Authors: Gillian Crook
Stopped for a bit… at least I feel nice and clean… trying to start writing my book again, but not getting anywhere and believe me, what I am doing is a real struggle. God, what’s wrong with me? I can normally do short-hand, write
nice and clearly, and make sense
!!
Had to ask for the Dr, Dr Dunne (I prefer Dr Didn’t, it seem more apt) came to see me and just explained that I may feel a little (little? what a bloody joke) bit uncomfortable and get a little confused at the moment because of the medication, and that the wound on my ‘sacral’ area could be causing discomfort!! Piss Off… I wanna DIE! Is that `uncomfortable` enough… I get the distinct impression he doesn’t really give a shit!
Spoke to my beautiful children… I will never forget Lv U Miss U Up To The Numbers, our code, LUMUUTTN, XXXXXXXXXXXXXX Oh God, I’m gonna cry, and by Christ I try not to, but at times it just all gets a bit too much. I have never seen so many ceilings. These aren’t in the hallucinations where I have been ‘velcroed’ to the ceilings, these are when I tilt my head towards the ceiling every time I feel I’m gonna cry and the tears slide subtly down the side of my face and eventually dry up! . . . . Nite Nite xxxxxx
Morning seems ok. Went into physio, wheeled in on my bed… how embarrassing, even though no one really seems to notice anything or anyone, because everyone is doing different things and their own things. I was put in something that looks like a cage with weird weights hanging from different parts of it, and strange looking iron strips pointing out mischievously from the sides… . My God, there was a bloody car in the part of the gym that I was in as well, an old decrepit looking thing with the number plate SPINAL on it… my physio explained that I didn’t need to worry about the car at the moment, but that at some time in my rehab they would be teaching me how to get in and out of a car… huh, that should be easy enough!! Anyway, I’m getting tired, probably the two weights I pulled down… they weren’t supposed to fall off the cage I don’t think though! Oops!
I can’t believe it… they are now trying to ask me where I would want to live when I leave here… God sake, I don’t have a bloody clue… ask me when I’m ready to think about that clearly, I’m not even really certain where I am. The other night I thought I was camping out, somewhere in Plymund and my nephew, Matthew appeared from nowhere (mental)! . . . why does the Fort keep niggling in my head? Also, these problems with my reading and writing are starting to worry me. I’m shutting the left eye whilst actually writing this, to try and see clearly out the of right… .
I think,
and I haven’t said anything to anyone, yet, but I really do think I have damaged something in my brain—Oh God, what if this isn’t the medication? My mood swings are changing and the dreams are really bizarre; at one point last night I saw my sisters Amy, Angela, Roselyn and Marie, in a bath and they were partially clothed… then the bath started closing in and squeezing them until they were crushed… Erm, very sad, very painful, even tragic… I’m dozing off again to sleep… Actually! I enjoy sleep—I wake up feeling happy and refreshed, sometimes, here’s hoping? Lets all have a good day tomorrow, ok? Goodnight, kiddies, mum and everyone I love and I REALLY hope the girls didn’t really get crushed! . . . .
Good morning… I like the mornings, things seem to get done. What I mean is, that the nurses get bossy but in a nice way (I must be in a good mood), because they show you how to do something and in doing so, end up doing it themselves, so therefore things get DONE, because they’ve done it anyway! Dozed off—then DINNER! What happened to the morning? I woke up with a jolt… yup, I fell asleep again… I had a visitor… yeeha, just as well I dressed up and did my hair (if you call pigtails, where one is thicker than the other because the doc hacked one side of my hair off in order to do the stitches), doing my hair, phew. I was wearing a blue cowboy-style bandana, so if that’s your idea of dressing up, I was dressed up. Anyway, I’m confusing myself. It was great to see C J, but now that I’m writing this I don’t remember much about the visit. CJ whose in The Spiral Steps, were playing some dates at the SECC. I thought that was pretty nice of him to come in, but it’s a shame though I don’t even know what I said to him? I probably wouldn’t have even remembered seeing him (no disrespect Carl, it’s just I think my memory has been affected by some of the meds!), If someone hadn’t asked me, if it was really Carl Jacks from the Spiral Steps that had been in to see me? Now that I am trying to remember, it was so good to see him actually, I like him a lot and if he wasn’t married to Colette and Barry’s best mate or Casey’s God-father or a total imbecile when it comes to women, I could actually fancy him! I’m drained! Barry phoned, so I told him about CJ. Barry thinks I’m falling asleep so much because I’m bored and when I get bored, that’s when I get dangerous—get real Barry, what can I get up to now when I can’t even walk… OK. I can get up to trouble anywhere!! I’m going to get a cup of tea before I go to sleep, because I’m getting drowsy again… drowsy, tired… please god, help me from getting soo drowsy… and help me be more compos mentis tomorrow… love everyone, including CJ and his family… .
