So, Prince William and Kate Middleton are getting married eh? The country goes Hooray. As Philip Scofield said today on This Morning, "Everybody loves good news". But then isn't that part of what the Royal family is there for in the modern UK? To take our eyes off times of trouble. Timed brilliantly to coincide with the start of the cuts coming into effect, we all now have something to become obsessed about. Already the media has gone into a frenzy, so by the the time the big day comes round they'll be rabid. They'll be much less time and focus on how our society is changing as this government slashes and burns everything we have spent so long building up. Who cares about student fees, look at her dress. Who cares about the widening gap between rich and poor, aren't they a lovely couple?
Time and time again during the last Labour government there were stories in the press about the lengths gone to to hide bad news on days where really big events filled our media. The Tories made a big deal about this, as did the media... after the event. It is a mechanism that has been used through out the history of this country by those who rule. I want to make sure that I voice the fact that I see this as just as cynical. I am not a Royalist, not by a long shot. I even turned down the chance to go a to private dinner with the Queen and members of her family back in my TV star days, as I was not prepared to conform to Royal protocols. Whatever my personal views on having a monarchy, that is not what this blog is about. It is how much the people who are in control of our society work together to shape how we see that society.
I will use the example of disability as it something I know about personally. When I hit adulthood, I had just started using a wheelchair. Before that had a limp, and the world was my oyster. I had ten offers of great jobs, and could see my life going in the same direction as all of my school friends. Once in the chair, all those jobs offers disappeared and my future became quite different. I was told I would now be "unemployable" by social workers and others trained to assist me through this difficult time. And so I was farmed of onto benefits. But no one called my a scrounger and a drain on society. The general consensus was that at that time, was with such high unemployment (it was in the UK of the 80's) how could anyone with a disability find full time employment? How could a boss be expected to employ someone with health issues over an able bodied person? However much these attitudes might offend, they are kind of true. Especially at times of high unemployment.
I went forth and made a life for myself with out any help from anyone, except my family. Everything went quite well until my recent accident. While I was too ill to work, and while I recovered from all that fun surgery, I realised that society had started to change. It began with the DDA. Anyone who knows about the DDA, and the Equality Act that replaced it, agrees it is pretty toothless law. Not only is discrimination an act against the person and not the state, which means anyone who feels they have been discriminated against has to take out a private prosecution at their own cost, but with the word "reasonable" in there it also makes it much harder to prove unfair treatment. But this change in disabled people's rights did have one real effect. It started the ball rolling on a move to making society see disabled people as a group who take and don't give. I personally believe that any rights we were given were due to a feeling that disabled people were equal, but more with the long view to start cutting how much we "cost". OK I am a bit of a conspiracy nut, but how things have shaped up since makes me think I was right.
From there it was a small step to "Once we had rights, surely we should have responsibilities? So why should society pay us anything or give us any help?" Just look at the way the Blue Badge is seen. When I first got a car no one had ever heard of someone using one fraudulently or stealing one. Now I have to padlock mine to my car, after having four stolen in just a few months. Why did this happen? Because society was slowly guided, by the media and government, to ask why should those cripples get something I can't? No more understanding of why disabled parking exists, and just a kind of envy of us and what we get crept in it's place. Once this attitude had taken hold, we then start to hear of all the fraud within the "disability benefits" system. Now anyone who has undergone the process of applying for any of these benefits know how hard they are to get. So getting them via fraud is bloody hard, and very rare. Let's not even mention the millions that go unclaimed each year by people either too afraid to claim , too proud or who just don't know they are entitled. So how do we fight this "terrible fraud"? Cut the benefits for all, and make it almost impossible to claim anything. Very much a very large sledge hammer to crack a very small nut. But the majority of the public believe it is the right thing to do.
Now I wish anyone who is getting married well. It was the best thing I ever did and I wake up everyday glad that I found the right one. I just can't shake this feeling that this announcement is very well timed. I won't even ask who the bloody hell is going to be paying for it all? I mean let's face it, at a time of growing means testing I feel that this family is one of the few who can afford to pay for the lot.
Right, that's my topical gripe out of the way. Sorry if it has upset all of you who are overjoyed at the happy news. But then this blog is called "Mik Scarlet Sees Red".
Addendum:
When I read this through I found myself unsure whether to post it or not. I felt I was being a little unfair to the future King and his future wife. So I sat down and watched some TV. When even the continuity announcers on the BBC mention the engagement in their links, I wonder. I suppose the one thing I can be sure of is that I shall have to take a foreign holiday next year when the wedding is on.
