Monday: A Friend Writes...

"Although I think it’s important that I pass this blog back to my friend and employer, the peerless Dick Madeley, I want to post one more time to thank you all for the support you’ve given me over the last week. It has been as unexpected as it has been a welcome and real source of comfort to both myself and my family. As of this afternoon, my father remains in intensive care but he is being prepared for a move into a ‘High Dependency Unit’ which, despite the name, is apparently a step down from the ward he’s currently on. Although a nurse told us yesterday that my father has spoke, he hasn’t yet spoken to any of us during our visits. But, as they keep reminding us, it is still only three days since his operation.

At the moment, I still feel a natural unwillingness to move on. The traumatised mind is easy prey for superstition. I have been living each day unable to do the things I did before. However, I now need to get back to my old habits and allow Richard to get back to writing his blog. I need to spend time, on my own, helping him to complete his next novel. Time, we have been told, is the best thing for my father. In the case of a sub-arachnoid haemorrhage, it is supposedly a matter of months of recovery and therapy before a person can return to anything like the life they previously led. There is nothing to say what kind of a recovery a person will make, there being a difference between a person’s medical condition and that more ambiguous type of healing involved in cognitive skills, memory, personality. All we can do is wait and be there for him.

Not having a blog of my own, I’m just grateful that I had a chance to write about these things here. Although not a personal blog in the traditional sense, it has been enough to help me get through this difficult week. I intend to come back and write about any further developments if I think it helps me. But for the moment, I think it right to allow the Appreciation Society to return to the job for which it was originally tasked: to make people smile, occasionally think, but ultimately, provide a forum, a soap-box, a large crate recently stuffed with Satsuma, from which the great Richard Madeley can set forth his vision for this country of ours."