and inspiring to read about your – sadly first-hand – experience. Please keep writing! Warmest, highest regards, Lucy
I have been reading almost since you began, and particularly like this post. (will be sharing on FB). My 53 year old son died 2 weeks ago after almost 20 years of struggling with Lyme disease, the result of a tick bite in the Santa Monica mountains, where the CDC denied the presence of Lyme. Only very recently has the medical establishment acknowledged the existence of chronic Lyme. Contingency, (mis)fortune - we only control parts of our lives.
Why me? It is the most common and natural feeling, especially if you have been happy and succesful in life up to the point of calamity. For miserable sods like me, we never expected anything much. So each calamity seemed part of the "normal" order of things.
As a teenager I used to memorise various bits of Shakespeare that I thought would somehow get me through the rest of my life. On random accidents this is one I liked from King Lear:
As fles to wanton boys
Are we to the gods.
They kill us for their sport.
I was not/am not religious so I read "the gods" as metaphoricl rather than literal. But this little line from Lear kind of rang true for me. Random stuff happens - good & bad - and the mix of that is what makes our individual lives.
For overcoming adversity, or achieving something nobody thought I could, I liked this soliloquy from Prince Hal in Henry IV Part One...it begins like this:
I know you all
and will awhile uphold
the unyoked humour
of your idleness
Yet, herein
will I imitate the sun
who doth allow the base contageos clouds
to smother his beauty from the world.
It goes on...and on...and I love it still.
Like a good pop song, I probably read into this what suited me. Reading the entire soliloquy aa a 17 year old who ran away from school and got into all sorts of troubles, these words made me believe anything was possible. I could overcome any adversity, and calamity. I could get back on track when it suited me, and people would be so surprised when I did well, or prospered.
I think it is worth believing anything is possible, not because it is, but because there may be a small chance it is. The scent of the small chance is exciting in each present moment you choose to unleash it.
There is astrology that is supposed to help us understand and work with the flow of influences and incidents that comprise our life stories. I've always been afraid of astrology though- am easily susceptible to suggestion, so I stay away from it. But I have friends who don't. Some of them know astrology and I've heard it said that yes, there are all these planetary influences and things but there is still such a thing as accident. Accident! What comes to mind is the life of an insect- just doing its thing, then boom! squashed by one of our feet. Carpe diem.
A good friend of mine broke his neck in a diving accident and while in rehab his roommate, who also had a diving accident, ... who had broken his neck as a tourist in South America ...explained that he accidentally had hit a massive passing sea turtle
And what are the chances of two unexplained back to back accidents? Should I have bought a lottery ticket shortly thereafter? Did I miss out on winning as a result ? Damn it Hanif, I think I did. 💛
I admire the way you combine the discomfort and pain with touches of humour. Hospital of Accidents is so delightful: I accidently fell in love, we had an accident with birth control, I accidentally burned the house down. You are healing Hanif: yourself and myself at least.
Accidents with devastating sequelae often leave you with a ‘what if?’ feeling, which is a waste of time because we can’t re-spool time and do things differently.
I took my husband to Amsterdam for three days in March to see the Vermeer exhibition, and to thank him for being my carer. I’ve had disability of hands and heart and lungs and removal of colon and leg and loss of fingers and toes for many years.
On day one, my NHS prosthetic leg came off in my hotel room as I was walking out of the door. It went flying into the adjoining bathroom and I went flying onto the ground, where I managed to shatter my only remaining tibia and fibula. Two weeks in a hospital in Amsterdam followed (A and E was hellish, I was told to be quiet by the nurses as I sobbed in agony) but the ward was fantastic. Who would guess that in Amsterdam you can ask for not one kind, but for different kinds of psycho/social support: psychologist, social worker, religious figure, or spiritual guru.
I was not fit to fly back, so had to pay £20,000 to get back by ambulance, helped by beautiful friends who had a collection and raised 8K.
And since then, I’ve been unable to walk . Casts caused five pressure sores. One of these was in the Achilles tendon and necrosed right through, so I now have foot drop and wouldn’t be able to place my foot flat on the ground even if my bones were healed.
After six months of non-healing, they erected an external fixator on my leg with 16 pins going into my bones and what looks like a three storey gerbil hutch of cages. I haven’t slept more than an hour since. A lot of it is the pain of the Achilles tendon which seems to not respond to morphine.