Tuesday, 16 November 2010
Tuesday, 9 November 2010
Happy Blog no. 1
After my last few blogs I felt I wanted to write one that has full of happiness. To do that I want to write about something that has made my life the happiest it has ever been. Love.
I've bee lucky enough to never have much trouble finding partners. Maybe it was the attitude I adopted just after I went in my wheelchair? Whenever I tried to chat someone up I approached the whole situation with this mantra.
"If they are interested - it's because they fancy me, because I fanciable, but if I get turned down - that's because they are shallow, don't want to be with someone who is disabled and they aren't someone I would want be with anyway. Either way I win!"
OK, I did spend a little too long in relationships that were doomed to fail, thinking that I was really in love. In a way I was, just that it wasn't true deep love. I also am sure that different relationships are built on different ways of working. While I now look back on my past relationships as not being built on love, at the time I was sure they were.
What changed my perspective was falling for my wife, Diane. We had known each other for 6 years as friends before we got together. I had always fancied her, and at various times had even stalked her a bit. I found out where she worked, and would rive from my home in Luton to London to see if she was at work. Then I would wheel by and nonchalantly say "Hi". It did go a bit further, but I won;t go in to it too far, as not make myself seem like a scary nut case. One of the good things about pursuing her the way I did is that stalking is only stalking if it is unwanted. Luckily for me, she liked me too.
Our first year was very rocky, mainly as we both liked each other so much yet were so sure that life, or should I say our self destructive streak, would mess things up that we did argue like cats and dogs. After this period or huge rows, talked, and told the truth, and suddenly it clicked. From then on our relationship got better and better and stronger and stronger. For the first time in my life I discovered what real love was.
In our 15 years together, we have worked together as a team through the good and bad times, supporting each other and giving each other our all. It has never felt like a duty or a task but was in fact a joy. When I was recovering from my last op, Diane looked after me like an angel. She still nurses me am ill and I nurse her when she is sick. It's kind of difficult to describe, what it feels like. Neither of us now make any decision without considering the other, and we think about our future as a whole and not as individuals. We are now at a point where we finish each other's sentences, and have a language of jokes and sayings that we share only with each other.
It might not sound like everyone's cup of tea, but this is the kind of love I have always dreamed of. I know we will be together for ever, and whatever life throws at us will will defeat it, together.
Maybe it's why some things do make me so cross. When you are happy emotionally as I am, the injustices of the world seem a little more unfair. Sop if you read a blog that seems to go off the handle over something that doesn't seem that big a deal to you, try to remember it might be love that has caused me to get to cross. OK that's a crazy reason, but when stuff gets in the way of happiness it needs confronting. You all know you can always trust me to do that, even if you think I sounds nuts.
Anyway, I'm off to make a cup of tea for darling wife, who is slumped over her computer studying for her degree. Yes, she got the whole package. Looks, charm and super brains. What the hell she is doing with me I have no idea. But hey when life give's you roses, don't complain.
I've bee lucky enough to never have much trouble finding partners. Maybe it was the attitude I adopted just after I went in my wheelchair? Whenever I tried to chat someone up I approached the whole situation with this mantra.
"If they are interested - it's because they fancy me, because I fanciable, but if I get turned down - that's because they are shallow, don't want to be with someone who is disabled and they aren't someone I would want be with anyway. Either way I win!"
OK, I did spend a little too long in relationships that were doomed to fail, thinking that I was really in love. In a way I was, just that it wasn't true deep love. I also am sure that different relationships are built on different ways of working. While I now look back on my past relationships as not being built on love, at the time I was sure they were.
What changed my perspective was falling for my wife, Diane. We had known each other for 6 years as friends before we got together. I had always fancied her, and at various times had even stalked her a bit. I found out where she worked, and would rive from my home in Luton to London to see if she was at work. Then I would wheel by and nonchalantly say "Hi". It did go a bit further, but I won;t go in to it too far, as not make myself seem like a scary nut case. One of the good things about pursuing her the way I did is that stalking is only stalking if it is unwanted. Luckily for me, she liked me too.
Our first year was very rocky, mainly as we both liked each other so much yet were so sure that life, or should I say our self destructive streak, would mess things up that we did argue like cats and dogs. After this period or huge rows, talked, and told the truth, and suddenly it clicked. From then on our relationship got better and better and stronger and stronger. For the first time in my life I discovered what real love was.
