Black Dog

[Doorstop]

I think I may be heading for a bout of depression.

I've thought this for a while now, ever since I had my accident and lost the proper use of my left hand.

Things don't look as if they are getting any better, the hand is still barely functional .. only my thumb and first two fingers having any range of worthwhile movement (I can grip with those digits to about 30% of my previous strength) with my remaining fingers remaining numb and completely outside my full control.

The little finger is especially infuriating as it has donned a life all of its own refusing to straighten and (on a arbitrarily random basis) curling itself up into a ball against my palm and having to be manually extended using the other hand.

Also, as the outside two digits have no strength or control either laterally or vertically, I am dropping things left, right and centre .. simple things like pens or a screwdriver are not a problem (dropping items like these is usually inconsequential), but when I forget and throw my dinner all over the carpet because that hand won't lift the plate any more it starts to infuriate me.

The rage never completely subsides .. it merely fades into disappointment and sadness as it looks increasingly likely that the appendage is never going to get back to its former level of function.

All in all the hand is basically useless for work as a) I don't have the dexterity for fine manipultion of tools / materials etc and b) the reduction in strength in the hand makes it dangerous for me to carry tools and materials to any height without endangering my surroundings and any work colleagues working alongside me.

In short, I have turned into a liability doing any job I am capable and qualified to do.

I am at a loss as to what to do next, at the moment I am in the fortunate position of having third party sickness/unemployment insurance covering my time off but that only has 3 months to go on full pay, 6 at half .. I can't afford to retrain - I don't want to anyway, but I realistically can't negate the subject either.

I have no idea what I could possibly do as an alternative career other than go back on the doors full time, but that being a chapter of my life I was glad to leave behind I'm not too sure how long I could do it again before becoming jaded and cynical once more .. and there is nothing, nothing worse than having to do a job that you absolutely, totally, physically hate. I know as I was a steward far, far longer than I should have but it may well prove a last resort.

Unless, of course , I face reality and adopt and embrace my 'disability' and find some coping strategies round it which would allow me to continue work as an electrician .. difficult to comprehend this option as I threw a hissy fit at the weekend fixing my old Pops' three way lighting circuit on his stairwell at the weekend.

He had attempted to change his switches to chrome jobbers and forgot to mark the cores while disconnecting things. I knew exactly what went where after a few quick manual touching together of cores but could I get my bloody fingers to hold switches, screws, cabling etc. to reconnect anything?

Could I buggery!!

I'm afraid I let loose a few choice sweary words within earshot of my neices and ended up having to get my brother to hold the switchplates and cores in their proper places while I tightened the grub screws.

I can't possibly ask someone to do that for me on site .. hence, the appearance of my Black Dog.

I'm now sick of snivelling like a big girl .. and the sun is over the yard-arm, so I am going to get drunk and shout "BOLLOCKS!" to my diabetes and passers by from my balcony.

The End.

[glasgowken]

Sorry to hear that Doorstop Apart from what you've already said what types of career interest you ?

[HollowHorn]

Get yourself along to the the Swally on Friday night, I'll hold your pint.

[Josef]

Get yourself along to the the Swally on Friday night, I'll hold your pint.

I'll let you borrow my straw for the evening. Great idea, though; if you're feeling sorry for yourself, it'll cheer you up no end when you see this lot .

[busdriver]

Before the dog bites, talk to someone these guys helped me;
Samaritans of Glasgow
0141 248 4488
UK Number: 08457 90 90 90.
Lines are usually open till 10pm

[Reenie Bujman]

Oh Doorstop, what have happened m'son?

I've not followed your story closely enough, but I guess your injury is in for a longer duration than the shattered collar bone and learn how to be left handed for a time that caught up with me some years ago. That cleared up, mercifully, but I still get the ache on a damp day to remind me.

The Black Dog is a bastard. I called the vet on mine and had it put down, but then, I had the answer. I wish I knew how to deal with yours.

I found myself on door duty now and again, when I was part of the furniture in my local during my twenties. There comes a time for that to stop and for me it was long ago. One reaches an age when one goes to the pub to socialise and be respected rather than socialise and end up in the mix. You know this. Going back would be too familiar...