Anyhow, I know there is no point in mulling to myself ‘if only...’ Yes, if only I had been given a prosthetic leg which fit properly; if only I had not sent my husband out of the hotel room minutes before so I could have a nap (and then realised I missed him and put on my prosthetic leg and headed for the door), if only someone had realised that the cast was giving me five pressure sores - I complained about the pain in tears every night to the junior doctor on call and she always said she would tell the person she handed over two in the morning, but the message never reached the consultant.
But really, any sort of wistful musing leaves me feeling unhappy. Yesterday I watched the film Breaking Glass, which came out when I was a teenager writing for the New Musical Express at school. I heard later I was going to be offered a staff job the year I left London to study medicine in Edinburgh. I feel melancholy when I think that I could have had two careers and ended up having none- I had to take early retirement just three years after becoming a consultant anaesthetist, and I was also trained as a physician. So I had more letters after my name than in my name but I could no longer write my name because of losing the fingertips to gangrene and the swollen, ulcerated remains going into contractures.
Sometimes it’s hard to see the right side, even though I still write - book reviews for The Spectator. I spend a lot of time in tears nowadays, which I can’t remember doing in the past ever, unless I was thinking of a discrete trauma such as a break-up.
Tonight I have invited friends round. We will drink and I will order in delicious Indian food. I know my life is coming to an end, but I’m determined to live it before I leave it.
My goodness Leyla, what a devastating series of events for you. I’ve never read your words before this comment on Hanif’s Substack but thank you so much for writing them. I too have had a series of mishaps and accidents and loss over the last few years, which don’t compare to yours but you write so well of the many ‘paths not taken’. Beautiful writing. Brava 👏
Thank you so much. Writing is such a useful form of catharsis. Sometimes, when I am feeling anxious or something, I write things down and then they are out of my system. I have a substack blog where I review books, art, current affairs, and talk about other subjects. Everyone is welcome to become a free subscriber: leylasanai.substack.com m
I hope that your own mishaps and loss over the last few years have not been too devastating. Talking to loved ones is such a precious commodity. And even writing out into the Internet to strangers can reap rewards, such as coming into contact with fellow souls.x
Oh Leyla, you poor thing. I think I have come across you before, somewhere, somehow. I am glad you are still writing. The universe is not fair. You are showing amazing dignity and courage in the face of all this. I also suspect it is very tiring to be so ill and that you are worn out of it all. I understand the need for delicious food and friends. I hope you enjoyed your night. Hugs to you. Hannah x
Thank you so much, Hannah. You are very kind. Sometimes I don’t feel very dignified when I cry - I’m an ugly crier.
The evening with friends was so therapeutic. It makes me realise I should do it more often. Being with other people brings you out of yourself and helps you forget your disabilities for a short time. x
Hi Leyla, thanks for your response, I don't mean you should be dignified by not showing emotion, more that you have an elegance and acceptance about the situation which is quite rare. (although I'm sure that also wobbles). I think a display of ugly crying is entirely justified. Hugs, Hannah x
Your spirit and courage are inspiring.
Wow, your story is both tragic and inspiring. And your writing is as clear as a bell. Sending you love from SF 💕
I slipped on a wet floor in my favorite library one day on my way to do my research. I cursed all the people with umbrellas who had shaken them just as they walked in the door. A few weeks later, I tripped over one of the new bike bumps in London that were meant to protect bicyclists but broke my cheekbone because I hadn't realized they were in my way. You're right that every day there are a thousand ways the world can thwart our future life, limb, movement, even our ability to process ideas. Your writing gives hope to so many people who have been thwarted by accidents, both material and immaterial. Every letter you send makes me sure you have the power to move that mouse a little further tomorrow and take one step and then another in the weeks to come. I hope you have wonderful music to accompany you now in the hospital of accidents and I thank your family & friends for helping you to get these messages to all of us who cheer you on. Know that what you write matters immensely.
matters immensely!
it's possible that your friends' injuries after visiting you were not entirely accidental but born of unconscious guilt about their relative health! Yes, I'm a psychoanalyst
I once worked in the oncology department at a hospital. For a while there was a patient who would come in for her Radiotherapy, who was always very chatty. One day she turned up with her arm in a sling. I asked her what had happened. She told me she had broken her elbow, while reaching for a hat box on a high shelf.
Later on, I worked on a neuro-rehabilitation ward. Occasionally there would be patients who had suffered severe head trauma, mostly accidental, though a few of the injuries were the product of assaults. One man – an illegal immigrant from Eastern Europe – had been bludgeoned with such ferocity, by the people to whom he owed money, that the surgeon had no option other than to remove a large part of his skull. It looked like one side of his head had been planed-off at a steep angle.
