13/01/2015

Every man's problems......

Over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays of 2002/3 I went to bed one night and woke up the next day a different person, it’s as simple as that.  The week before I had had a little job done – a bit like laser surgery or a bridge fitted to my teeth…………. something like that…………..no big deal I was told over and over, nothing to worry about, you’ll be good as new in no time, different people said.

Roll forward 12 years.  In the lead up to the Christmas and New Year’s holidays of 2014/2015 things were as mad as a bag of frogs on Ecstasy, customer after customer looking to get sorted, even though a lot of them were told don’t put me under pressure Christmas week.  One day I left home on top of the world and came home the same day having being to a different planet and Christ did I feel alien!  Sure I knew by the short breath, back ache, head ache……it is  only the flu, 2 Lemsips and the hot whiskey mix 3 times and by the time I had got a few hours in the cot sure I’d be  good as new, no big deal I told myself over and over.  I went to bed thinking tomorrow I’ll be the finest………….

Tomorrow came and I felt like a comet had hit me when  I was  in melt down mode  while feeling alien, doctors/pills/more pills /and 3 or 4 stomachs of  projectile vomiting and even more pills later I now feel like I’m coming back into land again on my own planet……. Planet Keith, and pretty soon I’ll be back on top of my world again.  (Turns out my temperature had skyrocketed to the point if it hadn’t been caught I was on the verge of sepsis)

It’s being 12 years now since the 2002/2003 Christmas/New Year break and it has taken the 2014/2015 holiday break and a silly little lung infection/virus to knock a few things into place. About  the holiday break 12 years ago, the little job that I just had done was the removal of 70% of the biggest aquist newrooma (sic)  (Editor’s Note:  Acoustic neuroma -brain tumour) ever found in Ireland, the going to bed one person and waking up another was 3 major strokes in 6 days with death all around me.  Waking up  and finding out I had lost the use of my entire left side, walking/driving independent living were now all a thing of the past or so I was told over and over.

 The few things that have fallen into place have left the following carved in my mind:

1     1.  I’m a lot more able in a lot of ways than a lot of people out there – the blind, the homeless, the elderly and the ill
2.     I see laziness everywhere in brilliant people I know, who could be playing a part in changing the world for others worse off than them
3.    Most people  go down at night  taking it for granted they will rise the following morning the same person and life will go on as all they  have always known it. One day they may wake up to a new world where they become very ill, blind or homeless………….. it’s as simple as that
4.    I know better than most we all have our own lives to live and that every man’s problems are the worst in the world to themselves.  
5.    I now know that there is nothing in this world that cannot be helped in some way no matter how bad things seem. 


For me the worst problem in the world is knowing nobody has to be homeless, and that blindness and ill health can be helped or at least slowed down.  I’m not a lazy person, brilliant maybe, but not lazy, and this year, 2015, I’m going to do all in my power to help.