In our 15 years together, we have worked together as a team through the good and bad times, supporting each other and giving each other our all. It has never felt like a duty or a task but was in fact a joy. When I was recovering from my last op, Diane looked after me like an angel. She still nurses me am ill and I nurse her when she is sick. It's kind of difficult to describe, what it feels like. Neither of us now make any decision without considering the other, and we think about our future as a whole and not as individuals. We are now at a point where we finish each other's sentences, and have a language of jokes and sayings that we share only with each other.
It might not sound like everyone's cup of tea, but this is the kind of love I have always dreamed of. I know we will be together for ever, and whatever life throws at us will will defeat it, together.
Maybe it's why some things do make me so cross. When you are happy emotionally as I am, the injustices of the world seem a little more unfair. Sop if you read a blog that seems to go off the handle over something that doesn't seem that big a deal to you, try to remember it might be love that has caused me to get to cross. OK that's a crazy reason, but when stuff gets in the way of happiness it needs confronting. You all know you can always trust me to do that, even if you think I sounds nuts.
Anyway, I'm off to make a cup of tea for darling wife, who is slumped over her computer studying for her degree. Yes, she got the whole package. Looks, charm and super brains. What the hell she is doing with me I have no idea. But hey when life give's you roses, don't complain.
Monday, 8 November 2010
Not another Talent Search!
On November 14th Channel 4 closes it's search for new presenters to work on the Paralympics. Now while I wish everyone who takes part good luck, it does amaze me that yet again a British TV company has undertaken a search for "New Talent" while ignoring the sea of existing talent out there.
It's not only C4 that seem to be obsessed with the New. The BBC have just carried out a country wide search for new disabled actors. Yet I know of many hyper talented disabled actors that have been working for years that never get onto TV. I only need to think of the superb Graeae production of Reason To Be Cheerful that is running at the minute, which is a show so crammed full of talent it bursts off the stage. Some of those appearing in this show have been on TV, but let's admit it disabled people do not exactly fill our screens.
As for presenters... that really is a joke. As an award winning TV presenter, with many very talented friends who also have spent years working in the industry only to be forgotten, it makes me quite cross to hear of yet another talent search. I've worked in TV for over 20 years and the industry seems to undertake a New Talent search in some form or other about once every five years. If you were part of the last search you can kiss your career goodbye. It normally ties in with you deciding that this is going to be your career and that you should start asking for the same money as the able bodied presenters you work with. Funny that. But it does mean that time and time again all of our major TV companies spend time and tons of money training this new talent while leaving the old talent and all their skill to go to waste. Don't forget that all of us old talent types also have fans and leave a gap in the TV world's output.
So why all these searches? Well let's ignore my cynicism and not go with the New Talent is cheaper argument, and try to find other answers. I suppose there are loads of people out there that would be great presenters and actors and these article to find them, which is a good thing. It also shows that these channels are trying to get more disabled people on screen, and let's face it the Paralympics should have disabled presenters fronting the output. These are great reasons to look for disabled talent. But not to ignore the huge number of disabled people who have already shown how talented they are.
The main problem with these searches is where is the work. The C4 search that happened at the start of the 2000's found some superb on screen talent, yet all of these did pretty much nothing. Even those of us with huge showreels, and awards to boot, still spend most of our days writing embittered blogs about not working instead of being used to front TV. Disabled actors get to play bitter twisted cripples or tragic souls who can't take being disabled any more. Not exactly pushing their talent. I have lost count of the number of auditions for roles that were so stereotypically crap.
Perhaps the TV industry should look at their production talent while they carry out their disabled talent searches? Then whoever is discovered this time won't be ignored, forgotten or saddled with jobs that crush their drive to carry on in the industry. And pay them the going rate please!
I just hope that this a turning point how disability is shown on TV. Fingers crossed that we will start being seen as part of society, and be included as such. Presenters will do articles on stuff that isn't about disability, and may even end up as key celebrity talent. Actors will start playing realistic characters, and may even play roles where their disability isn't even mentioned. Then I won't need to write my embittered rants, and will either be up there with these new guys or watching them wishing them well.
PS. Having said all that I shall be entering the C4 search myself. Let's just hope that whoever is judging allows me to considered as New!
It's not only C4 that seem to be obsessed with the New. The BBC have just carried out a country wide search for new disabled actors. Yet I know of many hyper talented disabled actors that have been working for years that never get onto TV. I only need to think of the superb Graeae production of Reason To Be Cheerful that is running at the minute, which is a show so crammed full of talent it bursts off the stage. Some of those appearing in this show have been on TV, but let's admit it disabled people do not exactly fill our screens.
