So much for the regular updating of my blog… this one has been over 8 months in coming! But don’t worry, it’s definitely gonna be the most interesting of my updates so far.

What’s been going on in my life then? Well, absolutely tonnes… in fact, as I write this blog I feel that I’m a totally different person to the one who has posted previously on here.

Why?

Well, for starters, I’ve finally come out to my brother. If you’ve read my previous posts you’ll know that I was thinking about it for a very long time, but in February I finally bit the bullet and did it. We were sitting in a restaurant and I was planning to tell him for quite a while. In the run up to the actual coming-out, I went very quiet – he knew something was up. After a few failed attempts at encouraging myself to say it (“Graham… erm… how’s your food?”) I had to go to the toilets to splash some cold water and take some deep breaths. I had to do it on that day, I couldn’t let it end up being another failed attempt.

Back at the table, I took a few more deep breaths (almost making myself dizzy in fact) and said “Graham, I have something to tell you… you were right.” He knew what I meant. His response will remain indelibly printed in my memory for the rest of my life – “I knew this day was coming: I’ve been waiting for you to tell me for over a year and it’s absolutely fine.” The love and understanding I felt at that point, along with the intense relief of sharing my little secret with him was absolutely euphoric. My eyes welled up and I knew then that Graham, my brother, was my best friend and just a beautiful human being. All at just 15 years of age. I love him so much for that. I’m smiling as I write this in fact.

But far from being the only life-changing thing in my life, I’ve had quite a few other experiences too that have made me see and interact with the whole world in a totally different way. Another one of these life-altering experiences was the severe illness and hospitalisation of my father.

Throughout the early part of November my father became bedridden. It wasn’t clear what was wrong with him but he kept saying “I’ll get up tomorrow”. ‘Tomorrow’ never quite came and he seemed to get more and more ill. God I wish I’d done something about it earlier.

It came to mid-November, just nearing the end of the Rugby World Cup and I finally decided enough was enough. He wasn’t getting up and I had to do something about it. His breathing was totally stifled and even getting up and going to the toilet was becoming too much for him to handle.

(To understand why it took so long for us to do something about him you need to know that my family is intensely private and proud, despite the prevalence of illness and poverty which me and my siblings have known since birth. My father is the proudest of all and will not allow any problems to be shown… with this backdrop you can understand why it took us so long to get outside people involved).

My father was adamant, despite his frailty, that he didn’t want us to contact the doctors. In mid-November I went into my father’s room, took my eldest sister, we picked him up and carried him up the stairs. He was unable to walk and was white and clammy. He looked almost dead but was still protesting that he didn’t need any help.

I was terrified, more scared than I have ever been in my life.

When we had gotten him upstairs, I phoned for an ambulance. Within 10 minutes the Rapid Response paramedic had arrived and given my father the once over. He couldn’t tell what was wrong (“possibly a respiratory illness”) but could see that my dad – Daddy – was in a bad way. The ambulance arrived momentarily after and my father was wheeled out in a wheelchair to the ambulance. He was immediately given oxygen and seemed to be totally dazed during the journey to the hospital. I was very, very scared.

In Accident and Emergency, a doctor gave my dad a thorough looking-at. My father was unresponsive and confused but it soon emerged that he had contracted pneumonia (“God, isn’t that supposed to kill people?”) but the doctor said it was not uncommon in his age group and at that time of the year. He questioned why it had taken so long to get him help but not too much. Machines were attached to my dad and everything moved at a bit of a blur, including the drip which was attached and the catheter that was installed. The rock that was my father, the rock that had never been ill, the man who had brought up a family in the face of incredible adversity was now very, very ill. It was incomprehensible.

He just went to sleep. Not in the final sense, but in the sense of great relief. I felt relief too, I knew it was the right thing to do in getting him to hospital.

My dad was in hospital for three whole weeks. He had caught Pneumonia which had gotten into both of his lungs (‘double pulmonary’) and had also developed tremendous problems with passing urine. But over the time he was there he steadily got better. In fact it’s true to say that he began to enjoy his experience in the hospital, having people look after him and having him as the centre of attention. He hasn’t had that much in the last 20 years.

Our relationship has now fundamentally changed, and changed forever. There is a natural growth in families whereby parents look after children, parents grow old and then children start to look after their parents. Whilst in most families this happens over a prolonged period of time, it happened within 3 weeks because of my dad’s illness.

Things at home got hard. I took lots of time off from work and my mother started to get ill while my father was in hospital. I had responsibility for looking after her and my younger brother and sisters.

Responsibility - a scary thing. I was thrown into looking after my whole family literally overnight, and it was not nice. It gave me an untold feeling of gratitude to my father for what he has lived through since he met my mother.

We had to get in the Mental Health Crisis Team to help with my mother. They started to visit twice a day to make sure she was taking her medication. She became very difficult to handle and the constant flow of nurses in and out the house became quite draining. This on top of my father’s hospitalisation was a mountainous task – I’m proud of myself that I actually got through most of it.

My dad was finally released from hospital on the 12th December but my mum did not get better with his presence. We struggled through a very difficult Christmas until the 8th of January when it was finally decided by us all that Mummy was too unwell to stay at home. We asked for a Mental Health Act review and she was hospitalised, voluntarily at first, in the Royal Free again. It wasn’t long before she broke out of hospital, had to be escorted back and was then Sectioned under the powers of the Mental Health Act.

I don’t think I have ever been so tired in my entire life.

After a couple of months, my Mum was released from hospital as she had improved a lot quite quickly. Two weeks later she had gotten very unwell again and was back in for another couple of months. She’s now been out for nearly 5 weeks but is already going downhill again, loosing all confidence and motivation and her stammer has returned. Won’t be long until she’s back in unfortunately.

So, as you can see, things have been busy busy busy. But that’s not all that’s been happening!

I’ve had both my first sexual experiences and have gotten myself a boyfriend too! In February I met a guy called Matt who liked me quite a lot. We went back to his place and the rest is history, as they say, but it didn’t really live up to what it was cracked up to be. Ah well, never does, does it?

My boyfriend, on the other hand, is a totally different kettle of fish. I met Kevin three months ago and these three months have been the most loving in my life. He is from Ireland – Donegal – and it’s been a nice experience just to be wanted. He’s 26, nearly 27. I hope it lasts a long time (I think it will). Luckily he has just been given the all-clear by the brain surgeon. They thought he might have a brain tumour but he doesn’t, though he still has his epilepsy.

Illness is a big part of my life, but it has also made me attach much more value to health than I would otherwise. The last few months have been packed with illness but they have also been the most valuable. (I wouldn’t necessarily suggest illness as a cure-all though!)

I’ll tell you about my own endoscopy (oesophagogastroduodenoscopy if you want the full medical name…) in another post, but until then au revoir.

Steven