The Gall of It!!!

Hey, has anyone out there got a time machine? I would really like to go back to 8a.m. on the morning of the 1st January this year and start all over again.

Now that is not like me at all 'cos I have always been a tomorrow person and I hope that tomorrow I will be back to being that again but those who have been following my scribblings will know that all has not been well. The hand is doing really well now and when last I wrote I was getting over the removal of the gall bladder. I was getting over the effects of that operation when....

We did ten radio/media interviews on the morning and I went into London to do a TV show which over-ran by one and half hours. Then we went to see the fabulous Hans Klok show, The Houdini Experience. Hans had been round our house and we had gone through a lot of the items, the language (Hans is Dutch), some of the staging, but this was the first time I had seen the show live. It was really good but in the interval I started to get twinges, hung onto the end and congratulated Hans and his team but headed for home and by now the pain was worse.

Of course the road agency knew this and closed off the M4 so it took forever to get home and by then I was in agony. Exactly the same pain was back again. I couldn't believe it. The bladder was gone, what could this be? All I know is that I was exhausted and I was in pain. Debbie made the calls and once again our house became the ambulance parking spot. The paramedics stuffed me into a chair and carried me downstairs, loaded me in and set off for the hospital. By now I am sure they were thinking that I was some kind of training exercise on a weekly basis.

All the same procedure as before... I think I could probably get a job in a hospital now... I know where to stick the needles, put the tubes in, stuff the oxygen pipes up the hooter, inject the morphine, blood pressure tests, suck the blood out..... They came to the conclusion that when the gall bladder was removed one little stone decided to hide out in a backwater and that was creating the pain.

"We'll find out whereabouts it is hiding, and then go down your throat with a camera and set of tools to move it into a place where it can eject itself." I had a mental picture of a gremlin stone, desperately hanging onto the sides of one of my tubes determined not to let go.

The drugs eased the pain and I was told that I would have to go through an MRI scanner to find out where it was. I know quite a bit about them because when years ago I helped to raise a lot of money to buy a couple of these HUGE electromagnetic tubes. On that occasion I got to meet the genius who invented them.

On the other hand I used to suffer from claustrophobia and I didn't want it to come back so I asked them to knock me out whilst they pushed me through the scanner. OK, it's my fault. I didn't understand the difference between sedate (which is supposed to relax you) and an anaesthetic which knocks you out.

So there I am, in the holding area before being launched into the tube, and a doctor came in with one and half little blue pills. I warned him that if these were Viagra they might not be able to get me into the tube. Ignoring me he said that in 20 minutes I would be completely relaxed. I wasn't. I was knocking out the jokes and felt no difference.

He gave me another one and half little blue pills. 20 minutes later he gave me another three. Unbelievable I know but 20 minutes later he kind of gave up and came into the room with a little pot with, wait for it, another TEN of these pills saying that now I really would feel a difference.

I didn't so they brought in an anaesthetist to knock me out. Apparently Debbie eventually came home and then the next morning phoned in to find out how I was. They kept telling her I was still asleep and I can only imagine the panic in her when they kept saying I was still in recovery.

I was. I was recovering from all the nights of lost sleep. I slept for 36 hours and by the time I woke up they had done everything they wanted to do and I came home.

Sure, I felt weakened but I have always been a fairly active guy and the hardest part was making myself do nothing. Debbie and my management cancelled the tour shows that I had lined up and I HATED that but they were being wiser than I was.

Yesterday I started to feel better and today I am feeling ready to take on the stage show again. I'll be able to fulfill the two dates I have this weekend. The missed shows are being re-scheduled. The only problem is that by doing nothing I am finding it very difficult to sleep at night. I am simply not tired.

Where's that anaesthetist when I need him?

The Damaged Hand

One oddity of 'The Hand' is that it feels holes in things and just in case anyone else is going through the same experience I drew up the above explanation.

Again Again Again... MEGA thanks to all the family, friends, fans and people I have never met who all expressed their concern over my accident (see past blogs).

I am now back to almost normal (was I ever?) and even did a magic show and presented an awards night a couple of nights ago. I wouldn't go so far as to say I was nervous, but I had to make myself focus a lot more than I would normally.