I’ve been waking up and falling asleep again and all the days seem to be running into each other and I am not managing to do my book. I have spoken to the family and asked them for some clothes… I have no joggers for physio or anything like that… I’m not used to all the physio malarkey… leaving clothing to the family can be dangerous, goodness knows what colours, or shapes or sizes they will be!! I’m not that bothered to be honest, I’m not awake enough for anyone to see me… oh I’m drowsy…
Sleeping for ages… it’s Sunday but it’s just the same as Saturday. I’m sorry, my writing is really affected at the moment. I am having really weird dreams and I have a short memory lately and keep thinking I’m in Spain! It’s quite funny actually… I have been asking the staff if it’s safe for them to be giving out meds, and me to be taking them, with all the drink I have in my system and all them with hangovers, Ole`! Actually I have been watching the holiday programmes and may even ask for an exchange abroad when I feel better, although I doubt I’ll get it somehow. At the moment Barry and I are away on holiday abroad, somewhere hot and we’re having a really good time… maybe it’s Tobago? I can’t really make my mind up about that yet… . Oh, back to reality, great surprise, CJ came in again. He is really looking good and he is really encouraging and has asked if I want to go to a gig at the SECC next time they play in Glasgow, I think he said next September… if that’s right, I should be out of here and I can take a friend, probably Caron, she lives in Glasgow, and we could have a great time. Well, that’s a new goal now! He had to go because he had a plane to catch, and before he went I asked about Colette and the kids and he says he hardly sees them at the moment because he is always so busy… I think more deliberate on his part… sorry Colette, but I think he’s regressing back to his ‘wild bachelor days’. Even in my semi-hazed state, I could tell when we said our ‘goodbyes’ with the ‘flirty continental kissing’ of each other cheeks, that CJ was getting a bit too ‘touchy, feely’, if you know what I mean? Normally I wouldn’t complain, (well I would really cause of Colette, but that’s not to say I wouldn’t enjoy it!) but I really don’t feel sexy or one bit attractive at the moment. CJ told me to try and stay strong and left. ‘Au Revoir mon amie’!
Unfortunately I haven’t spoken to my kids or written my book cause of my drowsiness for about 48 hours and that’s just too long… I’m going to ‘put my foot down’ (even though I can’t really) and tell the staff that absolutely, no
matter what,
I speak to the kids every day and my mum at least every second day… there… job done, orders issued!!
I don’t believe this, I dropped off to sleep and it is now
Monday
. . . this is crazy, I know I’m in Glasgow and I know I just saw Mr Templar, cause he has to check the wound on my bottom. Because of my bottom and my legs, that’s what’s keeping me in bed, even though I’m managing physio at times, but I fell asleep in the gym today after lunch. When they brought me breakfast and it was
Tuesday
, I couldn’t understand because I thought it was Monday’s supper! I now remember I spoke to Casey last night and she got upset because I didn’t sound myself and I always sound tired. I had to tell her I am
really
not well… oh no, she was really upset! I just woke up and it’s early and I’m already doing silly things. I dropped my pills this morning, and my God, there are hundreds of them… then fell asleep, and when I woke up there were things missing from my bedside… oh God, what’s happening to me? I think I went to physio, but even there I always feel so tired. I have just remembered, I saw Roselyn and Donnie, my sister and hubby, at the weekend and that was really really nice. I also have been sent a letter from a magazine asking if I could read ‘my story’ to them over the phone, but I think I need to speak to the family first… I’m drifting again.
