I'm finally beginning to emerge....
...from what seemed to be a bad dream - a sort of limbo that had no avenue of escape, not even in sleep.
One day merged into the next, then the weeks went by almost unnoticed; I carried on as normal with the usual routine of shopping, washing, keeping the house clean and tidy, and carried on with my outside duties at Coppice School and the Hatchford Brook Youth Centre.
Despite this semblance of normal life, somehow I felt detached - almost as if I was outside looking inwards, rather than vice versa, and somehow felt totally apathetic towards all those issues that I fought both for and against as a local Councillor; the fire had gone, and I felt myself drifting along with no real direction.
One of the principal causes of this, looking back, wasn't only Hilary's traumatic demise, although that was certainly a factor; what did strike hard was the fact that for the previous ten years I'd led pretty much three discrete lives, one as a husband and father, one as a professional mechanic and another as Elmdon's outspoken voice at Solihull Council. During all that time I'd been super-busy, frequently clocking up over seventy hours a week.
Suddenly all that was gone; my health was failing slowly, the pillar of my life had died and my job disappeared with the 2008 financial metdown; almost to add injury to insult, I suffered a minor stroke just before Christmas that had significant effects on my right side, which essentially sidelined me from jobhunting for several months.
During the course of the investigation into that event, a CT scan showed extensive previous damage to the area around the base of the central cortex; looking back, this was the result of being too close to the discharge of a naval 4.5 inch gun that went off less than twenty feet above my head, back in 1969.
Now that the consultants knew what they were looking at, they had me put on a medication regime that so far has been reasonably successful; motor response is back to normal, as is my hand/eye co-ordination.
Psychologically, the improvement in my medical condition has made an enormous difference to the way I look at the world - as my frequent letters in the local press bear witness!
Please look at the next blog along to learn what the future may hold, both for me and for you as Solihull residents!
One day merged into the next, then the weeks went by almost unnoticed; I carried on as normal with the usual routine of shopping, washing, keeping the house clean and tidy, and carried on with my outside duties at Coppice School and the Hatchford Brook Youth Centre.
Despite this semblance of normal life, somehow I felt detached - almost as if I was outside looking inwards, rather than vice versa, and somehow felt totally apathetic towards all those issues that I fought both for and against as a local Councillor; the fire had gone, and I felt myself drifting along with no real direction.
One of the principal causes of this, looking back, wasn't only Hilary's traumatic demise, although that was certainly a factor; what did strike hard was the fact that for the previous ten years I'd led pretty much three discrete lives, one as a husband and father, one as a professional mechanic and another as Elmdon's outspoken voice at Solihull Council. During all that time I'd been super-busy, frequently clocking up over seventy hours a week.
Suddenly all that was gone; my health was failing slowly, the pillar of my life had died and my job disappeared with the 2008 financial metdown; almost to add injury to insult, I suffered a minor stroke just before Christmas that had significant effects on my right side, which essentially sidelined me from jobhunting for several months.
During the course of the investigation into that event, a CT scan showed extensive previous damage to the area around the base of the central cortex; looking back, this was the result of being too close to the discharge of a naval 4.5 inch gun that went off less than twenty feet above my head, back in 1969.
Now that the consultants knew what they were looking at, they had me put on a medication regime that so far has been reasonably successful; motor response is back to normal, as is my hand/eye co-ordination.
Psychologically, the improvement in my medical condition has made an enormous difference to the way I look at the world - as my frequent letters in the local press bear witness!
Please look at the next blog along to learn what the future may hold, both for me and for you as Solihull residents!
posted by John Bramham. @ 10:37 pm
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