...and like my own experience in the software development trade where I'd clearly reached the age when I should be passing my skills on to inexperienced youth, I was still looking to lost youthful exuberance to dig me out. Because I knew how to do it.

I found that I dug my hole deeper. Nervous breakdown in six months rather than three years.

I trust my instinct. If it doesn't feel right it's because it isn't right. Leave alone.

Somewhere in the middle of it all I gave up smoking and picked up an airbrush and taught myself to use it. Exhibit in Sotheby's within two years. I've hardly made a living out of it; "don't give up the day job", they say, but hell it was a good blast for a while. A change is as good as a rest and even if it doesn't work out, you'll clear the cobwebs.

Would I go back to software? Only if it came to me for advice, which it should after all this time. I've had bugs out of impossible situations and the boss wondering at it all. He didn't mind paying me £20 an hour some months later for a bit of consultancy. Another guy gave me £35 an hour and charged me out at £50.

At that time, I was still dwelling on the past in a comfort zone of yore when everyone else realised I should have moved on, hence the hourly rates. Still I didn't get the message... But I digress.

So, you know how to fill a door (and I know a big lad from Somerset who's probably a man after your heart, if I can find the photo...) and you know your wiring. Building trade's slack at the moment, but I'll bet you can find someone needing their door minders or electricians educating. As for someone to hold stuff while you use your good hand, there's an apprentice somewhere needs to learn your wisdom, and best done when he can't run away.

"Drop that wire, son and we're both up in smoke..."

That should galvanise his attention.

You're a character, Doorstop, and a younger generation needs to know it...

So teach 'em.

Age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill.

[HollowHorn]

[Reenie Bujman]

Knew if I trawled for a while I'd find Big Ian. Not as if he'd slip through a net...



"These boys think they can fill a doorway", said Big Ian. "Stand aside, lads..."



Big Ian's the boss and Aido (ex-marines) and Nibs (Martial arts instructor) will in time tell their students about him.

Naturally, I've met a few electricians on site and never a dull one. They're not called "sparkies" for nothing. Humour flows through their veins like electrons up a length of copper wire.

The future's there, Doorstop, it's just a matter of wiring it in.

[cheesemonster]

Get yourself along to the the Swally on Friday night, I'll hold your pint.

don't fall for it! he'll drink it as well

[Lucky Poet]

I've nothing to add, other than to say that Reenie speaks the truth. More power to you both.

[Doorstop]

Thanks for your kind words of support guys .. all very, very much appreciated especially Reenie, who obviously took some time out of her busy life blowing buildings up to give a bloke a kind word, and Delmont St Xavier whose PM raised both a smile and my spirits .. thanks guys - all of you.

I have, subsequent to my maudlin episode, been told that recovery could take up to 6 months and I'm probably just being premature in donning my dismal, Gothic mantle.

I suppose it's just the nature of the injury that is playing with my mind a little, I'm used to being able to push through feeling ill or weak and just getting on with things .. it's another matter entirely when the motor functions of the bodypart affected are completely outwith your control.

I let it get the better of me when I couldn't force an improvement over the course of three weeks and took the usual male course of action of throwing a strop and getting drunk to compensate (and by 'compensate' I probably mean 'intellectually anaesthetise' myself).

I have been prescribed a course of physiotherapy at the local clinic and initially found that desperately depressing .. it's a bit of a culture shock having a slip of a girl tell you the best you can manage on a regular basis for the forseeable future is to 'practice' wiggling your fingers and squeeze a wee soft foam rubber ball. Especially when the other hand and arm is perfectly comfortable curling a 45 kilogram dumbell.

Still .. after a talk with my mates and some medical advice I have decided that the best course of action is probably to keep at the physio, follow my own dicta and use my acquired knowledge of the workings of my psyche and, in the interim, develop coping strategies to overcome the obstacles and avoidance techniques to prevent myself from being presented with too many trigger events in the short term at least.

Getting drunk to 'forget' things is never a good idea, especially when you are over 40 and have diabetes .. the resulting hangovers are, quite frankly, horrendous.

Once again people, thanks for the support .. it came at just the right time.


I enjoyed Reenie's photos of her stewarding mates as it never fails to amaze me how, when asked for a photograph, door stewards adopt almost the same pose .. (me included!)