Well, rite or write or right! Whatever, more like WRONG! Yeah, feeling very weird, up to now things have been pretty ‘off the wall’ and hectic and erratic and unfair and unkind and strange and scary and confusing and now I feel like I’m ‘opening a can of worms’. Trying to do right and doing more harm; trusting, believing, taking for granted, loving (or thinking I do), and talking too much at times and having to take time out to reflect on the ‘why’s and wherefores’ of everything. My God, the last entry in this book I vaguely remember because the rest of the time I was rather unable and disinclined to write and I’m so confused I don’t even know if it made sense. In all this mixed-up, confusing madness, I know I spoke to my beautiful kids, the lil’ beautiful toe rags and my ever-faithful, warts and all, Shonah, baby-an-all, hubby, Barry. In fact, I may well have been writing this at the same time… I hate to sound melodramatic, but doesn’t the girl who has the life-changing accident normally get the bloke in the end? . . . Yup, No, Alas, I ain’t! Read on at your peril!!
I’m not too sure, but I think that’s the date… it is so difficult to read and write… God, even my spelling is appalling! hence, I think it’s got something to do with the Plymund accident and I think that’s why I ache, and I can’t walk, and I have for the moment ‘invalidated’ (whatever that means—if anything) myself as far as my ‘mobility’ goes. I’m not too sure but I think it’s my legs that won’t work but my hands can write, even though not very well, and I’m sure I hit my head cause everything is jumbled up. Why can’t I spell, I feel dysleicx—see what I mean… ha ha I meant to do that! I think I should stop for a mo and get a nice cup of tea. That’s about as much as Dr Didn’t does—isn’t that what people say? ‘cuppa, just what the doctor ordered’, ha ha! Actually, he doesn’t even do that! What does the Doc do and why doesn’t he do more to help?
I am just going to explain the last weekend. Due to some ‘unanswerable’ mix up I had an ‘hallucinogenic’ experience, (I can’t describe this very well), whereupon mum and dad, yes dad, oh god I love my dad but where did he come from, were picking me up from the hospital and I think it was Derry, and I was meeting the kids in Fort George!!! Barry was ‘somewhere’ (I’m not sure) watching football, I started to get drowsy, I woke up and I was really sore, I wasn’t sure what night this was, but I didn’t know where I was and seemed stuck, not with glue, just, my body wouldn’t move by itself, it felt numb, and there were strange people around me… it was as if the nurses had brought the nurses station into the ward and there was a tall man in a suit who seemed to be the boss, but it felt like that time in Derry when all the staff were ignoring me. The tall man was talking to someone near me, and for some reason I was thinking that the woman in the next bed to me, and him were carrying on some sordid affair behind her husband’s back… then, it felt like the ward was turning into some kind of nightclub and the music was coming on, and instead of tending to the people in the ward, which was no longer a ward, there was loads of loud chatter, people trying to be heard above each other, and they were all dancing instead of working. Why was I in there, unable to move and just wanting to be out of this bed. I would normally have loved to have joined in the fun, but for me this wasn’t fun, it was outrageous and I couldn’t understand it, I was so confused? (This was because I couldn’t recognise it as a ward anymore), to the right of my bed I could see neon lights but couldn’t make out what they were saying… but it looked like the name of a nightclub. When I did eventually get hold of one of the people in the room I asked for a glass of wine cause I was thirsty, and well, this was a club of some sort, and I thought it might help me sleep, cause that’s all I wanted to do. There were steel bars on my bed and I couldn’t understand that. After my ‘wine’, I couldn’t get back to sleep for the noise and every time I tried to sit up, I couldn’t. It was soo frustrating… I wasn’t even enjoying the incessant noise from chatter and music, it felt like it was a party, that I wasn’t a part of, so why should I be in a bed, unable to move, feeling soo drowsy? I didn’t understand… I thought it might be someones birthday… I was getting more and more upset because I didn’t recognise anyone, or where, or why I was where I was, and why couldn’t I move? When I was eventually moved it was for them to turn me, but why? I tried to get comfortable and wanted to talk to them, but was terrified; I couldn’t get the tall man out of my head; he seemed soo spooky, like the tall, creepy guy in the suit in one of the Poltergeist films.
