Can't Keep a Warrior Down

There are people that impress me. Some leave an impression of a sword on my battered old body and get as good as they give. But I can only give good marks to the Landlady of the Raccoon Arms.  A while back she shut down the pub down the hill where she held court in the snug: I was a frequent visitor and liked some of the ales she served and many of the customers.  I was sorry to see the shutters come down but the poor woman was ill and not expected to hold her licence for much longer. 

I told you about Susanne  - Anna Raccoon - a few months ago.

http://parzivalshorse.blogspot.com.au/2016/11/salute-anna-raccoon.html

But you cannot keep someone like that down. They hang on for the life they hold dear. 

She will, as we all will, go sometime. But now is not that time. I was pleased to hear of her from a passing dwarf and then from Anna herself.

Anna Raccoon news – 

The Ego Has Landed!

From The Blocked Dwarf,  our very foreign correspondent in Norfolk.

The Ego has landed!

Those are her, the Raccoon’s, words not mine. One of the things that has always impressed me about her is that in a blogosphere where having a weapons grade ego the size of Wales is a prerequisite, the Raccoon manages to keep hers firmly in check….most of the time.

I, your dwarfish correspondent from the flatlands, had, last week, the great good fortune to live nearer to her hospital bed than even Mr G and so I went up and saw her briefly a couple of times . I say ‘briefly’ because it wouldn’t do for her to get the idea I was actually worried about the old battle axe.

 https://headrambles.com/2017/04/11/anna-raccoon-news-the-ego-has-landed/

The Landlady has returned home after the kind of stay in hospital which would give any ‘normal’ person PTSD and, no, I’m not exaggerating when I say I’ve known combat hardened elite soldiers who would have buckled mentally from a fraction of the trauma, actually ‘torture’, she has suffered. Never underestimate the amount of ‘pinned to the ceiling’ pain little old ladies can endure and still keep all their cups in the welsh dresser of their minds.

I can’t go into details, but keep your eyes on the MSM the next little while because not only has her mind not cracked under the strain, nor has the ‘unruly toddler in a supermarket’ of her cancer managed to find it’s way to her brain after doing things to her spine that are reminiscent of KGB torture methods (google up’playing the piano’ and ‘gulag’) but neither have ‘take down rabid elephants’ doses of ketamine and heroin dulled her understanding; you would not believe the rigmarole involved in getting her her daily dose of trainspottingesque goodness to her, again no exaggeration, I have known drug runners who smuggled in stuff with less faffing, less ‘security’.

Take a deep breath, dwarf. A chap can get puffed out just reading that ! 

She is now paralysed from the waist down and pisses into a bag; but hell, I’ll let her speak for herself (like I have any choice in the matter!):

"“Ms Raccoon is reinstalled in the Raccoonerie.

It has taken a military operation and an extraordinary effort on the part of the nhs, but the wonderful Dr H has fired exocet missiles into every corner of the nhs and I am now in my orgasmic (note from TBD: an £8K bed which in her own words has so many functions it is guaranteed to give her an ‘orgasm by the end of the week‘) in the middle of the kitchen, wired up to the national grid (and apparently even the electricity bill is courtesy of the nhs as of last night!)

and fed a 24 hour diet of 250 ml of Ketamine and 175 ml of heroin. ”.

I am sure our very own Southern Gal will understand as she too is at home and enduring pain. But at least she has recovery ahead. 

See what I mean about her flesh being royally knackered but her mind still ‘so sharp you’ll cut yourself’ as Grandma Dwarf would have said? Go on, I dare you, shoot up on any Class A and then try and write,or even just think, coherently.

Her email of this morning to me continued:

“In the past two months I have become a mother to two grown 50 year old children that I gave up for adoption 50 years ago.

I have become a sister to two brothers I could have fallen over in the street and not known who they were.

I have acquired two sisters in laws.

I have acquired three grandchildren I didn’t know existed.

I have acquired a son in law and a daughter in law.