As for presenters... that really is a joke. As an award winning TV presenter, with many very talented friends who also have spent years working in the industry only to be forgotten, it makes me quite cross to hear of yet another talent search. I've worked in TV for over 20 years and the industry seems to undertake a New Talent search in some form or other about once every five years. If you were part of the last search you can kiss your career goodbye. It normally ties in with you deciding that this is going to be your career and that you should start asking for the same money as the able bodied presenters you work with. Funny that. But it does mean that time and time again all of our major TV companies spend time and tons of money training this new talent while leaving the old talent and all their skill to go to waste. Don't forget that all of us old talent types also have fans and leave a gap in the TV world's output.
So why all these searches? Well let's ignore my cynicism and not go with the New Talent is cheaper argument, and try to find other answers. I suppose there are loads of people out there that would be great presenters and actors and these article to find them, which is a good thing. It also shows that these channels are trying to get more disabled people on screen, and let's face it the Paralympics should have disabled presenters fronting the output. These are great reasons to look for disabled talent. But not to ignore the huge number of disabled people who have already shown how talented they are.
The main problem with these searches is where is the work. The C4 search that happened at the start of the 2000's found some superb on screen talent, yet all of these did pretty much nothing. Even those of us with huge showreels, and awards to boot, still spend most of our days writing embittered blogs about not working instead of being used to front TV. Disabled actors get to play bitter twisted cripples or tragic souls who can't take being disabled any more. Not exactly pushing their talent. I have lost count of the number of auditions for roles that were so stereotypically crap.
Perhaps the TV industry should look at their production talent while they carry out their disabled talent searches? Then whoever is discovered this time won't be ignored, forgotten or saddled with jobs that crush their drive to carry on in the industry. And pay them the going rate please!
I just hope that this a turning point how disability is shown on TV. Fingers crossed that we will start being seen as part of society, and be included as such. Presenters will do articles on stuff that isn't about disability, and may even end up as key celebrity talent. Actors will start playing realistic characters, and may even play roles where their disability isn't even mentioned. Then I won't need to write my embittered rants, and will either be up there with these new guys or watching them wishing them well.
PS. Having said all that I shall be entering the C4 search myself. Let's just hope that whoever is judging allows me to considered as New!
Friday, 29 October 2010
Cold Comfort
I've spent the last couple of days laid low by a cold. Whenever I am stopped in my tracks by something so small as the cold virus, it makes me realize how obvious that we evolved rather than were created. Why would anyone, let alone God, create a world with so many mistakes and flaws? What role does the common cold play? What role does any disease or illness play? Why do we have mistakes in our genetic code that makes sick or disabled?
The only answer is that it is to do with evolution. The cold virus evolved along side humans and so it effects us. Not enough to kill us, like many other diseases, but just enough to allow itself to reproduce and infect others. During this process it mutates so our immunity that will build up when we are laying in bed feeling crappy has less of an effect on the virus allowing it to infect us again next year. Obvious.
Our genetic code creates mistakes that lead to illness and disability as this is the same process that allows evolution itself. Imagine that once upon a time a horse was born with a deformed longer neck. All the other horses would have seen a disability, but this long necked horse could reach higher leaves on the local trees and so was healthier than the other short necked horses. So when it bred those horses that were born whit the long necked trait could also eat those leaves, were stronger and so bred more, passing on a the mutated neck gene. And suddenly the Giraffe was passed into existence. Obvious.
But what always makes me wonder, is why religion doesn't embrace science? My wife is studying Physics at Uni right now, and the amazing things that led to the creation of everything are dazzling. While I see it as random luck, even an devout atheist like me can see that it would be easy to see a guiding hand in the forces at work over the billions of years it took to get where we are today. Yet more and more religions all over the world fight against scientific discoveries. At the same time they worry about falling attendances. Surely these discoveries make the universe more amazing, and that might lead more people to seek answers to why it is so amazing? So why deny evolution or any other new theory to how everything came to be here? Why not admit that God must want us to understand everything and embrace the fact that we above all other animals have the ability to theorize and understand?
Anyway, that's what is going through my head while I cough and sniffle on my sofa watching Star Trek. I'm so ill I didn't even mute the theme tune to Star Trek Enterprise. That theme tune alone is more proof there is no God.
