YOUR INNER SELF AND CONFIDENCE THAT WILL
HELP YOU CREATE YOUR FORM...........................ALL IMAGES AND WORDS WELCOME:
WEALTH CARE-HEALTH CARE
If the cap fits,
wear it?
I’m a twenty four hour cripple
Not a nine to five case load.
I give weight to my ability, you
Just walk out the door.
Your
Telling me how to live my life
And you only see a third of my
Day. Who gave you the
right
To tell me I haven’t got the right.
I have to fit into your little box
And wheelchair along your time-
table. Who do you think you are!
Ill zoo zoom along for no one.
I don’t fit into your mould
And you don’t fit into mine, re-
Member humanity. Stop
being
Regulators and let disabled people
Live with the right and dignity
To be broken human beings.
WE ACT AS IF WE DON'T GROW
packed up and priced up to go
on living in a enlightenment of darkness.
Ticking the box that says, I don't know.
God and Darwin are dancing, were possessed
in a conflicting parade, time is in a state of un-
turning and we act as if we don't grow.
We are animal and wonder divine, the know-
ledge of sorrow is now or never, we have to
start to end. Memory keeps on delivering, so
let us live on this island un-divided.
On the hyphen of un-reality, on un-real cheap-
lights and false snow. I am living in no time
but there's millions of people like me.
Lets have a thought for the living disabled.
Where did the values of N.H.S. go, it
began for the people from a depressing war.
Has it toppled just like a statue we don't need
anymore?
POSITIVE SUICIDE
My suicide note read:
No regrets-07251350053.
High as a kite, Wow!
I over-dosed almost
everyday but i wasn't
a junkie i was just
a spaced cadet.
Down occlusion, beige
un-due-lation. I'm under
The southern health trust.
S.H.S.S. D.H.S.S. D.L.A.
Hemmed in by the blue curtain
N.H.S. No help service.
The same ones who stopped my
independence and stopped my
physio, part of the reason why
I'm here. Why is life such a sad
place? we need to think beyond
the negative there is a positive be-
yond the hurt within our hearts?
Shadows dance across the ceiling
and swirl like swirling robes down
the wall doing the tango and my fox-
trot, down towards me. I'm back where
I started in the cubicle with messed up
joined up writing but its becoming clear.
A prisoner went by in bling hand-cuffs
followed by a man on the end of a bling
chain, here we go again trying to fit in-
to a negative system my little box of dis-
ability with the stroke gene that lives with-
in my blood cell.
THE DISABLED ISSUE
I understand the issues of the ethics of medicine and to preserve life but
what of the ethics of humanity what about the rights of the disabled person, we need truth. I spent a year in hospital recovering from a stroke that almost killed me and a half of a year in a independent living centre before I thought my mind was strong enough to face the truth that I would never ever walk again. For a year and a half I thought I would get better until I asked that question 'will I ever walk again'.
That truth was has hard to swallow but that truth was mine, I remember how I felt that day, I painted this picture vultures but that truth was mine and it was sad I know but it made me feel whole as a person. For the first time since my stroke I felt like a person.
I have been saying for years that we need a well being centre and a disability warden
to help people live an independent life in the community.
People need truth and a way to get through that truth that doesn't push disabled people towards suicide, if we set up an infrastructure that guards against suicide we can tell people the truth instead of treating them like children and pushing them into care homes and day centres where we can lie to them. I understand that severe cases need not know this information but what about the millions of people that need truth that gives them the right to be a disabled person, the way it stands in northern Ireland sectarianism rules and we have to learn that the past was created on lies so give us the rights to stand up or sit down in our wheelchairs and have the right to be.
For a year and a half I went to the Joss Cardwell centre and they gave me the hope that I would get better and one day walk until that day that I had the human right to sit down in my wheelchair and ask for the truth.
I understand the issues of the ethics of medicine and to preserve life but
what of the ethics of humanity what about the rights of the disabled person, we need truth. I spent a year in hospital recovering from a stroke that almost killed me and a half of a year in a independent living centre before I thought my mind was strong enough to face the truth that I would never ever walk again. For a year and a half I thought I would get better until I asked that question 'will I ever walk again'.
