Next steps

At least, metaphorically speaking

My time at rehab is coming to an end. Next Tuesday I will be moved to a nursing home in the London Borough of Enfield. And despite multiple staff over the past few months having pulled looks of sympathetic disdain whenever the possibility of such a home has been mentioned, I’m cautiously optimistic.

Last week staff from the home came to meet me here, and made me feel somewhat reassured. They seem to have a good understanding of the requirements of spinal patients, not least because they’ve looked after such cases before, and have indeed taken other patients from Stanmore in the past. There is an on-site physiotherapist, who I will apparently see up to 3 times a week (which is more than I’m currently getting here), and he is even going to come and see me next Monday to learn what I can and can’t yet do. Even better, I’ll be getting a private room. The tantalising prospective of privacy, for the first time in four months, is very appealing. And this is also where having been given full CHC funding starts to really pay dividends. I looked up the nursing home online and if I was paying for this on the open market it would cost over £2000 a week to stay there. What I hope this means is that the place is run to a pretty high standard, given that private customers will be demanding a lot for their family members. One thing it might in particular mean is an end to hospital food. After eight months, that’s unbelievably attractive.

Having said all that, it is unlikely to be a leisurely picnic. The nursing home looks after elderly patients, many of whom are going to have dementia. When I tried to get a straight answer as to whether I will be in a section reserved for people with only physical and not mental disabilities, I didn’t get one. I think I know what that means. So the expensive noise cancelling headphones that I have relied on to sleep for the past several months will probably still have their uses. Indeed, I have already been told that at 37 I will be the youngest resident in the facility. So this could prove to be quite a lonely period. Still, if I can close the door to my room and spend time reading, I should make it through. After all, this is a stopgap measure, not a permanent arrangement.

One thing I have been warned about however is that I may need to get used to making sure the staff understand that I am not like the regular patients. That just because I am in a wheelchair and need a lot of help with physical things, it does not mean that my mind is also broken. They may need to learn to listen to me properly and not just fob me off on the assumption that I’m retarded because I’m so obviously disabled. (Even here at specialist rehab the staff sometimes struggle to not conflate the two.) If anything, though, I’m just going to have to get used to this for much of the rest of my life - the nursing home is in some ways a training run for return to the real world. And if I’m honest, it would anyway be hard for staff to speak to me in a more disrespectful way than I already speak to myself.

At a conservative estimate, I think I refer to myself as a “broken freak” at least 50 times a day. Sometimes this is an answer to my own internal questions (Q: dammit, why can’t I pick that up? A: because I’m a broken freak). More often, though, it’s just an accusation that pops into my mind out of nowhere. And it’s by no means the only choice phrase I have for myself. Other favourites include “useless shit”, “failure”, and “I used to be someone”.

Of course if anyone else spoke to me like this, I wouldn’t put up with it. This is the kind of thing a good psychologist gets you to reflect on. If a friend came and spoke to me in such terms, I’d quickly tell them to leave, and promptly stop considering them a friend. So how is it okay to speak to myself that way? To which the dark part of me likes to reply: because sometimes truth hurts, and the least I can do is be honest with myself, even if others won’t be. After all I am broken, and by the basic laws of nature I should well and truly be dead. Freak indeed.

I know from past experience that there is no point in trying to argue myself out of this mindset. That will only lead me deeper into the pit of self loathing. The only thing that can really work is either a change of situation, or changing how I interact with my situation.

Well, I’m about to get a change of situation, one way or the other. And since being on maintenance here at rehab, I’ve used some of the time to start reading serious work again. It’s very hard to find anywhere remotely quiet enough to concentrate, but nonetheless I’ve managed a few academic articles, and I’m currently a third of the way through Adam Smith’s phenomenal first book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. (It helps that I’ve read it many times before and have a PDF copy.) Yesterday, I even managed to send comments to a friend regarding their draft paper. After months of trying to rehab my body, it genuinely feels good to have also started trying to rehab my mind.

I still find it implausible that I can ever again do worthwhile academic research. But the last few days at least make me feel more optimistic about being able to teach, and of being some help to colleagues as regards the work that they do, at least in due course. The nursing home will hopefully, if nothing else, provide me with opportunities to keep bringing my brain back online. A broken freak I may remain, but hopefully not one that is quite as useless as I feared was now my fate.