The Dudeism Forum

Was just sending good thoughts your way last night dude!
Glad to hear your special lady is getting better. I'm looking for a full recovery dude!
Abide dude...abide.

That's some good news indeed, CD-dude!
Thanks for letting us know.
All the best for further recovery!
Take care and abide.
BE

Hi again everybody.

Just wanted to tell you guys how things are right now.

Chantelle has been weaned off the trachy tube and is now breathing on her own for the first time in 4 months. This is good but her lungs are weak and as one of them was punctured in the accident she struggles every now and then. This is a worry.

She has now been moved from the neuro ward in the N&N to the Coleman rehabilitation centre in Norwich. Here they will try and stimulate her in as many ways as they can...through physio and other means.

I would love to be able to say that I have seen improvement in her consciousness levels but I cannot. I have felt her squeeze my hand and I have seen her smile but she has not replicated these acts and still does nothing to command.

Some days I think she is listening to me but then the next day she looks vacant.

I'm trying my hardest to be positive and am still being a rock to her parents....but I'm a mess guys.

I'm ok on here...in this land of dude which can make me smile and take me away from the reality of the nightmare I live.

My life is thus.... get up...work 11 hours...come home and shower...go to the hospital....come home and drink beer and sit in front of the laptop....go to bed.... etc.

I do washing  cos I need clean clothes...I throw things in the oven cos I need to eat...but I'm never hungry... (I love cooking and to cook for people) when my son comes round I order takeaway....me and my son cook up a storm in the kitchen...he's 12 and I've been cooking with im since he was 2!

Life sucks...really really sucks....today is exactly one year since we met for the second time and fell in love all over. We were so happy with each other... life was wonderful and we had a future....now I live each day just wishing you could talk to me, just hoping that she will smile for me. I love you my darling. Please wake please come back to me. My heart is shattered and I'm struggling. I miss you so much. Please please come back to me. xxx

Caesar dude, I feel for you. You really need her to communicate with you, and she can't right now. It's got to be very hard. But she's getting better, little by little. She can finally breathe on her own and she's ready to take the next step of whatever the therapists have in store for her. Both of these things are really good--I hope you can feel encouraged by them.

Even though her recovery is probably happening much slower than you want it to, it *is* happening. Keep the faith, man. It'll get better.

Dude.......<hug>

Ditto revgms, Dude - I don't have the words, man so I'll leave it to someone else:

The Darkling Thrush
By Thomas Hardy
I leant upon a coppice gate
      When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
      The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
      Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
      Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
      The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
      The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
      Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
      Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
      The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
      Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
      In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
      Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
      Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
      Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
      His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
      And I was unaware.

I just found this thread CD, as I've been an absentee dude for the last several months... you will abide, because you must xox.

And my favorite quote when all things are dark (camus):

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned there lay within me an invincible summer".

Roll on dude

Thank you again for all your good thoughts dudes.

@ Outer Element: Thanks man.

@ Revgms: I need all the hugs I can get right now so thanks dude.

@ Cakes: Love the poem and have never read it before so many thanks for the introduction and the thoughts and feelings.

@ Busmum: Thank you very much for the thoughts and the quote.

This is what I feel the dude community is all about and I thank you all once again for keeping Chantelle and I in your thoughts.

Peace.

Oh wow, CD - I also just found this thread (I'm a pretty new Dude), and wanted to let you know that I will also be sending some good juju your and Chantelle's ways. My eyes are welling up reading everything you and your special lady have been through. I really hope that she is healing and progressing nicely, and would love to hear how both she and you are doing, if you have the time and energy for an update some time.

Gah. I just wanted to offer my sympathy, and such. Peace to you.

Thank you Pancake Dude. Your thoughts are well received.

I haven't updated this thread for a while and on reading through it I realise that I've omitted a few things.

First of all thank you to Uberdude for starting the thread....I was not in the right frame of mind to tell you guys myself and didn't want to seem "needy" if that makes sense.

