Sue Eckstein

Too much information

sueeckstein — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 17:26:38 +0000

Having had the amputations almost exactly a year apart, I find it very hard to remember what happened which year and who knows what. We’ve received Christmas cards from people who don’t know I’m missing any body-part, people who think I’m still recovering from the below-knee amputation and one or two from those who are hedging their bets by addressing the card to “Alastair and family”. Just before Christmas I ventured into a clothes shop I’ve frequented over the past few years. An assistant I thought I recognised greeted me with, “Happy Christmas! How are things now?” I watched her eager expression transform to one of abject horror and embarrassment as, too late, I realised hers was a generic cheery salutation and she very definitely hadn’t anticipated a detailed description of the latest amputation, the tricky rehabilitation process and my loathing of American tan Velcro leg attachments.

Get the party started

sueeckstein — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 18:33:27 +0000

I’ve never been much of a party animal, scarred by High Commission cocktail parties in West Africa, where the frenetic flickering of people’s eyes, scanning the room to identify someone more useful than me to talk to, was always very off-putting. Now, as an amputee, I find social gatherings even more of a challenge. The first time someone trips over my prosthetic leg (which never folds away quite as neatly as the other one) and spills red wine on the cream carpet, people are quite kind. The second time, they are less so. Standing only really works if there is something solid to lean on within easy reach of somewhere to put a glass. Not being so quick on my feet can result in the unfortunate missing of circulating canapés. And it’s no good relying on Nurse Jackie for help. As soon as he’s through the door, he’s off - chattering away, exchanging recipes, extracting gossip and scandal and generally enjoying himself while I’m left trying to explain to the person next to me that just because I can’t move away and find someone more interesting to talk to, it doesn’t mean that they can’t.

I do have to admit to enjoying the Myriad Christmas party yesterday evening. I did stand on one fellow author’s foot for quite a long time before he politely brought the situation to my attention but, apart from that, all went well. I even managed to seek out (the delightfully modest and really nice) Elizabeth Haynes and congratulate her on her absolutely massive book sales, her very many foreign rights deals, and her forthcoming film of the book without sounding the slightest bit bitter and twisted. I hope.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

sueeckstein — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:59:06 +0000

X Factor goes Legless

sueeckstein — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:07:34 +0000

The above knee amputation is clearly the Winter Look. Even Little Mix is at it.

A stick in the mud

sueeckstein — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 17:42:50 +0000

I have experienced two small triumphs this week. The first was managing the two sets of escalators at Warren St tube station with prosthetic leg, walking stick and a modicum of dignity. The trick, I now know, is not to spend the whole journey up to daylight wondering which leg should lead from the top step and just leave it to instinct and luck. The second was taking Alfie the Pet as Therapy Dog to his favourite park. This was not quite as straightforward. The path through the woods back to the car had been transformed into a scale model of the Somme. At one point I found myself ankle deep in mud and leaf mould, clinging to the branch of a small tree, contemplating calling it a day, leaving my leg behind and crawling to the car. But luck prevailed; Alflie wandered up to see what was going on and I managed to clip on his lead, will him to muster his inner husky and drag me out.

We need to talk about my prosthesis

sueeckstein — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 20:29:28 +0000

Sitting in the cinema with Nurse Jackie last week, I experienced an unsettling moment of empathy with Lionel Shriver’s Eva Khatchadourian and a glimmer of understanding of why she needed to talk about Kevin. I know I am supposed to like my above-knee prosthesis – other people seem to be pretty impressed with it – but I really don’t. Like Kevin, the leg is a glowering, malign presence. I have moments when I think it’s not too bad but then it moves slightly, and puts unbearable pressure on places I’d very much rather it didn’t. I lurch into the disabled loo to try to adjust it and sense it smirking in the corner as, flustered and flailing around, I accidentally pull the emergency cord. I imagine it rolling its eyes as, morning after morning, I’m defeated by the leg-sock-socket-belt-pants-tights- shoes-order-conundrum. Like Eva remembering her childfree days as a travel writer, I’m wistful for a time when I was unencumbered by this new and unwanted entity which slows me down and makes me feel horrible about myself. I tell Nurse J that nothing good will come of him admiring it, but will he listen? …

Stoicism and spark

sueeckstein — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 19:59:46 +0000

My eye was caught by the cover of the review section of The Observer this morning – a self portrait of Giles Duley, a photographer who lost both legs and an arm in Afghanistan – a brave and interesting portrait of a brave and interesting man.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/oct/30/giles-duley-war-photography-afghanistan

The accompanying piece was informative and ultimately optimistic, though I take issue at the journalist mentioning “phantom pains from missing limbs” in passing, as though they were but a minor irritant.

The Tuesday Group

sueeckstein — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 21:10:05 +0000

“We must learn how to explode!”*

sueeckstein — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 16:01:08 +0000

Yesterday, out of nowhere and just as I arrived at work, I was overcome by a rage so powerful that I had to sit in the car until I could breathe properly again. Rage that I’ll never again feel really good about how I look; that I’ll never be able to jump out of bed and get on with my day; that not a day passes without people wondering what has happened to my leg; that every day for the rest of my life I’ll have to strap on half a stone of metal, foam and plastic; that I have to live with unbearable burning and fizzing right down to my non-existent foot which people seem to think is “all in the head”; that I have to take drugs about whose side effects I don’t even dare read; that one missed step is a fall; that so much disability access isn’t at all; that I have to ask busy colleagues to make me a cup of tea; that I have to ask people to carry things for me; that I can’t get anywhere fast enough; that there is nowhere to sit down in shops; that the disabled showers at the pool are at the end of a wet corridor; that I have to worry about how to give a powerpoint presentation on one leg without falling over; that it takes longer to dress my prosthetic and get it on right than it used to take me to get up and out of the house; that I have to ask people if their stairs have banisters before I visit; that staying at friends’ houses now seems just too difficult; that people think that having a prosthetic leg that looks just like the other one will somehow make everything all right.

*Emil Cioran

And now for the stairs…

sueeckstein — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 22:25:17 +0000