From where I stand - Chicane

Lyric:- 'I hope to find a hand in my hands from where I stand'

Song Choice:- 'Cos I'm going to need a hand as I leave the sanctuary of the University Hospital Wales, my home for the past 27 days, to regain my former fitness and get back to my normal life.

What's it been like?

It's been heaven,
It's been hell,
It's been a revelation.

I've been a pain in the arse,
I've been a nightmare patient,
I've been closer to the edge than I've ever been before.

They've been marvellous,
They've listened AND,
They've made me better.

I'm a VERY lucky man,
And I thank each and everyone of them,
From the bottom of my heart.

We don't know just how lucky we are sometimes.
Amen.

Rory Coleman - Performance Coach 

976 Marathons - 241 Ultras - 13 Marathon des Sables - 9 Guinness World Records - 8182 Days' Alcohol Free.

Chicane - Barefoot

Walking - Well sort of...

Song Choice:- This is the perfect track choice for me today, for obvious reasons, as I've been everywhere barefoot now for three weeks! If you can take time out and listen to the track yourself, please think of me as I battle on learning how to walk again. Theres a full 6 minutes and 4 seconds of this really peaceful and thought provoking piece of music for you to do so.

Anyway, apart from the majestic walking, I did manage a full lap of the lake using the top wooded rail as a support with a circumnavigation time of minutes rather than seconds but then who cares and I bloody well did it, very bloody-minded. 

It might not seem much right now, but it felt like a full blown marathon to me and I'll be back there tomorrow doing it all over again. As it's time to take some more MTFU pills and get stuck into being my awkward, bloody-minded, determined self again.

Luckily for me, I had Jack to cheer me on whom incidentally walks a lot better than I do at the moment! So there's something for me to work on straightaway.

More tomorrow and if you are listening to BBC Wales at 8:15 to 8:45 you'll be able to hear me talk about the whole Guillain-Barre Syndrome Saga, all over again.

So more then...

Rory Coleman - Performance Coach 

976 Marathons - 241 Ultras - 13 Marathon des Sables - 9 Guinness World Records - 8181 Days' Alcohol Free.

Stronger - Delirious?

Lyric:- We're getting stronger every day. Push through the waves that fall our way. Hallelujah, here we come. We're much stronger when we're one. Hallelujah, here we come. Oh, I love You from the depths of my heart and nothing here will tear us apart'. - Babbs, Smith, Sucof, Holmes & Jackson

Song Choice:- A great track from Christian rock band and now sadly disbanded Delirious? it all sounds far too easy doesn't it? Trauma happens, then as each day passes, miraculously everything get fixed and before you know it, you are back to full fitness where you had once been and taken for granted.

If it were only that easy. Amy Winehouse's 'Rehab' wouldn't have seen the light of day and I wouldn't be feeling as guilty as I do right now. It feels far too easy to buy the quick fix that gets you back to your old self. Only, it's just not like that. You see in my ward, there's a young man half my age (27) whom has hd eight weeks of suffering with the same Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) He's suffered, been vented and he's still only able only to move his fingers and toes so far in his recovery. He's not even as well as I was when I fell ill with GBS earlier this month. I've sobbed for him today, as it's just not bloody fair. Fair on him, fair on other's worse off than him (yes there are lots0 and fair on me.

It's a complete mind-bomb for all of us. How he's coping, well I just can't comprehend. He has months and months, if not years to get back to somewhere near normality. It makes you feel really helpless and useless all rolled into one.

I was going to write a cosy blog showing me walking around the lake bigging up my progress but that feels like rubbing the salt, if I'm being honest.

Instead, if you have some quiet time, spare a thought for Sam Booker as he needs all the help he can get along with all the other Sam Booker's around the UK whom are being destroyed before they get a a chance to make their mark on this world of ours from a disease no-ones ever heard of.

It makes your heart bleed I can tell you.Let's hope we are in fact getting stronger everyday'.

More tomorrow

Rory Coleman

Disappear - INXS

Lyric:- 'All the problems, all the fears, and the world seems to disappear' - Hutchence

Song Choice:- I was lucky enough to see INXS, on their Summer XS Tour, on July 13th, 1991. A wonderful day long concert at the Old Wembley Stadium, with many of my favourite bands also on the bill. The day being topped off with a brilliant performance from the Aussie Rockers, with an amazing performance by the late, great, Michael Hutchence.

I remember the sound quality was just amazing...and you can see the song for yourself here.

Anyway, it's the 'Disappear' lyric that's so important today as eight days of my life have simply disappeared. Or they seem to have. You see I was recounting my now 'off-the-cuff' 'Fitness to Guillain-Barre Syndrome' or 'Fitness2GBSness' (as I now call it) journey earlier today using a nine day time line of tense melodrama that will in due course be made into a Hollywood Blockbuster Sports Movie, like Chariots of Fire or Without Limits. You know the kinda film where triumph over adversity wins and you leaves you with a nice warm fuzzy feeling. Dream on eh?

Well, the only thing with my film's plot is that I've gone and lost it. As it was pointed out to me that I've been in hospital for 17 days now, not nine. So I'm wondering just what happened to the other eight. Now I know the days blur and I'm blurry but it came as a bit of a shock to think I've already been up against GBS for nearly three weeks now!

A killer 17 days too but I truly believe I'm going out of the other end of the darkest ever tunnel and this week I should see a new direction out of  the tiny improvements I'm making every day now. Being able to lift my foot, just a couple more millimetre's off the ground or being able to move around the ward a little less supported feels like quantum leaps. The rest from feeling knackerered afterwards whizzing the hours past, which I'm not noticing.

