Temporary Paralysis

Temporary Paralysis - Day 74 April 20

It was all going so well healthwise.   Jo sun burnt her bottom and I have perhaps put on a few pounds.  But it is hard to always remember the sun cream and I have as always, belying in many ways my lean physique and willowy frame, had an appetite.  When many turn away from poor or unusual fare issuing from dubious kitchens I tend to jump in with both feet.  Although there was a fish soup in Battambang – but that is another story.  And not a good one.

We woke up early at Las Cabanas

Taran had made friends with the local dog community and they followed us down the beach, our luggage trailed after.  

 

We travelled through the morning and…

We have found ourselves in Coron in rather surreal surroundings.  The house boat we were booked on (already pretty fantastical) 

is full so we have been housed in a friend of the owner’s yacht. In a lagoon. 

Basically a yacht is a caravan (and I am  a caravan lover) with ropes, even more fixtures (to stub toes on) and tinier bathrooms but finished in mahogany and studded with instrument panels and screens saying “Do not Touch” and “cockpit lights” – the latter being very useful as we had supper in the cockpit.  They delivered it from the houseboat, which is just around the corner, in an orange plastic speedboat.  Very nice thank you.  Except I ended up eating Jo’s as the fish was a bit raw and there I go again.

We went for a paddle in the kayaks before supper – all the way to Twin Lagoon and my back was feeling a bit tricky so I didn’t swim - just filmed Taran directing (bossing) and starring in his spoof “Jaws” video.  “You’re not doing it right Dad – move the camera three seconds after the splash”

 

Supper as described and my back was stiffening a bit so I took some Ibuprofen.  

Then early to bed and I did find it a bit hard to get right and get to sleep but adjusting I was comfortable.

Not so in the middle of the night.  I woke and could barely get out of bed.  Stifling yelps and groans I settled again but blimey.

I woke again in the morning and lay awake not wanting to try.  And then I did.  And I couldn’t.  Couldn’t move.  There is shooting pain, unpredictable, electric and totally incapacitating at every attempt.  My mobility is gone, in its stead trepidatious experimentation loaded with the possibility of agony. It is a feeling instantly resonant with extreme old age or disability.  And repeated experimentation confirms extraordinary and frightening limitation.  It takes a painful age to nudge myself into a sitting position on the side of the bed.  A position I cant maintain without both hands on the bed supporting. So I am unable to reach out and grip on anything to try and pull myself up, to inch further towards standing. Which would seem hopeless anyway. And it’s not comfortable sitting at all.  I have to work my way back again, painfully, to horizontal.  Lying down is OK though and a respite that allows me the time to think an overdue realisation “Oh Christ”.

Simultaneously to comprehending my own incapacity (I am in a cabin under the bow of a boat whose deck now seems as far away as the nearest hospital) comes a stricken realisation of my instant and complete dependency on those I am with.  It is totally unmanning.  Jo looking on is full of care but horror too.  And Taran, who is still not awake, will find it shocking. And it doesn’t feel like it will go away.

Anyone who has had their back in spasm will probably recall similar feelings.  The thing that saved me in that moment from despair is it had all happened to me before, years ago.  I remember calling my Doctor friend Dean.  Calling as I watched helplessly on, immobile, in agony, unable to intervene (even to open the window) whilst a traffic warden put a ticket on my car just outside the bedroom window.  “Take painkillers”, Dean said “and keep moving as much as you can, it’s in spasm, it will get better”.  And it did.

I ask Jo for the ibuprofen and help to try again.  And resolve. And  incredibly by degrees I am upright.  By degrees through the morning and the ibuprofen I loosen a little.  By degrees I am in the dive boat and then weightless underwater stretching.  Blowing bubbles at the fishes.  It is great therapy.  Dive therapy.  

A miracle cure.  I doubt it will be available on the NHS anytime soon.  But what a relief .

Ibuprofen is of course available at your local pharmacist.