I have lost all control over my body from the chest downwards. ”

(another note from TBD: she has also acquired  carers who will actually ‘care’ because they are true friends first and carers second.  As marvelous as G is a husband , I doubt he’d be able to do it without them. You can’t buy that level of caring love).

For those wondering; the doctors have given her a departure date sometime around the start of what passes for summer here in Norfolk.  The same doctors who said she’d be in hospital at least another ten days to methadonize her way onto a new and eyebleedingly expensive form of medical grade smack. Don’t get me wrong, she has excellent doctors but doctors aren’t turf accountants, they have no understanding of ‘form’.

The SP on this particular old mare making Michaelmas has to be worth a punt.

Hell I might even go a few quid on ‘there will be snow on the roof of Raccoon Lair this Xmas’.

I doffs me helmet to the lady. 

The dwarf  and others have actually been quite busy equiping Anna with the means to continue harrassing Powers and Principalities. As she herself says:

‘Choice’ – the Elixir of Life.

 You know what? I never realised how much I would miss the old blog. Never realised how much the community of commentators had become part of my life.

 https://annaraccoon.blog/

I thought it had become a chore. A burden. The daily diet of e-mails to be answered. The research for each post. The hassle of dealing with the glitches and gremlins that are part and parcel of keeping a blog going.

I actually thought I was doing it for you. I did. Honestly.

I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I finally closed the doors back in December. I closed down the e-mail account. Abandoned the Twitter feed. Stopped paying for the hosting.

I had the perfect excuse for doing so. My health was deteriorating. The tumour in my arm had grown so large that I was typing with one hand. One of the ones in my lung was groaning with discomfort whenever I sat upright.  I didn’t know then about the one in my spine, but I knew that my back hurt like hell whenever I sat upright. I limped back and forth from the kettle to the computer, thanks to the one in my leg. That’s just the ones on the surface – there are others, buried inside my body.

Nothing could be more ridiculous than to continue to write for the benefit of other people, given all that, right? Pack it in and concentrate on myself was the only sensible course of action. Right?

Wrong!

I have learnt many lessons since last December. Painful lessons.

Most of all, I have learnt how ‘choice’ is an important part of all our lives. Probably the most important part – and probably the part we take for granted more than any other aspect of daily life.

Right now, I would love a cup of tea and a biscuit. Mr G is busy painting the panels beneath the windows of the room that will be my new home. I can’t ask him to stop halfway – and I can’t walk to the kettle to do it myself, so I have no choice in the simple matter of wanting a cup of tea and a biscuit.

My entire life is composed of having no choice in mundane things like that.  I clean my teeth when someone else hands me a toothbrush. I can see to read a newspaper when someone else chooses to turn the light on, or hands me my glasses when I ask for them.

Don’t get me wrong – everyone is exceptionally kind and only too willing to do whatever I ask. 

There is a difference though. They are exercising choice as to whether to do whatever it is I have asked for – or not. 

My ‘choice’ has been reduced to being able to choose what sort of mood I greet each day with, and to reach whatever has been left within arm’s reach of me.

That means my keyboard has become a powerful weapon of ‘choice’. I can choose to write. I can choose to bring attention to the compensation culture that is crippling the NHS. 

I can choose to stand for parliament. 

I can choose to re-open the virtual pub that was ‘Anna Raccoon’ – sometimes known as the ‘Raccoon Arms’.

Hmmn. I Thought I was running the blog for your benefit! Seems I wasn’t, for when I examined the choices still available to me…… there it is, large as life, on the list of choices available to me – ‘open the blog and write again’.

Looks like I was doing it for my benefit all the time.

Since writing also figured hugely on that list of things that dictated my frame of mind for the day, the regulars of the Raccoon Arms are a kind of double whammy – I missed you all. 

Even on the days when you were crotchety and grumpy; especially on the days when you were witty and inspirational; as for the days when you sent me shooting off to Google to understand what you were talking about because you were way too intelligent and educated for me to keep up – I loved it – it was educational!