In the past I would sail into any job on a wave of confidence, but now things felt a lot different and I knew that things 'felt' differently when I picked them up. The whole thing was being projected onto huge screens and Debbie watched from the wings on a monitor. Afterwards she said she had noticed nothing out of the ordinary at all..... what a relief.

Oddly I got a lot more response from that gig than I have beforehand and we had to pose for photos for an hour afterwards. So many comments like 'I simply never realised before that you were so funny...' Good.. that has set me up for the tour which starts next week. I have a panic week ahead getting it all ready.

Martin, my son, isn't doing this tour with us and I have been lucky enough to book another funny guy for most of it, Kev Orkian. If you haven't seen him you have no idea how talented he is. This is going to be fun.

The depression I felt has gone and my body, even though odd bits of it are still sore, is getting back to living the life. No... I am not going to talk about which odd bits.

It's a beautiful day. I am going out to feed my robin.

Have fun

200 Years of Charles Dickens

Yes, 200 years ago one of the greatest writers of all time was born, but today you've only got me. I'll do my best.

Thank you once again to all those who have communicated in one form or another with good wishes and kind comments. There's 'nowt' wrong with being nice to people is there?

My hand is recovering nicely but giving me extremely odd feelings now that nerve endings have either gone or been moved. The best example I can think of is that my dearest friend Graham Reed sent me one of those squeegee balls to build up the strength in my fingers. I have been walking around with it in my trousers pocket squashing it all the time (honest officer) and suddenly noticed there was a big hole in the ball. Of course there wasn't, but to me there was, and it was most strange.

Any road up, (very Dickens) the hand is coming along and I think that process will get faster now that the wounds have healed over.

I apologise for my last blog, which was depressing. Thanks to ALL the responses I have had about that from other members of the Vanished Gall Bladder Club, I now know that feeling is normal after that operation. Perhaps the medics should warn us before operations that our systems don't like being invaded and get very sad about it. Knowledge gives us something to focus on and to believe in, and knowing it is OK to feel 'down' has helped me through those moments. My own doctor this morning was very 'up' about how well I was doing and how the wounds were healing. I can't lift anything for a while ('Debbie... can you move this computer for me?') but, again, I am sure I will be fine.

Until I get a prosthetic for the finger I am using a very well known magician's gizmo and that has made a big difference in my typing abilities and in that area also I am back to normal.

Lots on TV this week about cyberbullying and I had no idea it was so rampant until I was attacked on Twitter with rumours and innuendos of a stupidly disgusting nature. I started to block them but there were far too many. What Twitter has is the ability to block the nutters, or even to block and report spam, but what it should build into the system is the ability to block and report bullying and if one of there members gets say, 20, such reports, they are automatically removed from the Twitter database.

Today will be a day of telephone interviews about the coming tour and also organising the backstage aspects of such an adventure. So much to be done.

I just read what I have written and I notice I have mentioned I am 'normal' a couple of times. How boring. I have never wanted to be normal.

I must wrap this up. I have interviews to do, and I have great expectations....

Let's Forget January

So many queries as to how I am and where I am. Thank you for all of those and for the good wishes. The truth is that whilst my ill fortune could not get any worse.... it did stay pretty bad. I made the following notes along the way.....

Good grief. What am I doing here? It is the 1^st of February and I am propped up in a hospital bed and I confess to trying to control the fear inside me.

This has been a terrible month. On the very first day I made a mistake using a table saw and damaged my left hand. It wasn’t just the pain that hit me, or the realisation that I might not be able to perform magic again, it was the aftershock and stress that really cut into me and all month I have had to keep dragging myself up from depression. I have had to give myself many a talking to and just when I thought I was winning I got severe stomach cramps. These were so severe I finished up being looked after by paramedics and taken into the Royal Berkshire Hospital.

I had had food poisoning that took me close to leaving the planet a couple of times and this felt like that, only worse. I wanted to be sick but I couldn’t be. They hit me with pills on pills on pills, took blood and injected me to kill the pain and over a period of 12 hours came to the conclusion I had gall stones. They sent me home and within minutes of walking through the front door I got my wish. Thankfully I had made it to the bathroom when my innards left me.

The next day they gave me one of those ultra sound scans and started talking about removing my gall bladder. To them this is routine stuff. To me it’s a MAJOR piece of my body.

