Just put my big boy to sleep - gave him a drink, helped him take his shirt off, tucked him into bed and kissed him goodnight. "Love you dad", just like when he was little and didn't want me to leave his room. He had that one more story please look in his eyes. For the first time in a week I'm not staying at the hospital and we're feeling it. Still, I'm half expecting him to crawl out of bed and find me with a Peter Pan book in his hands. We watched a DVD tonight, ate some junk food and chatted till I got kicked out - well after visiting hours had ended.
We moved up to the spinal ward yesterday just after lunch. Up till that point Lincolne was having a good day. I walked in as they were just about finished putting him into the chair to move him in. One Nurse was trying to shove an oversized pillow behind his head, another was supporting it with one had stretching over another patients machine - no idea what it did, reminded me of something out of Charlie and the chocolate factory "I want an everlasting gob stopper now!". Lincolne was in pain and he never quite recovered for the balance of the day. Shame it wasn't the fizzy lifting drink machine.
Spinal ward is hip. All the staff are "UP". It's a very positive place. Except it was opened in 1887 and the roof above Lincolne looks like it may be recycled from one of the original urinals. The waiting room however has a nice plasma and is better suited to Innis assemblies. Al, his nurse from this morning, who was obviously there for the opening, expressed, "Linc said he's into bodybuilding and his girlfriend does some modeling ... whatever buddy, there's no heroes here".
Young Jonathan, in the bed across from Lincolne had a trampoline accident. He was training for the trials that determine who will go to London for the Australian team. Young Cobie was having her photo taken with family Christmas day. They were on the balcony, resting on the rail. Her father and brother in law were pretending to wrestle to avoid being in the shot. They hit the rail, Cobie and her two sisters fell. Grant, the other patient in the room, has been a quad for 12 years. He suffers severe pain as a result of his ongoing injuries. Everyone has a story, they all need working hands. Lunch was fun, feeding Lincolne a beef stew, and Cobie lasagna. Wiping two faces, cleaning Cobie's spill, smiling and happy, momentarily to be having the experience.
Lincolne had his first session in the gym today. He had 15 minutes on the powered stationary bike. I was excited with visions of Eddy Merckx riding around in my head. He was spent and ready to go back to bed. Still, a bigger champion to me is the man who, as Rudyard Kipling puts so perfectly in his poem titled If "...if you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same...or watch the things you gave your life to broken, and stoop and build 'em up again ...and lose and start again at your beginnings and never breath a word about your loss..." If you know this poem, perhaps better than I, you will know what I mean when I say, that despite the many ways I express how it seems I have my little son back, I don't.
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