That truth was has hard to swallow but that truth was mine, I remember how I felt that day, I painted this picture vultures but that truth was mine and it was sad I know but it made me feel whole as a person. For the first time since my stroke I felt like a person.
I have been saying for years that we need a well being centre and a disability warden
to help people live an independent life in the community.
People need truth and a way to get through that truth that doesn't push disabled people towards suicide, if we set up an infrastructure that guards against suicide we can tell people the truth instead of treating them like children and pushing them into care homes and day centres where we can lie to them. I understand that severe cases need not know this information but what about the millions of people that need truth that gives them the right to be a disabled person, the way it stands in northern Ireland sectarianism rules and we have to learn that the past was created on lies so give us the rights to stand up or sit down in our wheelchairs and have the right to be.
For a year and a half I went to the Joss Cardwell centre and they gave me the hope that I would get better and one day walk until that day that I had the human right to sit down in my wheelchair and ask for the truth.
IF U WISH TO COMMUNICATE WITH ADRIAN HES ON
SKYPE @ adrianfox.28
THIS IS A BLOG TO SHOW THE WORLD
THAT ALL DISABILITY HAS FORM
send all forms to: apf1961@mail.com
Heres my form of words and art: these are some of the first images i created after my stroke
STROKE DOWN BLUES
Lost in this mumbled mom-
ent of dis-abled secterian blues
looking down at my wheelchair
and my frankenstein boots, then
up into grey skies and the sent-
time-mental route, mid-way is
my blister packs and my
overdosed life looking
from this moment with
no where to go
sitting here in limbo
with no where to go
sitting here in limbo in a state
that doesn't want to know
sitting here in limbo with
only words that flow in-
to this current.
Words of wonder, words of snow
words that drift onto this page
and find their own show
its own way down
sitting here in limbo
where time is moving slow
sitting in a moment that
doesnt want to know but
drip, drip, drip, down
sitting here in limbo
just sitting here in limbo. (fade)
DISABLED PEOPLE
Disabled people
are ashamed
to be dis-
abled.
We live in
a lock them
away mind-
set.
BUCKLED
The care worker put on his sunglasses and opened the blinds, cool dude she said, I wish he said remembering days when he was a cool dude, he zoomed the wheelchair through his hell/cell through the hall and into his adopted breakfast table within his adopted home. He sat there waiting while the two care workers talked of rotas and girls who are off on holiday. He was remembering those days when he was a cool dude, when girls fell in love with him, back then when he was a life chaser, living life to the full until that day in April 2005 when he tripped and fell down in his mother’s house.
He crawled into his mother’s room trembling unable to walk, what’s happening mum he said, I think you’re taking a stroke she said and phoned the doctors surgery, in minutes they got him to an intensive care unit in time to stop the stroke attacking his brain, instead it attacked his balance so he would he would never walk again that truth was always kept from patients. After spending a year recovering in a re-hab stroke ward, paralysed unable talk or walk but he remembered the fucked up human horror comedy of those days. Waking from a coma hallucinating on the drugs that were keeping him alive, it was as if I woke up in some Steven King hell. His brain had no form it was like a bowl of porridge all his 45 years of memory were erased, he had to relearn how to brush his teeth and wipe his ass, it was as if he was reborn an adult. He knew this was not the time for consent forms but no one asked him did he want to live, he was in the hands of his son his next of kin.
The care workers said they would see him tomorrow morning for
a shower as if a shower was the gift of life, ok he said and tucked into his
breakfast of toast cereal coffee fruit juice the six tablets taken from his
blister pack, aspirin to stop a severe stroke, anti-depression to balance his
mood propronol to calm his blood pressure fluid tablets to stop his legs
swelling and tablets to stop his legs shaking, that’s was his menu every day he
thought,
Same shit different day and that’s the way it’s
been for ten years. He drank his fruit juice and took his pills like a good
little boy, he looked out the window at the fence that fenced him in listening
to the angelus echo through his mind thinking: Why is it so hard to be an
individual in this country, even a disabled one without the care system, the
health trust the church or a political party, fuck it he thought and tucked
into his breakfast.