The only answer is that it is to do with evolution. The cold virus evolved along side humans and so it effects us. Not enough to kill us, like many other diseases, but just enough to allow itself to reproduce and infect others. During this process it mutates so our immunity that will build up when we are laying in bed feeling crappy has less of an effect on the virus allowing it to infect us again next year. Obvious.
Our genetic code creates mistakes that lead to illness and disability as this is the same process that allows evolution itself. Imagine that once upon a time a horse was born with a deformed longer neck. All the other horses would have seen a disability, but this long necked horse could reach higher leaves on the local trees and so was healthier than the other short necked horses. So when it bred those horses that were born whit the long necked trait could also eat those leaves, were stronger and so bred more, passing on a the mutated neck gene. And suddenly the Giraffe was passed into existence. Obvious.
But what always makes me wonder, is why religion doesn't embrace science? My wife is studying Physics at Uni right now, and the amazing things that led to the creation of everything are dazzling. While I see it as random luck, even an devout atheist like me can see that it would be easy to see a guiding hand in the forces at work over the billions of years it took to get where we are today. Yet more and more religions all over the world fight against scientific discoveries. At the same time they worry about falling attendances. Surely these discoveries make the universe more amazing, and that might lead more people to seek answers to why it is so amazing? So why deny evolution or any other new theory to how everything came to be here? Why not admit that God must want us to understand everything and embrace the fact that we above all other animals have the ability to theorize and understand?
Anyway, that's what is going through my head while I cough and sniffle on my sofa watching Star Trek. I'm so ill I didn't even mute the theme tune to Star Trek Enterprise. That theme tune alone is more proof there is no God.
Tuesday, 19 October 2010
Pride... and Prejudice.
In my last blog I wanted to further explore some of the press I had done around my choices not to go ahead with trying to walk. I was shocked, and a little saddened by some of the replies and comments I received in reply to that blog.
The idea that disabled people can live lives that able bodied people might envy seemed to upset some disabled people. Yet surely the disability movement has spent years trying to get across the fact that disabled people deserve the same chances and rights as everyone else, and if given them disabled people would be able to experience life just the same as the able bodied. So why shouldn't some able bodied people be envious of some disabled people? Disability is not a reason why anyone's life will be less in some way.
Now of course many disabilities come with medical conditions. I have a spinal injury, and so am classed as Paraplegic, but the injury caused some nerves to be trapped in scar tissue. This leads to periods of chronic pain, and the pain killers I have had to take has led to problems with my digestive tract. These do disable me, but they are really ongoing medical conditions. Using a wheelchair will never make my life less that it would have been if I could walk. I think it is essential to make sure we understand the difference. I never wake up thinking "I wish I could walk" but I do wish "This pain would stop". Yes, the pain is tied to the disability, but it is not the disability.
I hope that everyone agrees that disability as described by the social model is the way it should be viewed by society. So I am not disabled by my inability to walk, or by my pain or anything else but by the barriers put in my way by the larger society. It's not being in a wheelchair that makes me disabled, but the steps into a building. That goes for all of us disabled people. In fact it goes for everyone. Everyone gets old, or sick. In a world that was shaped by the social model of disability and so was fully inclusive, many of the issues that they will face would not exist. It wouldn't matter if they had trouble walking, or seeing or hearing, or needed a seat or whatever. The solutions would be built into every part of our daily life and the world we all lived in. Any medical issues would be just that. Separate and something to be treated.
At a time when the disabled, the elderly, and the poor are going to be a the sharp end of budget cuts, and when many people in society really believe that assisted suicide and mercy killing is a valid way to go, we disabled people must see that we need to be vocal. We need to shout how we are capable, and can experience anything we want to, if we are given the chance. We have to be proud of how we have got as far as we have, both as individuals and as a group. In 100 years we have fought to go from being shoved into institutions and pitied or feared, to living in the community and having a voice and shaping our own futures. We have made amazing strides forward and must keep on fighting to make sure we do not stumble and loose ground.
My story is a strange one, I admit. Not many disabled people have to make the choice I have recently, but as science advances more and more will. That decision will be up to the individual but I wanted to explain that being cured is not the answer to integrating disabled people. To integrate a minority, the answer is not to correct or eradicate the minority. If we go down that dark road then why not make gay people straight and black people white? Or just wipe them all out? Sounds familiar to me. Who tried that already?
