Tuesday 22 November 2011

Fear, guilt and a Brucie bonus

I'm embarrassed to say that I made a bit of a fool of myself on Saturday night. You see the thing is, in a situation like this you're so focussed on 'being strong' and 'taking it one day at a time' and it's so relentless that you don't necessarily deal with stuff that needs dealing with.  It seems that I hadn't dealt with the terror of the first 12 days where we genuinely thought we might lose our boy.  Well, on Saturday night this fear decided it needed to be heard... in a pub... in front of friends and quite a few strangers, no doubt emboldened by a couple of pints of Stowford Press.  I won't go into the details if you don't mind, but rest assured that I have learnt an important lesson about not bottling things up!

The other thing about situations like this is the guilt; it's very sneaky and cunning the guilt. It creeps up on you and seeps its poison into your thoughts.  So far I have guilt about the following:

·         I should have called him from the services on the way to work, that may have delayed him (reality: he'd told me not to the night before)
·         I should have made him wear his helmet (reality: have you met Jake? You can't make him do anything)
·         We should have bought the overpriced Halfords battery for his car rather than ordering a more reasonable one on line, that way he could have driven to work (reality: there is nowhere to park, so he'd have cycled anyway)
·         I shouldn't have pushed so hard for us to move this year, that way he'd have been cycling from Molesey and would most likely have reached that roundabout at a different time (reality: he pushed just as hard and was just as excited as I was)
·         I wish we'd had more fun and been less focussed on saving (reality: we were working towards our dream and we did have fun)
·         I wish I'd been a better wife (reality: this is one for Jake to answer!)

I know, I know, these thoughts are about as helpful as Alastair Campbell at a morality conference, but there you go, that's guilt for you.

Anyway, enough of the fear and the guilt; I know that the only reason you have trawled through all the guff above was to get an update on our Jake.  I'll be honest, I'm nervous about what I'm about to say, because I don't want to plant false hope... but he's MUCH better.  Now, we need to stay grounded, and not get ahead of ourselves as he's still very poorly and the future is still very uncertain, but he really does seem to be improving.  We have smiling, attempts to talk, stroking arms, one armed hugging (the left hand side is much stronger than the right); he's trying to lift himself and is remarkably good at letting us know when he's annoyed.  The tracheostomy is apparently being removed today (woo hoo!), he has been moved to a specialist head injury bed where they are really starting to push him (see previous comment about being annoyed!) and the whole mood is much more positive. 

"But what's the Brucie bonus thing about?" I hear you say (yes, I'm hearing voices).  Well, so that I can stay sane and get my head around what the future may look like, I am taking a sort of mental picture of his progress and capability each Monday and then coming to terms with what life would be like if his progress stopped there (they are absolutely not suggesting that this is the case), this means that each new forward step is a bonus... a Brucie brain injury bonus in fact!

Keep up the positive vibes please x

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