The accidents that brought people onto the ward were almost always prosaic. Most of them had tripped over and banged their head. It's the kind of thing that could have happened to anyone. I tripped this morning on the rug in the hallway, though I managed to regain my balance. It if I hadn't read this blog post, I would have thought nothing more of it, and yet it could have easily turned out differently.
I recall a severely brain-damaged man who had fallen and banged his head on a patio. There wasn't really much that could be done for him. His daughter informed me that she didn't want him to be discharged from the hospital until he was back to the way he was before the accident. I said nothing, as I was not qualified to give medical opinions. Privately, I thought: “Have you not been listening to anything the consultant has been telling you?'
A combination of witnessing the disproportionately severe outcomes of what appear to be very minor accidents, coupled with the mandatory safety training that I was required to take on an annual basis, while working at the hospital, has turned me into an intolerable person who will walk into a room, identify any trip hazards, and then taken steps to remove them. I have done this in other people's homes, and I am sure it has been noted and remarked upon in my absence.
There is a horrifying universal injustice at work in the random manner in which life-changing injuries are meted-out: At the age of 18, whenever I had a free period at school, I would drive my car at speed around some country lanes nearby. One time, I rounded a corner to discover that a lorry had shed a load of bricks. I was going pretty fast. I slammed on the brakes and, more through luck than judgement, managed to avoid a collision. A couple of years later, Kai – who I'd gone to school with – died when his motorcycle collided with a reversing tractor. The same year, Fung Yee, who was a good girl with a fatal attraction to young men who treated her like crap, died in a car accident. Her boyfriend was driving too fast when he lost control and ploughed into the concrete pile of a bridge. I survived my own recklessness. They didn't. There is no reason or rhyme to it. That's just the way it happened.
I think back to my 20s – and even my early 30s – when I was still gung-ho. Some of that perceived invulnerability returned after I was diagnosed with PSC and I became quite nihilistic. I concluded that I was a dead man walking and that's how I carried myself – with the unerring confidence of someone who was too dumb to realise that he still had plenty to lose.
I tried to conjure god into existence, after my friend, Cat, died, as a consequence of her own battle with PSC. I thought it was unfair. My grief, which thankfully went unwitnessed, assumed the form of extreme melodrama, though there was nothing performative about it. I was devastated. I begged the deity I had conjured into existence for the opportunity to swap places with her. I argued that I that deserved it more. I cajoled and threatened the progenitor of creation. If Cat had been around to witness this undignified spectacle she would have probably instructed me to stop being ridiculous..
She worked for a cinema. A dead-end job. A few months before she collapsed and never woke up, she slipped on a wet floor in the concession area and broke some of her teeth on the tiles. The management attempted to write the whole thing off as an accident – not their fault. Life chipped away at her until there was nothing left.
Sometimes, the furies will take a big chunk out of someone who is just minding their own business, while sparing a person who actively tempts fate. I have been lucky. Reading this Substack over the past year or so, is confirmation of that basic truth.
This was heartbreaking to read. I agree with you, Mr. Kureishi, that accidents can happen and will happen any time and it is hard to believe that all this is a God's will. There is too much suffering in this world and we surely can't do much about it. Wishing you all the best from Hungary.
Hanif,
I heard interviewed on radio some months a remarkable young woman who had the misfortune to be left paralysed after a man jumping from the top floor of a shopping store landed on top of her on the ground floor. She recounted how, in hospital afterwards, she overheard a nurse comforting a young mother who, if I recall correctly, had lost a baby.
What happened to you was a million to one chance, the nurse was telling the mother.
'Yes, but what use is that information to me?' replied the mother.
I read/heard her too. I believe she’s an NHS Dr now. I’m sure her experiences bring much to her professional life - agreed she was a remarkable young woman with an extraordinary story.
Without wanting to be unduly gloomy, I got an acute and sudden sense of life’s fragility when my brother drowned in an accident aged 36. I lived in visceral terror for quite a while - I was 33 and although of course I understood loss through the sickness and death of elderly relatives, and in the abstract events and mishaps of others, this new realisation was something I experienced almost physically along with shock and grief. I think it subsided over the course of a year or two, alongside the constant movie spool of thoughts and memories of my brother - but I’ve never forgotten that sense of how anything can happen to any of us at any moment. I was terrified for my friends, I was terrified that something could happen to me which my parents couldn’t take on top of my brother - it was very close to the surface. However I suppose that psychologically these things will recede over time, the longer we go on and the more we get used to things - as humans we’re surprisingly adaptable when it comes down to brass tacks. A lot of people have shared their pain and suffering here - solidarity to everyone. There’s community here.