This was his life for the past ten years since then he has took another mini stroke that left him without any movement on his right side. After breakfast he filled his pipe opened the back door, he sat there puffing away remembering his life on the hospital ward, I know it’s sad he thought but I miss the craic we had life every day, humanly funny there’s was oli brown shifting around in the bed like a picture puzzle sometimes covered in his own shit or the artist, poor guys brain was so mashed after taking a stroke while trying to stop a guy from stealing a car from a car park. His art work was unbelievable so detailed but now he didn’t even know he drew it. Poor guy will have to spend his life in a wheelchair in a nursing home. Then there was Alan who before his stroke wouldn’t harm a fly but now the nurses had to wear protective clothing and visor just to feed him, he used to spit on them calling them names putting his fist through windows trying to escape and had to be restrained at night.
There were lots of other patients but their head Injuries were slight or so severe their brains were in a vegetated state, it used to be such a laugh in the TV room, l had to be thrown into the hall because one day the artist was so convinced he was the president of Cuba and the next day he was a cartoon character I think sometimes the nurses wanted to laugh but they bit their tongues not to upset the other patients, sometimes I was buckled in two with laughter, I miss that madness now. I didn’t mind it out in the hall looking out the window at nature, I wasn’t one to be wheeled in front of daytime TV, and I wanted to capture life in art or poetry. The first thing in a therapy group I done was a painting of the word positive, they say he was one of the lucky ones the anyerism didn’t blow his mind. He sat there watching the traffic thunder by wondering how can think beyond myself, he had a medical condition called locked-in-syndrome a condition that locked everything within him but the confines of the hospital didn’t make him think beyond his locked in syndrome but out here in the real world he did. For the last ten years since his stroke he had created a blog that had been repeating itself creating poetry and art that was about him or his condition.
Lately he had been thinking of writing beyond himself, creating poems not about his condition but he was finding it hard to revert his mind into the realm of memory but because his memory had been erased during the stroke whatever he had wrote about him and his condition was creating a memory for him and that was his well of memory. How am I going to break through this wall if there is no wall, I must create it first. To be or not to be is not the question, to be is my question,
I have to know my truth and my truth is to be broken before I can create a truth from that truth. That laughter at the horrors of life was the greatest medicine I’ll ever receive remembering life on the ward. I have only ever had that twice once at a poetry reading when I was just released from hospital and a film with jack Nicolson about Smidt where the guys having a rough day after losing his wife, maybe I’m just a sad fucker. Stroke is a weird condition that does funny things to your emotions, it turns all yours emotions around. I’ve seen me burst suddenly into tears watching cartoons or a silly sentimental film, lately I’ve learned to control it, if only I can think beyond this syndrome.
This was his life for the past ten years since then he has took another mini stroke that left him without any movement on his right side. After breakfast he filled his pipe opened the back door, he sat there puffing away remembering his life on the hospital ward, I know it’s sad he thought but I miss the craic we had life every day, humanly funny there’s was oli brown shifting around in the bed like a picture puzzle sometimes covered in his own shit or the artist, poor guys brain was so mashed after taking a stroke while trying to stop a guy from stealing a car from a car park. His art work was unbelievable so detailed but now he didn’t even know he drew it. Poor guy will have to spend his life in a wheelchair in a nursing home. Then there was Alan who before his stroke wouldn’t harm a fly but now the nurses had to wear protective clothing and visor just to feed him, he used to spit on them calling them names putting his fist through windows trying to escape and had to be restrained at night.
