[plug] In case you've not been worded to bits by the weblog...

[Leon Brooks]

Leon (/ME) is at home and legging it about OK. Some of the medical staff 
have told me that they've applied for my case to be termed 
"miraculous", although I have no idea what the practical consequences 
of that terminology will be, if it is applied.

I arrived at Joondalup hospital with my head dented and bruised, 
particularly the top front. A near-miracle of scheduling effeiciency 
happened and I was into an ambulance and headed down to Royal Perth in 
Wellington Street in jiffy time. A careful technician counted my not 
breathing as a bad thing and fed me some oxygen; my heart was ticking 
but very little blood was because my pressure was chaos. It would only 
distress many of you to explain how the hospital staff took news of my 
condition, and these are medically seasoned people doing the reacting.

My wife (and our GP) were told on Day One that I was almost certainly 
going to die as a result of my injuries; and if I somehow survived 
until tomorrow, it would be as a vegetable (no flavour specified).

Our GP rang Mum-in-law after chasing the bad news at hospital on Day 
Two, and told her this quite startling thing:

    "The Man upstairs has plans for your son-in-law."

To give you some hint about GP's previous approach to life, I had to 
ask, "Er... WHO said that?"

This is also what my caring, hardworking wife's comment was, too. She 
did all kinds of therapy-style work on me while I was comatose: 
ointments, massage, cleaning and so on.

Quite an amount of amazing healing has taken place; since I was 
definitely & officially unconscious (comatose) for most of it, I 
clearly can't claim real credit. Maybe Mr GP is right, somehow.

I've also met some stunning people in the course of being healed: all 
ages, genders, sizes, racial groups... name it and I've met at least 
one impressive person with all of the specific attributes.

For example, imagine a doctor who cares deeply about every patient, is 
showstopper pretty, plus absolutely careful and dedicated -- she cares 
enough to bring good news along to buffer any bad, and to hold off 
crying about the sadder stuff until the patient she is addressing is 
otherwise occupied -- only to stop her tears *instantly* and dryly at 
any sign of resumed attention.

Imagine an Occupational Therapist who has read an encyclopaedia or 
something so she not only understands but can intelligently relate to 
and discuss the most obscure facts of life as well as the common.

Imagine a Physiotherapist who comes out victorious in his discussions 
with full-bore surgeons. Or another little lass whose demos of the 
big-gym exercise machines completely drop the jaws of the official 
attendants watching her do the demos (to say nothing of the patients' 
own jaws!) -- yet quiet, polite and helpful rather than a showoff.

Imagine patients who are effectively disabled, yet gently willing to 
help wherever they can. Nurses who will still help a patient after said 
patient has been rudely shouting them down for _hours_ and so on.

Etcetera. People of that order & even better from wall to wall.

Once we'd blundered through the outright miracles of healing (e.g. lungs 
and chest healed up "six times as fast as they possibly can have"), 
people like that everywhere make good results pretty much inevitable 
(-: OK, well... in my case, it was just "much inevitable" :-)

The attitude and knowledge changes since I was last hospitalised for 
anything major are incredibly good, without even dwelling on factors 
like "government department" OR "red tape". To really understand the 
situation, one has to _live_ it, and that I don't wish on you -- 
excellent though a few times really were, it's definitely no holiday.

Oh, and to keep this post kinda topical, New Zealand has dug up 3m-tall 
penguin skeletons near where LCA2006 was held, so the Penguin can 
_seriously_ rule in that area now.

Scaled up from the 1m birds, that works out at over 600kg apiece. Oof! I 
strongly recommend NOT trying to filch any fish away from _these_ 
feathery little friends! (-:

Cheers; Leon