The thing about, you see the thing about the aggression never went away I can’t get rid of the aggression, sometimes I’m so quick tempered its out before, its out before you realise it and the thing is, that hurts me, you’re hurting the people that actually have done a lot for you, your wife and your family, you’re hurting them.

I reckon they’ll be hurt even more than what I have in the accident because they’ve been more the mental torture of me going through all these different phases. And I think if anything, I think your family deserves a bit better than, than what I gave them.
But again I didn’t realise I was doing it, theres no, theres no good me saying that I did know I was doing it, I didn’t know, it was just the way I felt at the time. Just the way the pain was actually affecting me.

And not being able to work that was the killer, that was the bit the killed me, not being able to go out and do your normal days work.
What advice would you give to somebody about how you are with your family?

Well the only thing that you can do is just actually, is just wait until you’re better and actually you’ve just got to make it up to them. Because sometimes actually when you’re in pain it takes over, it takes over your mind itself because you are actually too self centred in your pain, you’re too just sort of conscious of your pain to bother about anybody elses feelings.

You become self centred you become just me me me, deal with me. If you’re getting that way and you’re able to walk and you’re causing a lot of bother, just get up and go for a walk, just go out the house and go a walk. Because its not all families that will stick by you actually when you give them abuse. But I think I’m one of the fortunate ones that had a good family that understood what I was going through and they’ve helped me through it. And its now my turn to pay them back.

What affect has it had on the family? Virtually they have they’ve been very, very good, I have to admit they’ve been very good. At times I know I’ve been really horrid with them, and I mean they don’t come oft… visit very, very oft… I mean don’t get me wrong, were a close-knit family, my four boys and my wife and myself, we are very close together nothing can happen to one that the rest are not involved in, you know what I mean, because I could go on a long story with that, especially when I had my heart attacks I could tell you a lot of things about that but, that’s a different story.

No what I resented most about the pain was I was doing something that I would never ever normally do, I’d bark, I’d be aggressive with my family, even my own wife, she often says to me, ‘Oh theres no sense speaking to you like you are today’, and that’s the stage that I was at, for they knew what kind of an answer they were going to get from me because the pain was so intense that I just didn’t have any time for anybody.

I just wanted to be on my own and left to see if I could get some kind of relief so I could come back and talk to them for a while before they went away, but it never ever, it never always worked out that way, touch wood at the moment.

And I did come to the stage where I said to them, I said, I have to try and get this under control because its going to lead to friction, its going to cause a lot of problems if I do not pull together, and I’m going to cause my family to stay away, they are not going to come and see me, and I’ll no see my grandchildren and I can’t afford to do that because they are my grandchildren, and I’m only here for a certain amount of time.

And I don’t want them growing up to think that I’m a, I’ve been like this all me life sort of thing or all their life sort of thing, a continual person that you cannot talk to, a person that’s always grumpy when you come and see them, a person that’s always in a bad mood, sort of thing, I don’t want that for my grandchildren.

My boys they’re enough, they’re old enough to, they know now that I’ve been a dad and all like, but just like in the past couple of years I would think that they’ve come to realise, they’ve got to know that I was in a lot of pain and I’ve been suffering a lot of pain for a few years, and like I said, I’ve got a control now where they can come in and sit and talk and have a laugh and that with them, and I don’t let anything bother me.

I also think about my, what’s left from my family, they’re back in my country, they also complain from pain. So whenever they call me ‘How are you?. ‘I’m all right’ I say ‘I’m all right’, I don’t want to complain and increase the worry, their worry about me more.

So ‘I’m all right’ I say ‘I’m okay. ‘How is your health?. I say ‘I’m okay. I don’t say ‘I’m not well or ‘I have headache or this or that because like today I have headache, tomorrow I’ll be better. Why should I make them worry and think about me.

They’re already thinking about me and about my loss and so I just don’t complain to them at all. Yeah. I know they have, they have enough there and they don’t need more. But I just don’t say to them. But close friends here, of course, know what I suffered.

Yes, use to talk about this a lot, particularly with my youngest child. He was 14 I think it was when I really had that collapse. And it so happened that, that collapse coincided, well it led to us being thrown together a lot. He was at High School and he went on a skiing trip the same winter as I had my collapse. He went with the school and he got a broken knee while he was skiing and his cruciate ligaments were torn and so he was home for nearly three months because he wasn’t allowed to put his foot to the floor.

We really, that was the, I suppose, if there was a bonus at all, from me having my problem, it was the relationship that we welded together at that time. Because I became his teacher. He had stuff sent from school and hed never been confident in school work. But we spent two hours each day, I suppose this kept me alert and alive and stopped me getting depressed, we spent two hours each day doing his school work.

And we talked a lot at that time about the effects of my illness and he saw it as a positive thing because hed got something out of me that he never thought he ever would. We had this very close relationship which, which still continues. That’s not to say we don’t have a close relationship with the others.

Yes well, normally I don’t like anybody in my kitchen, I prefer to do my own cooking. But there is times I have got to give up and it’s a case of if I know that I’m going to be any sorer than I am when I walk into the kitchen somebody else needs to do it for me.

There is a time when well meaning relatives and your husband or your wife you’re glad of them, they are there. They over compensate for your pain and they think they’re being wonderful for you because they’re doing it for you, and it’s a hard thing to try and sit your family down and say to them look alright ‘I’m in chronic pain but I’ve still got to live. I’ve still got to do things on my own and I’ll do as much as I can without hurting myself, and then I’ll ask. If I need your help I will ask for it.

And believe you me, its harder for them to sit and watch you doing it than actually asking them for help. And it’s a case of they think you’re going to be, you’re going to do so much you’re going to be really sore. But when you get to the stage that you’ve done your relaxation and your pacing and your things that you do with the Pain Association it means that you know your limitations.

So therefore there is sometimes, yes definitely there is sometimes that somebody else has to do something for you and you’ve got to be gracious enough to ask. But you have to ask you don’t want everybody doing everything for you because if they, if you start that you’re down a slippery slope, you end up sitting in a wee corner, feeling sorry for yourself, you can’t do anything and the less you do the less you can do. You know, so it’s a vicious circle, you do what you can and what you can’t do you ask for help. And that’s another hard lesson to learn as well, is asking for help.

Well, my mother’s at the age now, normally somebody at that age would not really need looked after but she doesn’t really need looking after, shes quite independent. But shes in a lot of pain as well.

Shes got a dodgy back, arthritis, asthma, bronchitis, whatever it is and she really needs to be taken out otherwise she gets static stuck in the house all the time. I mean I think it was about 2 years ago she stopped going on holidays abroad or anywhere because she was in too much pain. She didn’t want to go anywhere. Shes ‘I’m better off at home and it’s her way of thinking like. So she just stopped going on every holiday and when she gets something wrong shes like 2 or 3 months at time before she actually gets back into the swing of things and gets moving about.

But shes just coping with life the best she knows. And I feel a bit annoyed at times because sometimes you want to help them. Do things for them and all the rest of it and I can’t. I’m stuck. I’ve got my pain. I do as much as I can, when I can but obviously if shes needing a job done about the house shes now actually got to pick up the phone and get a tradesperson out to pay for it and to do the job and pay for it. Whereas before it was like shed phone me up and I’d come along whenever I could and do the job that needed done like. You miss things like that but such is life.