There were lots of other patients but their head Injuries were slight or so severe their brains were in a vegetated state, it used to be such a laugh in the TV room, l had to be thrown into the hall because one day the artist was so convinced he was the president of Cuba and the next day he was a cartoon character I think sometimes the nurses wanted to laugh but they bit their tongues not to upset the other patients, sometimes I was buckled in two with laughter, I miss that madness now. I didn’t mind it out in the hall looking out the window at nature, I wasn’t one to be wheeled in front of daytime TV, and I wanted to capture life in art or poetry. The first thing in a therapy group I done was a painting of the word positive, they say he was one of the lucky ones the anyerism didn’t blow his mind. He sat there watching the traffic thunder by wondering how can think beyond myself, he had a medical condition called locked-in-syndrome a condition that locked everything within him but the confines of the hospital didn’t make him think beyond his locked in syndrome but out here in the real world he did. For the last ten years since his stroke he had created a blog that had been repeating itself creating poetry and art that was about him or his condition.
Lately he had been thinking of writing beyond himself, creating poems not about his condition but he was finding it hard to revert his mind into the realm of memory but because his memory had been erased during the stroke whatever he had wrote about him and his condition was creating a memory for him and that was his well of memory. How am I going to break through this wall if there is no wall, I must create it first. To be or not to be is not the question, to be is my question,
I have to know my truth and my truth is to be broken before I can create a truth from that truth. That laughter at the horrors of life was the greatest medicine I’ll ever receive remembering life on the ward. I have only ever had that twice once at a poetry reading when I was just released from hospital and a film with jack Nicolson about Smidt where the guys having a rough day after losing his wife, maybe I’m just a sad fucker. Stroke is a weird condition that does funny things to your emotions, it turns all yours emotions around. I’ve seen me burst suddenly into tears watching cartoons or a silly sentimental film, lately I’ve learned to control it, if only I can think beyond this syndrome.
THE OTHER-WORLD (a
disabled essay)
Sectarianism rules ok in Northern Ireland, until we move
away from our divided past
disability and other bread and butter issues will always
take a back seat( wheelchair) in this society.
We are way behind the rest of the world who accept disability as a part
of life, ok it might be a negative side of life that you want to cover up and
push away but the truth is here and now living in your community. The sooner you face up to the reality and
stop burning effigies of the past and get on with living today.
I created a blog online for disabled people to show their
talents but because ive had no response ill remove it, northern Ireland isn't
ready for disability because it doesn't kick with the right or wrong foot. I know there are some disabled groups and
organisations trying to push disability away from our locked away day centres
and our lock them away mindset, even I have lost confidence and don't want to
take part in this broken human race but we have to have the confidence to be
part of this able-bodied universe.
I was asked by a disability group to take part in a disabled
group that helped other disabled people but I refused because I cant lie to
people, I find it so hard to live an independent life, the powers that be don't
even accept that I can live alone and live an independent life to afford my own
transport and that's only the start of my complaints.
I cant tell people how to live when I find it so difficult
to get by each day.
almost ten years ago I took this stroke that confined me to
this wheelchair and I have been disgusted how ive been treated and the
conditions ive had to survive because I wanted to sit down and be counted as
one of our community and not become one of the thousands who are institutionalised
and locked and fenced into a centre.
I find it so hard at times being isolated without a social
worker physio or occupational therapist to help me to live, the only person
outside our locked away mindset that can help me to live is me, that's why I set
up the blog so as you could start being ourselves, were not dogs were human
beings. I've been one of the lucky ones
ive been given a disabled adopted bungalow but I had to live like a dog in a
home of nine rooms but the wheelchair could only access four and that's the
conditions that most of us live in, we have to get away from this 1916-1690
mindset its 2013 people wake up.
That was my un-adopted kingdom for five years of living like
an animal,this hell/cell I almost live in is the nearest thing I will ever get
to living comfortably but I have issues everyday with care workers and health
trusts, a few years ago I was asked to a health trust seminar and they didn't
even have wheelchair access and these are the people in control of our lives, I
know they are doing their best with limited resources but I have been disgusted
with the whole trust, care package.
We disabled people have had to throw away our dignity and
rely on a system that works for eight hours a day but our disability lasts 24
hours a day seven days a week.
We've had to develop an inner self away from this other
world that pretends we don't exist. Its
time to get away from the centres and day centres that lock us away from
society, its about time the able-bodied knew that we exist and one day I hope
to see wheelchair users on the stage delivering a real lecture on disability.
