Mayers - You Have Not a Leg to Stand On

Title Page

YOU HAVE NOT A LEG TO STAND ON

D.D. Mayers

Publisher Information

You Have Not a Leg to Stand On

Published in 2015 by

Andrews UK Limited

www.andrewsuk.com

The right of D.D. Mayers to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Copyright 2015 D.D. Mayers

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my wife. You will quickly realise, for the last 39 years, she has both literally and metaphorically, carried me around the world and through my life. Since the moment she found me in a little African hospital in central Kenya at midnight on the 29 th of June 1976, she has been my other self. She is my heart and soul and means more to me than I can possibly express.

I would also like to thank, from the bottom of my heart, both our families and all friends for their unerring acceptance of my plight and never once shying away from any support we have needed.

Disaster

The day started off just like any other day, a beautiful day. Every day in the Kedong Valley was a beautiful day. The Kedong Valley nestles in the side of the Great Rift Valley that carves its way through the East of Africa, starting in South Africa and ends engulfing The Red Sea. I was 32, my wife 18 months younger. Wed been married for eight years. Its a long time ago, as I write this, but Im told we were an attractive couple. We lived here in this beautiful place where the Kedong River bubbles up out of the ground; millions of gallons a day of crystal clear water. When people see the garden for the first time, their breath is taken away, and theyd whisper Shangri-La. But by the end of this beautiful day, the 29 th of June 1976, our lives will have turned upside down, and it would be the start of years and years of desperate, traumatic despair.

The butcher arrived on time, and he said Lets go in my car so we can talk. It was a spanking new Volvo, much nicer than my poor old Peugeot. Great. I jumped in. Hed seen the herd before but he wanted to see them once more before paying in cash. He intended to obtain the licence to walk them from their grazing in the north of the country to his slaughterhouse in Nairobi.

It was a pleasant drive. We chatted about how hed become so successful. Even then, seventeen years after independence, it was unusual for an African, if he werent a politician, to be a successful businessman.

We arrived just before five in the hot, dusty, ramshackle little wooden township of Rumeruti, where the police station was the only stone building. Hello, hello, how are you all, is the licence ready? Yes, yes, sign here. Thanks very much. I jumped back in. It was now about three minutes before the crash would happen. The road was quite good; it was a murram road, a dirt road, with loose gravel in the middle and on the sides. You could drive quite fast when keeping to the tracks but needed skill if you came out of them. We were moving quite quickly, a bit too quickly. We were coming up to a sharp bend to the right. The wheels caught the gravel in the middle and the side on the left. The car started to drift. Hed lost control, I instinctively reached for the dashboard, mistake, a split-second later... oblivion.

***

With the impact of the accident, that moment of oblivion, I could easily have died. People breezily say youre lucky to be alive. I usually just say Yes but I think, what the hell do you know, you stupid ill-informed idiot.

They say this to me while looking at me sitting in my wheelchair, knowing Ive been bound to this contraption since 1976 and will be for the rest of my life. Not only can I never walk again but Im doubly incontinent, impotent and in continuous, excruciating pain below the level of the break, meaning normal painkilling drugs have no effect. I know this must seem as though Im bitter and twisted, but Im very aware of how much others can put up with, so I never give that impression. My wife is the only person who has any perception of how I think and feel about being alive.

Ive reread this last paragraph I wrote some months ago, and I think I should, at this point, expand upon the devastating effect paraplegia has on an individual.

Not being able to walk could be described as really the least of the problems. If it were that alone, then coming to terms with using some sort of contraption to move about, would quickly be overcome. The choice of wheelchairs to cars, and financial assistance from social services is overwhelming. Even impotence doesnt necessarily mean you cant have a fulfilling, close relationship with the opposite sex, or the same sex for that matter.

Its incontinence that buggers you up. Incontinence and the consequences of incontinence are unacceptable both socially and individually. Its only in the last few years that urinary tract infection is openly discussed. And yet before the advent of antibiotics, as recently as after the end of the Second World War, the average life expectancy for a paraplegic was about three years.

So now youll live and not die. But whats the point of living if, as a human being and not an animal, you have no control over your bowels and bladder. Its that most basic of functions that differentiate us from all other animals.

When I left Stoke Mandeville hospital, my shopping list for the management of urine collection was unusual. It included one kipper (a thick rubber urine bag that looked like a kipper, which you tied to your leg) and a yard of half-inch yellow rubber tubing. There was also a spigot, a tube of white rubber glue, a needle and a bag of condoms. However carefully I assembled this extraordinary collection of disparate items required to stick the condom to my deflated, flaccid, useless penis, there seemed to be a major accident. Hatefully this occurred on average, about once a week. For the record, Ill describe to you what an accident actually entails.

***

We were invited to stay for a few days with a lifetime friend of my wifes family, at his beautiful castle in Scotland. He was blind and had been so for most of his adult life. Nevertheless the castle was immaculate, both inside and out, and he ran the vast estate with the most up-to-date methods available for the day.

The Laird was waiting for us at the top of the long grey stone staircase. He was a big man, not fat, big, quite tall, bald top of his head with white hair above his ears. He wore the Stuart tartan kilt he always wore when in Scotland, and the traditional green tweed short jacket, and knee-length woollen stockings with thick leather brogues.

The staff were assembled to carry me up the baronial staircase and into the main hall. It was magnificent. Just what youd expect a hall of a beautiful castle would look like. Hed recently rewired, cleaned and painted the entire inside of the castle. We were led to our room by the Laird himself, turning the lights on and off as we processed from room to room. He gave us detailed descriptions of all hed had done and how it looked before the work started. Listening to him, you would never have known hed been completely blind for more than thirty years. We finally reached our room which hed also recently updated. It was stunning; an enormous four-poster bed facing a roaring log fire and a magnificent view over lovely parkland. This was dotted with long-horned, shaggy Highland cattle, lying or standing around among imposing, sweeping, tall beech and oak trees. A scene you would have thought had long gone, or only as a showcase, not to live in for every day. After tea in the long drawing-room, with fires at both ends, my wife took me along to the rooms she used to stay in, as a child and teenager, every Easter holiday. The main impression I got, although Id never been in a castle before, was how homely it felt. For giants, but definitely cozy! My wife and the Laird obviously had much to catch up on. They hadnt spoken since before we were married. Hed given her a wedding present of a diamond tiara which also became a stunning necklace. All her nieces have worn it for their weddings. The time flew.