I would like to post a pic or two of myself on the door but I'm afraid I don't actually have any .. but I do have some newspaper clippings of escapades I have embarked on so, at the the risk of appearing to whore myself, I shall post them instead.




This pic has a long story behind it .. my old Boss in a really rough pub in Glasgow, the Atlantis in Clydebank, told me, basically, to bugger off when I asked for staff drinks for my crew at the end of a shift during a really bad spell.. (I had leathered someone for glassing me and he had subsequently died .. not due to my actions I hasten to add but I got the blame nonetheless.).

So I and a mate decided to kidnap a stuffed owl, a prized possesion of the pubs owner, holding it to ransom and displaying it via the 'wind-up' medium of photographs.

We sent photographs of masked individuals accompanying Owly (it's me in this pic!) at Edinburgh Castle, Tower Bridge, the Lake District etc .. a colleague even took a blow up photo of the owl at Niagra Falls when he was visiting family in Ontario!

But the funniest part is I was head steward at three bars in the same district at the time, The Atlantis - Whisky Joes' and the MegaBowl in Clydebank

When one of the counter staff at the bowling alley was told the photo in the local paper was, in fact, me .. he asked me how did I grab the stuffed fowl.
I told him and he then asked me "how did I blank my face and put the big question mark for the photograph?"
I said "I used tippex and a fine indelible marker". He replied "Did that tippex not take ages to wash off in the bath?" .. and he was serious!!

I kid you not!!




That's me on the bench press machine .. I'm not that fat, I am fat but just not that fat.

I was a bit nippy with the photographer that day and I think the bastard did me a wrong 'un.

I didn't actually have the benefit of 'Mars Bars and sugary drinks' (I'm a diabetic) it's just that what Sainsburys, one of my sponsors, thought I may need by way of sporting supplements.


I've got another clip of me as a teenager winning one of my national weightlifting titles but I'll only post that on request as the haircut is 'early eighties' and, quite frankly, shocking.

[Reenie Bujman]

Anything I can do to put your morale back on the level, old son...

If your physiotherapist is half as good as the one I saw here in EK, then you're in good hands. This one was a dinky lass too and I doubt she was more than twenty-one. She knew her stuff alright, and my knee is back to fighting fitness. I've learned a good deal about the way leg muscles work too: she was enthusiastic and a good teacher.

It took six months and it's been frustrating not being able to participate in hill walking for most of that time, but the perseverance and patience has paid of and I hope it will do so for you too.

I know about those mid-life hangovers. The body doesn't recover so quickly and there happen things like strange dreams, drowsiness in the afternoon and muscular aches (myalgia) that none of the books, doctors or government advice warn you about. I only drink occasionally and then to take refuge from the constant pain that may be neuralgia, sinusitis or whatever.

As for scary photos from the eighties, here's me aged 17 late in 1985. No girl should have to tolerate this (monobrow and all) in the mirror every day, but there was no way I was 'fessing up at the time.



I look at it, I know it was me, but the familiarity has gone. I think we have a word "disinure", to render unfamiliar, but I'm not sure of its usage so I won't try to put into practice.

[Peekay]

I reckon Doorstop'n'Reenie are looking like a wee couple here folks! Is that hints of Lavander I can smell? Will Crusty catch the bouquet?

PK

[penguinmonkey]

Hi,

Speaking as someone who has spent most of his teens and adult life wrestling with the aforementioned Dark Canine. Don't expect much help from the NHS unless you are lucky enough to have a GP who specialises in mental health issues and is willing to play the system on your behalf as opposed to following the wildly varying dictates from above. I know it sounds like a cliche but exercise and generally being in the fresh air can make a huge difference to the way you feel. As you've realised yourself Doorstop the demon drink makes a good anasthetic in an emergency but the after effects make things worse( and no I haven't managed to find a drug yet that fixes everything despite years of trying). Anyway good luck with your battle keep fighting and don't let the bastard get you down

Penguinmonkey

[Doorstop]

Thanks Penguinmonkey, for your words of advice.

I'm still working my way through all the various courses of action, the physio has started and the gym will always be a part of my life so I'll see what's what after a month or two before reaching for the shotgun and farewell note.

And Peekay, I feel it incumbent upon myself to say my bus definitely doesn't take the lavender route.