No matter how much a disability, and it's medical problems, effect your life, or how much you may sometimes feel that it gets too much, every disabled person on this planet has the ability to live the kind of life that would make able bodied people envious. We can find love, feel fulfilled and be happy. I know how few able bodied people manage to achieve that. Yes it can be a real struggle, but it is for everyone on this planet. It's the extra barriers that are put in our way and the ignorance of what we can achieve that are the enemy, not our disabilities.
The idea that disabled people can live lives that able bodied people might envy seemed to upset some disabled people. Yet surely the disability movement has spent years trying to get across the fact that disabled people deserve the same chances and rights as everyone else, and if given them disabled people would be able to experience life just the same as the able bodied. So why shouldn't some able bodied people be envious of some disabled people? Disability is not a reason why anyone's life will be less in some way.
Now of course many disabilities come with medical conditions. I have a spinal injury, and so am classed as Paraplegic, but the injury caused some nerves to be trapped in scar tissue. This leads to periods of chronic pain, and the pain killers I have had to take has led to problems with my digestive tract. These do disable me, but they are really ongoing medical conditions. Using a wheelchair will never make my life less that it would have been if I could walk. I think it is essential to make sure we understand the difference. I never wake up thinking "I wish I could walk" but I do wish "This pain would stop". Yes, the pain is tied to the disability, but it is not the disability.
I hope that everyone agrees that disability as described by the social model is the way it should be viewed by society. So I am not disabled by my inability to walk, or by my pain or anything else but by the barriers put in my way by the larger society. It's not being in a wheelchair that makes me disabled, but the steps into a building. That goes for all of us disabled people. In fact it goes for everyone. Everyone gets old, or sick. In a world that was shaped by the social model of disability and so was fully inclusive, many of the issues that they will face would not exist. It wouldn't matter if they had trouble walking, or seeing or hearing, or needed a seat or whatever. The solutions would be built into every part of our daily life and the world we all lived in. Any medical issues would be just that. Separate and something to be treated.
At a time when the disabled, the elderly, and the poor are going to be a the sharp end of budget cuts, and when many people in society really believe that assisted suicide and mercy killing is a valid way to go, we disabled people must see that we need to be vocal. We need to shout how we are capable, and can experience anything we want to, if we are given the chance. We have to be proud of how we have got as far as we have, both as individuals and as a group. In 100 years we have fought to go from being shoved into institutions and pitied or feared, to living in the community and having a voice and shaping our own futures. We have made amazing strides forward and must keep on fighting to make sure we do not stumble and loose ground.
My story is a strange one, I admit. Not many disabled people have to make the choice I have recently, but as science advances more and more will. That decision will be up to the individual but I wanted to explain that being cured is not the answer to integrating disabled people. To integrate a minority, the answer is not to correct or eradicate the minority. If we go down that dark road then why not make gay people straight and black people white? Or just wipe them all out? Sounds familiar to me. Who tried that already?
No matter how much a disability, and it's medical problems, effect your life, or how much you may sometimes feel that it gets too much, every disabled person on this planet has the ability to live the kind of life that would make able bodied people envious. We can find love, feel fulfilled and be happy. I know how few able bodied people manage to achieve that. Yes it can be a real struggle, but it is for everyone on this planet. It's the extra barriers that are put in our way and the ignorance of what we can achieve that are the enemy, not our disabilities.
Wednesday, 13 October 2010
A Happy Cripple - Shock Horror!
This weekend the Mail On Sunday ran an article on my choice to not undergo a series of operations and years of physiotherapy after my last spine operation returned the feeling and function to my legs. Since it was published I have done a couple of interviews on radio about the subject and thought you all might like to read the MOS article and listen to the interviews. Here are the links -
Mail On Sunday Article
Talk Radio Interview - Parry & Graham with Wickes
3 Counties Radio Interview - Breakfast Show
I would just like to correct a few mistakes in the article, that have been carried through to the interviews. Firstly I was born in 1965 (never lie about my age, just never see the point), secondly I went into my chair at the age of 15, and thirdly I have already undergone the surgery that gave me my legs back. The operations that I was offered to see if I could walk again are to repair damage that years of being a wheelchair user has caused. I would need a right hip replacement, then a new knee and ankle. The hip surgery would mean two months with a stretching device fitted to an open wound on my hip, as I would need to move the muscles, ligaments and nerves in my hip to allow the new hip to fit correctly. So after three huge surgical procedures, and all the recovery time they would bring (not to mention that each one might go wrong and cause me to loose my leg) I would have to go through between 5 and 10 years of physiotherapy. OK, some people might still think it was worth it, but even then no one could swear I would be able to walk. Oh, and I would need the replacement joints replacing every five to ten years too. I think most people will agree, not that much of a difficult choice.