Also I never explained what happened to Chantelle. She was driving to my place after work at around 23:15 on the 25th January when her car swerved off the road, down a ditch and slammed sideways into a brick wall. She hit her head on the door pillar and her brain moved inside her skull so the bruising (injury) is to both sides of her brain. The brain can never recover from bruising. She was unconscious at the scene and has never fully regained consciousness. Her Gasgow coma scale was assessed as 3 which at first sounds ok but the scale starts at 3 and rises to 9.

Chantelle has been and in fact still is being assessed for consciousness levels on all her senses but unfortunately is not doing too well on these. We will have final results in two weeks.

She is still in a minimal conscious state but opens both her eyes when she is awake although she is almost certainly blind in her right eye as the pupil is constantly dilated. I talk to her and I ask her to blink twice if she understands me....she does this 50% of the time...which as you know is chance.

I still believe that one day she will recognise me and will be able to communicate however limited that may be.

I will never give up on my sleeping beauty and I see her everyday and I talk to her and I hold her and I love her.

Thank you ALL again for your thoughts and your dudely vibes and your presence in  our lives. You are all truly worthy of the name Dude.

Peace Reverends.

Dude, we're all pulling for you and Chantelle. Constant dudely prayer, meditations and positive thoughts for you and Chantelle.

Oh, CD. I am so sorry for what you and Chantelle are going through right now. She's a lucky special lady to have so much love around her - love can do some pretty incredible things.

I will definitely throw more good stuff your and her way as often as I can, for what it's worth. Keep on abiding, and take good care of yourself. And check in here and ramble as much as you like, if it helps - no one's going to think you're needy, and even if that were the case, well, you're most definitely allowed. 

Like DB said, we're here for you, Dude! (Even though I'm kinda new, I'm definitely here for the long haul, for sure!)

Thank you again. PW Dude. and of course you DB.... and all of you really.

Love can move mountains I'm sure. I'm doing my best and my beautiful blue eyes is doing hers.

Our story is as romantic as it comes....true love from the start but the Universe conspired against us for many years....then allowed us true happiness for a while and took it away again in a split second.

I have no bad memories of our time when life was "normal" together...not one bad word has ever passed between us...not one argument or misunderstanding...not a cross word.

It's been six whole months...that's half a year...and the world has changed since my lady has been sleeping....I couldn't bring her the poppies that she loves so much...I couldn't give her her 40th birthday present...(if your unconscious on your birthday then you haven't had one ...therefore she's still 39) and I couldn't ask her to marry me on the 27th May as I'd planned.

There's so many things that I haven't been able to do.....but I've shared them all...I've talked to her till I'm bored with my own voice ...I've read to her (I used to read to her before the accident at night before we slept) , books I knew and loved but she'd never heard of, her eyes aren't too good in half light and so she'd ask me to read till she fell asleep...then the next night I'd have to read it all again as she couldn't remember where we'd got to.

I've held her and kissed her and begged her to wake up and come out and play in the sunshine....and I will continue doing this until the day I die....

The words below are from the Proclaimer's Sunshine on Leith.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BDj4mr0fBc&ob=av2e

"My tears are drying, my tears are drying
Thank you thank you thank you thank you

My tears are drying, my tears are drying

Your beauty and kindness
Made tears clear my blindness

While I'm worth my room on this earth
I will be with you

While the Chief, puts Sunshine On Leith
I'll thank him for his work

And your birth and my birth."

And I love my beautiful lady and I am sad...very very sad.

Thanks for listening dudes.

I hadn't heard that Proclaimers song in close to twenty years, I think - and it was always one of my favorites of theirs, and apparently still brings the tears.

That was just so beautiful, Dude. Keep on sharing whenever you feel like it. You've got a bunch of sympathetic eyes and ears. Sending hope into the great Universe that your beautiful blue eyes comes fully back to you soon. I think we all greatly look forward to reading about that happy moment!

Argh! I can't read it without hearing them sing it.

Help me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!