“bones heal, pain is temporary, and chicks dig scars...”

What a day…

Ever get the feeling you’re being mugged off by pretty much the whole universe? Today has been one of those days.

I’ve decided to write because hopefully by the time I finish I’ll have changed my mood from ‘grumpy victim’ to ‘tomorrow is full of opportunity’. Let’s see how it pans out…

Employing young, sometimes talented, usually scarred fundraisers is a pretty consistent pattern of love, hate, inspiration, frustration, high fives and disappointment. This much I’m prepared for, but either I’m getting old, or the extremes of these emotions are bordering on bi-polar (excuse the belittling of such a serious disease).  I feel compelled to nurture and extract the best from every talent pool, even the current breed of ridiculously self centred, short term thinkers that I’ve found myself paying good money to for what seems to be a rather robust rope in which to hang myself with.

Today, and yesterday it has been emotional trying to harness this obvious fledgling talent. On top of that, some well established talent, well documented world class service gave me some pretty serious nonsense to chase too.

A little while ago I wrote in this blog about my excitement that I was to be taken into the Royal Marsden once more and operated on for (surely) the last time. The dates they threw at me (13^th and 20^th August) passed without so much as a courtesy call. I chased, I called, I then had to postpone. Finally we had what in my mind was a ‘pre-op final check up to determine the date, which would clearly be imminent’ appointment. Previous prolonged disappointment should somehow have prepared me for todays’ outcome.

No operation date. No commitment it’ll even be this year. No guarantees the operation will even be successful.

I verbalised my thoughts that actually, I wish I’d never had the procedure. I almost broke down in tears, I held it, but only just.  Poor Francesco was clearly genuinely upset by this. Somehow I felt a little better knowing I wasn’t just another statistic, another one that went 98% right from a surgeons perspective, 98% wrong from a patients perspective. In reality, I know that i took the risks and the longer I have to heal before the operation, the better the chance of success. The change in direction today is for my own good, not for the good of the hospital, but it is sometimes so hard to accept that the emotions run high. 

One thing is for sure. Most of the people in that waiting room today were much worse off than me. Perspective is sometimes only acheived for me in environments as brutally mortal as this.

A couple of kind people, nice Peroni’s and now this opportunity to vent later and I’m feeling a little better. I’ve got something rattling around my head, and as I’m on the train I don’t have the internet to refer too to make sure the quote is verbatim, but I remember old Evel Knievel once said of his ailing body after attempting to jump more buses than he was clearly able too.

“bones heal, pain is temporary, and chicks dig scars...”

Kinda sums up how I need to approach tomorrow, tonight even. Tough day, but it as always going to be, as 11 months of talking like I’m deaf and walking like I’ve got one leg longer than the other and pretty much constant pain kinda adds pressure to moments like todays rendezvous.

Bones heal, pain is temporary, and chicks dig scars. I’m gonna run with that thought and hit the train back to London tomorrow with a view of creating a reality that makes for a much more jolly journey home. Pass the Peroni bar tender, I’m not afraid of taking on a little emotional assistance if it’s on offer…!

One Love

Jez

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