Dear Hanif,
I only recently found out about your terrible accident and amazing blog, and have been plucking up the courage to send you a message ever since (your books and films really marked my student years in the late 80s – I’m a huge fan). I’m so sorry to hear about what happened, and hope your courage, humour and loved ones manage to help you through this. Your descriptions of hospitals and now the rehab facility are particularly resonant for me, as my 24 year old daughter had a rare but massive stroke 20 months ago, so I have been spending a lot of time in various places like this. Her last rehab facility was an amazing place on the beach in France, a few hours’ drive from where I live. A lot of her fellow patients were survivors of accidents of various degrees of bizarreness (from driving to diving, from climbing mountains to climbing up stepladders and yes, from just sitting in a chair. Nowhere is safe!) but she loved the camaraderie, solidarity and evenings spent playing Cards Against Humanity… so I hope you can find something similar to brighten up your days and nights while you’re there. My daughter can only use her left arm, and every day I realise how complicated this makes life, so I can only imagine what it must be like not to be able to use either arm. Wishing you luck… Unfortunately, I only read about your short story competition after the deadline had been and gone. I’m trying to write a memoir of my experience, as a mother, when something unexpected and life-changing occurs, and it’s very interesting and inspiring to read about your – sadly first-hand – experience. Please keep writing! Warmest, highest regards, Lucy
I have been reading almost since you began, and particularly like this post. (will be sharing on FB). My 53 year old son died 2 weeks ago after almost 20 years of struggling with Lyme disease, the result of a tick bite in the Santa Monica mountains, where the CDC denied the presence of Lyme. Only very recently has the medical establishment acknowledged the existence of chronic Lyme. Contingency, (mis)fortune - we only control parts of our lives.
I’m so sorry for your loss.
Bless you. Deepest sympathy.
Haha. Another reason to believe. You’ve not injured your irony. Hang in there.
Sorry. I meant to reply to you Laura, Eartha
I love your comments Carolyn. I couldn’t stop laughing at his comments while noting that he’s gonna still b a great writer. Eartha
Love Harold Lloyd.
Why me? It is the most common and natural feeling, especially if you have been happy and succesful in life up to the point of calamity. For miserable sods like me, we never expected anything much. So each calamity seemed part of the "normal" order of things.
As a teenager I used to memorise various bits of Shakespeare that I thought would somehow get me through the rest of my life. On random accidents this is one I liked from King Lear:
As fles to wanton boys
Are we to the gods.
They kill us for their sport.
I was not/am not religious so I read "the gods" as metaphoricl rather than literal. But this little line from Lear kind of rang true for me. Random stuff happens - good & bad - and the mix of that is what makes our individual lives.
For overcoming adversity, or achieving something nobody thought I could, I liked this soliloquy from Prince Hal in Henry IV Part One...it begins like this:
I know you all
and will awhile uphold
the unyoked humour
of your idleness
Yet, herein
will I imitate the sun
who doth allow the base contageos clouds
to smother his beauty from the world.
It goes on...and on...and I love it still.
Like a good pop song, I probably read into this what suited me. Reading the entire soliloquy aa a 17 year old who ran away from school and got into all sorts of troubles, these words made me believe anything was possible. I could overcome any adversity, and calamity. I could get back on track when it suited me, and people would be so surprised when I did well, or prospered.
I think it is worth believing anything is possible, not because it is, but because there may be a small chance it is. The scent of the small chance is exciting in each present moment you choose to unleash it.
I think the move back home will be good .
There is astrology that is supposed to help us understand and work with the flow of influences and incidents that comprise our life stories. I've always been afraid of astrology though- am easily susceptible to suggestion, so I stay away from it. But I have friends who don't. Some of them know astrology and I've heard it said that yes, there are all these planetary influences and things but there is still such a thing as accident. Accident! What comes to mind is the life of an insect- just doing its thing, then boom! squashed by one of our feet. Carpe diem.
A good friend of mine broke his neck in a diving accident and while in rehab his roommate, who also had a diving accident, ... who had broken his neck as a tourist in South America ...explained that he accidentally had hit a massive passing sea turtle
And what are the chances of two unexplained back to back accidents? Should I have bought a lottery ticket shortly thereafter? Did I miss out on winning as a result ? Damn it Hanif, I think I did. 💛
I admire the way you combine the discomfort and pain with touches of humour. Hospital of Accidents is so delightful: I accidently fell in love, we had an accident with birth control, I accidentally burned the house down. You are healing Hanif: yourself and myself at least.
one of your most brilliant essays yet. What you can do with your mind is a super-power.