Has that ever happened to you? It's kinda weird and I'll hopefully have a better grab on my time-line things by the end of the month. All I know is that I have a heavy day of physic ahead of me tomorrow that will take me one step nearer walking freely. My first major goal and no doubt lose me a couple more days.

More tomorrow...whenever that is!

Rory Coleman - Performance Coach 

976 Marathons - 241 Ultras - 13 Marathon des Sables - 9 Guinness World Records - 8173 Days' Alcohol Free.

In the Cage - Genesis

Lyric: 'If I keep my self-control, I'll be safe in my soul' - Banks, Collins, Gabriel, Hackett & Rutherford

Song Choice:- One of my all time favourite Genesis tracks, and whilst I'm not very well, I'm going to pick the songs that have travelled the miles with me over the years and have cheered me up when I've needed some MTFU pills. You never know, you might like them too, if you've never heard them before. There's nearly 8 minutes of this one to get your ears jumping to so have a listen here...

Anyway, I can remember listening to on a cranky old mono tape recorder on full volume in the garden during the hot summer of 1976. Forty years on, I might just do it again when I finally 'Escape' from hospital, but with some much bigger speakers this time!

I say 'Escape', but actually I'm not going anywhere as yet, because they are working wonders with me here at University Hospital Wales, and yesterday they had me cycling, working out in the gym and got me standing up freely on my own...I'm not fixed and it's all dead wobbly but it was magic doing the stand... 

That was one 'Sweet Shawshank' moment, I can tell you. Far better than any cold beer could ever be on the hottest day.

In fact, it was a great day all round. I had some amazing upbeat visits from friends from far and wide (cheers guys) which really boosted my mood I can tell you. Getting around in my wheelchair, I felt liberated and free enough to get outside into the fresh air and feel semi-normal, for the first time in three weeks, I even clocked 10,000 steps on my Fitbit. 

Yesterday, was pure Gold Dust. 

Hey, I took some knocks too. Some real rib-jammers. One of my visitors joshed me with, 'Think about how you can use this experience to help others, now you know you’re not going to die'. Yikes, it was almost a low blow. 

Die? I'd blocked that one out but that's one of the abilities that's helped me succeed. It was interesting words delivered with pure friendship, directed to make me sit up and understand more about how I could see the world in a different way and make me see if I can get even more out of life. Especially if I could only I realise that I've already proved myself many times over and not have to keep making the headlines.

It's food for thought, a lot of thought...and not an easy thing for any driven person like me to hear. In my world, decisions are made and the 'never to be wavered from direction' is programmed into the 'Coleman Compass', and then it's 100% full steam ahead to the end.

Well, that's the bit I can now work on whilst I’m in here. It's not going to be easy and I'm not quite sure how I'm going to do it right now, but I'll keep writing about it here. I can then think on about already being where I've always wanted to be and why I'm so desperately expending all my energies trying to get here when I arrived years ago. I must be bonkers...

Anyway, more later and maybe it's the tablets talking, as it doesn't sound like the usual Rory Coleman's curt ramblings today does it?

Am I going a bit soft?

Rory Coleman - Performance Coach 

976 Marathons - 241 Ultras - 13 Marathon des Sables - 9 Guinness World Records - 8172 Days' Alcohol Free.

Invisible Sun - The Police

Lyric:- 'There has to be an Invisible Sun. It gives its heat to everyone. There has to be an invisible sun. That gives us hope when the whole day's done - Sumner

Song Choice:- I'm really enjoying listening to The Police at the moment. And I'll admit to not being the biggest Sting fan but the tunes were good and particularly brilliant when played live, as I just love the drumming of Stewart Copeland. His distinctive sound centres on a hard, high-pitched crack on a snare or rimshot, and subtle hi-hat work with understated flourishes (Thanks Wiki). It must be something to do with him being left-handed but this video of Synchronicity2 highlights it perfectly, as well as the band's brilliant stage presence and live sound quality.

Anyway, I thought I'd share where I am two weeks post diagnosis of 'Guillain-Barre Syndrome' (to be honest, it's taken me that long to learn how to spell the bloody thing, and I've been on a lot of medication) or GBS as it's better known. Now if you go to Wiki here you can find out just how much it completely buggers up your body in a very short period of time, and how many complications there are to try and draw some kind of diagnosis from. Working out which variation you might have is the issue.

It's actually, easier as nailing jelly to a wall I reckon and my Neurology team are being well stretched by the GBS and by me if I'm being honest as it causes pain that,would make most folk want to curl up and die. It's a real challenge to say the least.

But just when you think t's all doom and gloom, there's been hope today as I walked for the first time without a 'Zimmer-Frame' - just supported by C4 Ward Physios' Kate and Chelsea on my first few maiden 'Solo' steps. And yes, they weren't brilliant, they were just AMAZING, I felt so tall, wobbly and overwhelmed all at the same time.

How about that?

How long it takes for me to do this unaided, God only knows. All I know is that I'm starting to find some 'Invisible Sun' giving me some hope when the whole day felt it was passing me by.

Tonight, I'm very sore, very tired and very relieved that I'm on my way back to some form of 'Walking' or 'Jogging' in the future and that’s a good enough return for me, from today.

More tomorrow...Diolch!

Rory Coleman - Performance Coach 

976 Marathons - 241 Ultras - 13 Marathon des Sables - 9 Guinness World Records - 8168 Days' Alcohol Free.