The reason why I wanted to publicize it was the fact that so many able bodied people just could not understand why I wasn't going to go for it. I also wanted to voice the fact that disabled people can have fantastic lives, and that we do not all dream of being cured. I have been amazed by some of the responses I have received since all this went out, including the number of people insisting that I better not be getting any benefits if I am choosing to stay disabled. Of course by not going through all this surgery I am actually saving the NHS millions. The hip was going to cost £150,000 - £200,000 alone, and that's without the cost of the medical staff, hospital stays and other costs. Scary to think that some people see the point of this story to be the cost to the "tax payer". I think it has wider implications than that myself, but hey who am I to argue?
I don't think the press has finished with yet. I have been contacted by a few other publications and media shows for interviews, so hopefully this will lead to me getting across the truth behind disability. The main reason why it effects our lives is not because we have something "wrong with us" but because that world isn't set up to allow us to have the same chances as the "able bodied". Even with those barriers, we live lives that are the envy of most AB's and many like myself see their disability as something that set them free.
So watch this space.
Mail On Sunday Article
Talk Radio Interview - Parry & Graham with Wickes
3 Counties Radio Interview - Breakfast Show
I would just like to correct a few mistakes in the article, that have been carried through to the interviews. Firstly I was born in 1965 (never lie about my age, just never see the point), secondly I went into my chair at the age of 15, and thirdly I have already undergone the surgery that gave me my legs back. The operations that I was offered to see if I could walk again are to repair damage that years of being a wheelchair user has caused. I would need a right hip replacement, then a new knee and ankle. The hip surgery would mean two months with a stretching device fitted to an open wound on my hip, as I would need to move the muscles, ligaments and nerves in my hip to allow the new hip to fit correctly. So after three huge surgical procedures, and all the recovery time they would bring (not to mention that each one might go wrong and cause me to loose my leg) I would have to go through between 5 and 10 years of physiotherapy. OK, some people might still think it was worth it, but even then no one could swear I would be able to walk. Oh, and I would need the replacement joints replacing every five to ten years too. I think most people will agree, not that much of a difficult choice.
The reason why I wanted to publicize it was the fact that so many able bodied people just could not understand why I wasn't going to go for it. I also wanted to voice the fact that disabled people can have fantastic lives, and that we do not all dream of being cured. I have been amazed by some of the responses I have received since all this went out, including the number of people insisting that I better not be getting any benefits if I am choosing to stay disabled. Of course by not going through all this surgery I am actually saving the NHS millions. The hip was going to cost £150,000 - £200,000 alone, and that's without the cost of the medical staff, hospital stays and other costs. Scary to think that some people see the point of this story to be the cost to the "tax payer". I think it has wider implications than that myself, but hey who am I to argue?
I don't think the press has finished with yet. I have been contacted by a few other publications and media shows for interviews, so hopefully this will lead to me getting across the truth behind disability. The main reason why it effects our lives is not because we have something "wrong with us" but because that world isn't set up to allow us to have the same chances as the "able bodied". Even with those barriers, we live lives that are the envy of most AB's and many like myself see their disability as something that set them free.
So watch this space.
Wednesday, 6 October 2010
Anatomy Of Addiction
While I am out of the woods on the pain front at the minute, the drugs I took to cope with my last episode has left me thinking about addiction. You see I am currently going through withdrawal from high doses of Codeine, which is a medical grade drug and similar to Morphine. As we all know Morphine is what the medical profession call Heroin, so this type of pain killer is highly addictive. So I hope you can imagine what fun I am having right now. If not, let me explain.
We currently live in a society where the word addiction is used a bit too freely. People claim to be hooked on shopping, sex and even chocolate. Now I don't want to be too insulting about these claims (actually I do but I won't) but at the most these people are addicted to the rush gained by indulging in their "habit". It is the same as people who claim to be gambling addicts. The endorphine rush gained by risky behaviours like gambling is greater than that of shopping, but it is still only enjoying the chemical high that endorphins release. These types of addiction are really just a case of not being able to resist something that is enjoyable. Even the crushing tragedy of gambling and the damage it does to families is only fed by the need for the rush and misguided belief that "this time I'll win". Whatever people in the field of trouble gamblers say, it is not the same as needing a substance that alters the way your body functions physically.