Everything was such a blur. I would eventually fall asleep but would wake up with lots of lights on and still loads of noise. I was scared and the only time I was peaceful was when I was sleeping. When I woke up, they were trying to give me something to eat, but I didn’t trust them, I was sure they were drugging me… I didn’t know where I was; I was somewhere different, it felt like the bottom of someone’s stairs, in a house. There was a huge guy next to me standing over the bed, and I was terrified and then I was screaming, and the scary thing was this was
really happening
, it wasn’t a dream. The big guy would try and make me eat and eventually I took something from a woman wearing NHS-type glasses, who was spooky as well, but I just had to keep them happy. Then when I asked if they would let me out of the bed they told me I was there for my own good… oh fuck, this was really happening to me. I was being locked up in a house for some reason and they seemed to be drugging me… , I had to ‘do as I was told’ by the woman with the NHS glasses—I will always remember those glasses and her thin face, and pointed chin (she reminded me of the wicked witch out of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz—thing is… I was far more scared than Dorothy! Then… Glasgow, yes, that Glasgow accent… so, I knew they were Scottish, or she was. At this point, I started to panic and realized I couldn’t move but they were able to move me, then when I tried I couldn’t, and it felt as if I was ‘pinned down’ somehow and there were even bars on the bed. They would be so nice, in a false, spooky way, like in a horror movie—I knew they were gonna leave me in this room, put the lights off, so it was dark, and then come back to feed me, I couldn’t understand, why… WHY ME!! I was pleading with them to let me out of the bed and I was screaming and shaking the bars so they rattled, then rattled somemore… I knew I didn’t want to annoy them in case they killed me, but I knew I was being kept captive for some reason and couldn’t understand it, I kept repeating things over and over in my head, trying to make sense of what was happening… those bloody horrible bars, I would shake them so fiercely I thought I might shake them out of their foundations and make my hands bleed. The big guy came and told me not to shake the bars and I was so scared I stopped for a while and thought if I could get ‘round’ him, he might set me free. I couldn’t lift my body up but with the help of the bars, when I wasn’t shaking them I could move myself from side to side… if only I could get comfy and pretend I was sleeping I might be able to hear what they were up to… God I was soo scared… THEN, I could hear them coming through and they were talking about moving me… I pretended to wake up and slowly start talking to them, and maybe get answers as to what they were going to be doing and could I phone my mum and dad… I suddenly remembered that mum and dad wouldn’t know where I was, but prayed they would be looking for me! The big man and little witch then told me they had to go out and would be back ‘tomorrow’. What! They couldn’t leave me there till tomorrow… they must have heard the shaky panic in my voice, so told me not to shout or shake the bars because it wouldn’t do me any good and to try and sleep… why the hell were they keeping me in this dark house and why were they leaving… I screamed at them not to go, and in one final attempt to be beg to them, I thought they were leaning down to help me get out and they just moved me onto to my other side and said when they got back they might move me into another room… oh god, they were leaving and I was gonna be on my own, with no way of getting out of my bed, cause the drugs must have numbed my body and I couldn’t get the bars moved. Then I heard a bang, and it was the door shutting, and they had gone… I was on my own. Silence for a while… then I started, screaming at the top of my voice hoping a neighbour or someone in the street would hear me and call the police. I was pulling and pulling the bars and trying to squeeze through them, in an attempt to try and at least fall out of the bed and drag my limp, useless, numb body somewhere, even to hide—oh god, I didn’t know… the last thing I remember was screaming so much and pulling at the bars, that I must have cried myself exhaustedly to sleep…