We think he’s Armenian. That’s Capain Birdseye. I’m not sure. I’m convinced he was speaking in Spanish when he lunged towards me, hand going for my throat. This was when I was still on E-Bay before Jock the Junkie got swept off  into his very own room and I was billeted in the big bay at the end with (finally) some normal company.

I wasn’t frightened as this attempted assault on my person took place. In fact I was fairly sure I knew what it was all about. I was terribly dyskinetic: Lots of uncontrollable movement – almost a ‘fit’. You see the Doctors had been around earlier in the day and had me started on titrating doses of a new medication: Pramipexole a Dopamine Agonist, instead of the Rotigotine. It was only when the dyskinesias started to get really severe, that I figured out what was going wrong. Nobody in the team treating/observing me had thought about the need to readjust my doses of L-Dopa to allow for the more potent replacement.

It was a relief to have been able to rationalise what was going on, so I tailored my doses accordingly, made a note on my Observation sheet and began to brace myself for what seemed was going to be a rocky ride. I was begining to present a danger to shipping.

Enter the Captain. So named because he resembled Captain Birdseye. He was easy to spot. Apart from the grubby silvery, nicotine-stained beard, he had been fitted with a flourescent pink tabbard. The Captain had a tendency to ‘wander’. He’d only been there a day and they’d had to haul him back down off the High Street twice. His ‘high visibility’ tabbard was intended to curtail his meanderings; as was the six foot Nigerian nurse, who he seemed to be permanently fixed to.  I never did get a good look at what sort of device held her right and his left arm clamped together for the whole day. Could have been a chain I suppose. All I know is that at the moment he is dragging the nurse with him as he flies (well, not exactly … it’s more clumsy than that, and I’ve used ‘lunge/d’ once already. He lurches?)

Okay … he lurches at me. I had seen him getting more and more distressed by my violent flailing and so had prepared myself for ‘something’. I calmly avoided his lunge. He seemed to say in Spanish (though not as a native tongue)  ‘Va a morderse  la lengua’ (‘He’s going to bite his tongue’) I think he thought I was having an Epileptic fit, and in the received wisdom of days gone by, was attempting to stop me biting/swallowing my tongue. I Told him ‘No pasa nada, no te preocupes’ (‘It’s OK, don’t worry’)

‘I’m going to get out of the way’ I said to the Nurses: ‘I’m off to the day room’ and that is indeed where I went.

The dyskinesias lasted about another hour or so during which, nobody came to check on my condition. When I emerged, exhausted from the day room (10th floor with open window to boot) All seemed quiet.

Partly because Captain Birdseye had absconded again.

I need a drink. I wonder if Stig’s about?

© Andy Daly  2010