Using substances such as drugs and alcohol over a long period lead to a change in the way the body works, and mean that any user reaches a point where they need that substance to function normally. While recreational drugs and alcohol are things you normally start taking for fun and then fall into addiction, pain killing drugs are something that you have to take. Annoyingly they are also very addictive. Really really annoyingly the way they manifest this addiction is to lessen your ability to cope with pain and when you want to come off them they make your brain create false pain. So I end up with bad headaches and aching wrists. Mostly. Of course many other "phantom" pains can manifest themselves. Today I have stomach cramps. But that could be part of another fun side effect of coming off Codeine, tummy upsets. Opiates bung you up big time, but as your body gets used to them your body returns to normal. When you come off them you can get all manner of stomach hassles. Sometimes they can be as violent as the poo the bed scene in the film Trainspotting. Nice.
Now every character in Trainspotting took drugs for fun, well at first. Whatever your feelings around recreational drug use, withdrawal is pretty much the same. The body needs the drugs to maintain a normal function, and so you have through the discomfort of the resetting of you body's systems, as well as whatever your body throws at you to get you to take the drugs again. That is what addition is. I think that society needs to focus on this part of the drugs debate when discussing how to make drugs less appealing. The best argument a drugs is that everything has a balance effect. The highs that drugs bring means that the lows will be equally dramatic. When I take my pain killers I know that the effect of lowering the amount of pain, which is nice, will have an equal effect when I stop taking them, which is not nice. But you won't get one effect without the other. It's the same for all physically addictive substances. Luckily I have been taking various types of pain killers since I was 15, and now know what to expect and how to best fight those effects. Not saying it's easy but knowing what is coming does make the process of withdrawal less scary.
Anyway, I have a around a month to go and should be back to being clean. Then all I have to do is hope that my next bought of pain won't happen too quickly. Fingers crossed eh?
We currently live in a society where the word addiction is used a bit too freely. People claim to be hooked on shopping, sex and even chocolate. Now I don't want to be too insulting about these claims (actually I do but I won't) but at the most these people are addicted to the rush gained by indulging in their "habit". It is the same as people who claim to be gambling addicts. The endorphine rush gained by risky behaviours like gambling is greater than that of shopping, but it is still only enjoying the chemical high that endorphins release. These types of addiction are really just a case of not being able to resist something that is enjoyable. Even the crushing tragedy of gambling and the damage it does to families is only fed by the need for the rush and misguided belief that "this time I'll win". Whatever people in the field of trouble gamblers say, it is not the same as needing a substance that alters the way your body functions physically.
Using substances such as drugs and alcohol over a long period lead to a change in the way the body works, and mean that any user reaches a point where they need that substance to function normally. While recreational drugs and alcohol are things you normally start taking for fun and then fall into addiction, pain killing drugs are something that you have to take. Annoyingly they are also very addictive. Really really annoyingly the way they manifest this addiction is to lessen your ability to cope with pain and when you want to come off them they make your brain create false pain. So I end up with bad headaches and aching wrists. Mostly. Of course many other "phantom" pains can manifest themselves. Today I have stomach cramps. But that could be part of another fun side effect of coming off Codeine, tummy upsets. Opiates bung you up big time, but as your body gets used to them your body returns to normal. When you come off them you can get all manner of stomach hassles. Sometimes they can be as violent as the poo the bed scene in the film Trainspotting. Nice.
Now every character in Trainspotting took drugs for fun, well at first. Whatever your feelings around recreational drug use, withdrawal is pretty much the same. The body needs the drugs to maintain a normal function, and so you have through the discomfort of the resetting of you body's systems, as well as whatever your body throws at you to get you to take the drugs again. That is what addition is. I think that society needs to focus on this part of the drugs debate when discussing how to make drugs less appealing. The best argument a drugs is that everything has a balance effect. The highs that drugs bring means that the lows will be equally dramatic. When I take my pain killers I know that the effect of lowering the amount of pain, which is nice, will have an equal effect when I stop taking them, which is not nice. But you won't get one effect without the other. It's the same for all physically addictive substances. Luckily I have been taking various types of pain killers since I was 15, and now know what to expect and how to best fight those effects. Not saying it's easy but knowing what is coming does make the process of withdrawal less scary.
Anyway, I have a around a month to go and should be back to being clean. Then all I have to do is hope that my next bought of pain won't happen too quickly. Fingers crossed eh?
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