I know they have told me it’s an unnecessary bit, rather like the appendix... was God really that bad at design? All I know is that they have put me on the emergency list for tomorrow because I have now had two of these attacks. They hope they can fit me in. I have had to sign the form. The very nice surgeon explained how simple it all is BUT then they go through all the (albeit small percentages) of things that might go wrong and now I keep trying to find stuff to focus on to take me away from the nasty bits.

Debbie was here earlier. I feel terrible about the strain under which I am putting her. Deb is brilliant at smiling, laughing, reassuring me, but I know all this stuff is getting to her. Please don’t let tomorrow go wrong and mess up her life any more.

Tonight they have just been, yet again, and my blood pressure has gone through the roof. Oh dear. I have always been able to control myself when they took it but I am SO uptight that maybe the machine is close to the mark.

Everything in here bleeps. Men snore, belch, vomit, fart all through the night but it is the non stop warning bleeps that come from the electronic devices attached to patients that get to me. They are WARNING devices but nobody comes to switch them off.... I guess they become background noise to the staff. I wonder why they are not connected to the nurse station in the corridor by some means, even Bluetooth, so the sounds are away from the patients. I want to sleep, but I know they are looking for another blood pressure machine to cross check my results.

Quarter To Eleven at night and I am starving hungry. I am trying to not eat the fruit and toast until nearer midnight, when I must stop eating until the operation. Then I am going to have a couple of Paracetemol and hope they put me to sleep. G’night all.

4^th Fbruary... evening... I have had the operation. The gall bladder has gone. I wonder if I weigh less. Finger gone. Bladder gone. I should weigh less.

Sure, I finished up with sore bits, but not as bad as I thought I would be. The main problem is fighting the ‘down’ moments. Sometimes I get really really depressed and that is so not me. I can’t understand it. I can’t climb away from it. Debbie, my one woman support team, is constantly there for me, rallying me on, but I just can’t get going again... until now when I have decided that this simply is not the way I want to live.

I have shows to do and people to make laugh. I will start attacking the scene again on Monday because shows don’t just happen by accident. Tomorrow I will make my lists whilst listening to my support team do her Radio Berkshire show.

My next blog will be a lot more cheerful, sorry to have been a disaster. Hope you are all well and happy and if you’re not... that you soon improve, ‘cos that’s what I am going to do.

Rumours

The media caught up with the story of the accident over the last two days and, as was to be expected, changed the truth somewhat, seeking far more dramatic descriptions than the story I told in my blog.

I thought I had best bring you all up to date with the situation. Yes, it was awful but turned out to be better than I thought it was going to be. The story about my forefinger being sewn back on was a bit of an exaggeration. True, the saw did rip through the top knuckle area of my left forefinger but it never came right off and it is already healing up. The little finger of the left hand has a tiny bit missing from the tip but it never touched the nail. The middle finger is untouched. The worst bit is that I have lost the top section, the part that had the nail on it, of my ring finger.

That means that I will have to adjust and re-learn some of the moves of which audiences should be unaware. I can do that. Until the bandage comes off it I won't know how it affects the general handling of props. More adjustment may be needed.

All that aside, I have been back in the workshop but it is awkward working with one and a half hands. It's still awkward to type, and I can't get used to my finger not hitting the e, d or c. I will have to have a pointy bit stuck on the end.

The comments on here, Twitter and Facebook have been, in the main, supportive and are really appreciated. Sadly it will be impossible to answer them all. Magicians that you won't know from all over the world have been very kind to me and it was great to hear from two you will know, Penn and Teller.

What else? Debbie and I are going to be appearing on the TV game show, Pointless (which seems appropriate, and on the Adonia, a cruise ship (am I pushing my luck in the light of the recent disaster?) Oh yes... with a bit of luck I will soon be able to add some Irish venues to the Spring Tour date list. Final negotiations are now taking place.

Best of Wishes to you all.

PD

Seven Days of Frustration

It's seven days since my last blog and I never expected and can't believe how many nice and caring comments I have had on here, Twitter, emails, phone calls and Facebook. It has been amazing and heartwarming. I can only say a huge 'thank you' to all of you.

The only bad comments were on the online pages of the Sun newspaper. I feel quite proud that the Sun readers don't like me.... :)

S, how has it been? Well, I never realised how restricting using one and a half hands would be. Add that to not being allowed to drive (though I am sure I could) and you have one frustrated impatient conjurer sitting here.