So, thanks to the white knight who saved my archive unasked, and who has set up this site for me – the doors are open once more. You will notice that he has manged to very cleverly stitch the archive to the back of this new WordPress blog,  so it is both the virtual pub, and the archive that he saved. I still own the annaraccoon.com domain name and that is in the process of being pointed towards this new blog, so it should all settle down within a few days.

First drinks at the bar are free – unless you live in Islington North, in which case I would be accused of treating for votes!

I would particularly welcome your suggestions as to what you would like to see me write about, for my world is of necessity shrunk to the confines of this bed, which means I won’t have the stimulus of – for instance – taking a trip down the river on the boat with Mr G. I know what one post will be – and that is to show you photographs of the amazing room Mr G has built onto our house in the past six weeks, which will be my new home. It is truly beautiful with a fantastic view of the river. I’ve just got to be patient and wait for the scaffolding to come down tomorrow, and the floor to be laid.

My mind is free though – my mind can go anywhere it wants to. That is the most valuable choice of all.

Make the most of your choices today. They are easily mislaid. They are more valuable than you think.

Yes, you read that right. Anna is going to take on the Leader (Hah!) of the Labour Party in the coming elections.

FIGHTING CORBYN FROM HER DEATHBED 

Cancer-sufferer Susanne Cameron-Blackie is standing for election against Jeremy Corbyn in Islington – but may not even make it to June 8

The brave 68-year-old is taking on the Labour leader in his own backyard

She may be gravely sick with cancer – but she isn’t letting that stop her campaigning

But the 68-year-old doesn’t even know if she will make it to polling day – but she is determined to use all her time to fight both her illness and Mr Corbyn.

She was given three months to live back in April as the cancer spread through her body.

 https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3502512/cancer-sufferer-susanne-cameron-blackie-is-standing-for-election-against-jeremy-corbyn/amp#

She told the Mail on Sunday: “I may be the first parliamentary candidate forced to lie down, rather than stand, for office. But I’m determined to do something useful with what’s left of my life.”

And Susanne – who blogs under the name Anna Raccoon – is taking him on on the key Labour issue of the NHS.

She claimed that the health service wasn’t safe under him either.

“Jeremy Corbyn claims the NHS isn’t safe in Tory hands. But the truth is, it’s not safe under Labour, either,” she said.

“The crisis that is threatening to destroy it gets deeper every day for reasons Corbyn hasn’t started to think about – and that’s why I’m running against him.”

She wants to safeguard the health service from legal negligence claims which she says are cutting into vital funds.

Susanne claimed she was recently approached by the hospital’s legal department when she was mistakenly given the wrong medication – as they were terrified she would take action.

“I was flabbergasted. Why? What would be the point? I know why the mistake was made: because the nurses in that unit are rushed off their feet,” she said.

“If I were to sue, the only thing that would change would be my husband’s bank account in several years, long after I’m gone.”

She claimed that Corbyn and Labour didn’t “get it”.

“They say they are socialists, yet they’re doing nothing about a system which treats the NHS as if were a manufacturer making faulty products, instead of a provider of a vital social good.”

Last year alone settlements cost the NHS more than £1.5billion.

As the victim of negligence herself ages 23 when she was mistakenly given a hysterectomy, she claims that “money would have made no difference” and she picked herself up and “moved on”.

Her cancer has caused her to lose her hair, and every day she has countless medicines to keep the illness at bay for as long as possible.

A team of nurses visits her every day from her cottage in Norfolk as her rare form of tissue cancer has now rendered her immobile.

When Theresa May called the election a few weeks back, she says she "knew this was my chance".

Susanne will travel to Islington tomorrow to officially register as an independent candidate.

"Just imagine: if some of the billions going to law firms and left legacies could be put into patient care, what a difference that would make," she said.

"I will fight to my dying breath to make people – including Jeremy Corbyn – recognise this fact."

I salute.

I raise a glass and fill yours so you too will raise them to honour Susanne. 

She is a Warrior.

Pax