Sunday, 23 September 2012

Patchy, at best

As the physical effects of my broken back, spinal infection, paralysis and operation are absorbed, improved and accommodated, and my dear friends and family are rewarded for their love, concern and support , I hope, by my progress (3 times out on my own this weekend), I am finding more time to examine my own  mind.Thanks largely to a lot of counselling from a certain friend, I have overcome many crises and low points and have become fairly well reconciled to who I am and what I have become, both physically and mentally. I have acknowledged the link between who I am, how I behave and how my body functions. I think (hope?)I have become a "better" person, happier in myself and through that, happier in my relationships with other people.
My chief worry is memory loss and whatever behavioural symptoms I exhibited. I have no idea how I was behaving to make M leave me 17 months ago, days after I returned from the North Pole, or to make my son so angry with me. I know I remember some things and not others ("there were riots last August???", but then again, last August I remember having a vomitting fit at St Pancras and ended up with an ambulance, a hospital and a hotel bill, where I was going, I have no idea) ). I know last January and February are pretty blank (but I remember Cuba), as are much of April to July. Then I woke up in a Morphine induced Haze, with screaming agony, no legs and an obsession to escape from Addenbrooke's. Going through old emails, notebooks (memory loss had already lead to notebooks), Facebook etc has made me realise what I have lost: hot dates, an invite to a sold out concert by the performer himself (why? how?), relationships I had forgotten I had. Many relationships were unaffected, some became distant and slightly accusatory ("it's all my fault"), others I have had to apologise and rekindle. But what about the relationships to which I have found reference or pictures but no name? Who were they? Where are they? There were many and the number gets larger as I dig deeper. Perhaps it shows the ultimate shallowness of internet relationships, but then again I still have as friends many folk who were originally internet friends but have since become real friends, and all my friends become more real to me because of my experience, which is ongoing due to injury and continuing iffy memory. I value (if not recall) what I have. Now, where was I?

2 comments:

Jan said...

Good to hear that the real Andy is coming back. :)

I'm afraid not knowing why you went into a room is standard when you reach 50; you can't blame that on your illness. :P

Anonymous said...

Hope so very much that your silence for so long means that you are too happy and contented and busy to blog....love to you at Christmas