During the week the administering angels (you call them nurses) changed the dressings, announced that it was all going very well and suggested some finger exercises. They then bound my fingers up again so tightly I couldn't do the exercises. :)

Tomorrow I will see Mr Sammut, genius surgeon, again and he will decide whether there is any more work to be done. Fingers crossed (on my right hand) that the news will be good.

On a different tack, pun intended, Debbie drove me over to the boat show. I know that some government geezer decided it would be a good idea to develop the docklands area with the 'Dome', 'Excel', etc... but for most of the nation it's damn difficult to get there.

We only live on the opposite side of London but it took over two hours to get there and over four hours to get back. Birmingham would have been quicker and a LOT more central for the majority of the country.

The biggest disappointment was how few boats were on show. In previous shows there have been boats at all prices. Not this time I'm afraid, so it's back to searching online.

That's about it really, apart from plotting and planning the coming tour. The sooner the better for me!

The Little Blog of Horrors

Happy New Year. My New Year Resolution was to try to keep more in touch with friends and family, on and off line. The best laid plans...

Mostly I am writing this to let you know what really happened and not what somw journalist will create. What is here is not embellished but let it be a warning.

January 1st morning Debbie went off to Radio Berkshire and I tidied up my big shed. I decided to make a 'sled' for my table saw to make it safer. Remember that! Safer!

I already had most of the pieces cut and started to cut a 'fiddly bit'. If you remember the sun was shining and streaming through the shed windows. VERY quickly and without any warning the piece of timber seemed to leap and pulled my left hand fingers into the teeth of the circular saw.

Without any conscious thought on my part my right hand hit the stop button and I rammed my left hand into the chest of my coat and somehow ran to the car, started it and set off for Henley. I must have looked a weird site doubled over with my face all screwed up from the pain and, I admit it, the pain.

In Henley I jumped out of the car and scared the hell out of the young woman driving the car in front asking her to move over at the lights. I can remember that I saw the lights go to green and I dived back into my car, mounted the pavement and went round her on the left to get on the road to Townlands Hospital where I dumped my car in the entrance and staggered into the front door.

They were brilliant 'cos I had no idea what had been damaged or lost or where I was or anything.

My head was full of the pain and the possible end of the magic.

After reducing the pain they got me into an ambulance and we went off at high speed for a hospital near Slough. Again a great staff and I was able to let Debbie know where I was. She came. I should work harder at not upsetting her. I could hear phrases and words around me... 'bone is shattered' 'ground up' 'nail gone' 'might be able to save the finger'. OMG... MIGHT...

A 'long-timer' went off on a phone around to try to get a hand specialist... difficult on New Year's Day. One was in Switzerland... could get back for Thursday... he found one that would come over from Bristol and open the Hand Clinic especially. Two nursing staff turned out as well.

According to other doctors I got lucky getting him. They say he is the best. I went for the operation and gave permission for him to do whatever was necessary.

Despite the warning I was not expecting the pain I got from mr raised arm being injected in the left armpit and apparently I questioned his parents' marital status. This numbed my fingers completely and they went to work. I concentrated on talking to the nurse to my right and tried to ignore my brain worrying about whether he was going to remove my finger, my hand, my arm. That's not as daft as it sounds 'cos I once had a poisoned knuckle on that hand and was told that if they had operated later I ran a risk of the poison spreading and losing the arm.

I kept up some banter and tried not listen to their techie talk about bones and stuff. It seemed to take forever until he asked if I would like to see what he had done. I'm a chicken when it comes to that sort of thing so I said no but couldn't stop myself glancing to the left. MY ARM WASN'T THERE!!! It was to my left, on the table, still attached but when they numb the nerve your brain remembers the last position... in my case up in the air. Not the best moment in my life.

All bandaged up I was soon on my way home and I have had one check up since. Bad moments recur, the worst being full shock state one night which turned me into a gibbering wreck as I relived the moment it happened. This has given me a fuller understanding of shock. It's not nice.

As I am a touch typist (I hate touch screens) getting any form of communication out there has not been easy and doing this blog has taken ages.

Tuesday will tell me more about what I will be able to do. I hope it will be the majority of what I did before, fingers crossed (oops... bad phrase)

BIg Lesson... don't take short cuts with power tools.... you will finish up with bigger cuts.