Why am I still here?

Years and years back, when I was young and stupid I used to say as a laugh anytime someone told me to slow down my hectic irresponsible lifestyle:

 "I'm fucking immortal mate... I'm gonna live forever, I'm fucking Batman".  (yes really)

The crazy logic being that by the time they could prove me wrong, I'd not be in any fit condition to have to put up with their gloating.  Like most people between 16-29 I went temporarily nuts and took more risks with various crazy shit than is sensible.  But its part of a learning curve we all go through so we know where life's boundaries are.

Hopefully this blog might show my kids when they are older that there will be good reasons I may tel them 'no'.

But today I've started to think about this again.  What sparked this off was a pop to see my doctor today, it started simply as last time I got some pills that I take for my migraines,they gave me what I thought was simply a stronger dose. The doctor then pointed out that that pill was not produced in that size (30mg instead of 1.5mg).  It turned out that the chemists where I had got the prescription filled had given me the wrong pills entirely.  The reason I had been feeling like 7 kinds of death warmed up for the 48 hours I took them (before dumping the fuckers in the nearest bin) was due to it poisoning my system.  A close call, more scary it's the 5th time that's something similar has happened in my life.  

Of the other 4 times, twice I was on pills for so long I developed a severe allergy to them. It turned out the doctors had never mentioned that the pills they had put me on were only meant to be taken short term and not for 7 fucking years and were highly addictive.  Now being

 A the national health service and

B me being a pig headed bastard, as the pills were sending my health off a cliff back then (well before 3d etc) I had to go cold turkey.  

Not pleasant and not something I wanted to go through once let alone twice.......yes they managed to fuck up again right after that with another set of pills. Unbelievable I know.  Of the other times these were simply being prescribed things that as an asthmatic I was not supposed to take that sent my asthma off a cliff (usually it hardly bothers me).  So yes, there is a reason I hate going to the doctors or taking pills as you can imagine lol.

For years my mates have called me 'the unluckiest man alive' and those who know me reasonably well have seen this in action many times. But after making a short list of all the things that could have killed, I realised I'm not the unluckiest...I'm in some ways the luckiest man alive. So here's a list of the thing that otherwise could or should have killed me or affected me in far worse ways. (call this an 'edited highlights' rather than the comprehensive list)

• ·         The stroke I had July 1st 2011.  yes I know some of you don't believe it happened or that I could recover from it as fast but it did and it's an undeniable medical fact.  it was more down to insane good fortune than my pig headedness.  Managing to get through this and back to normal as fast is almost a miracle.
• ·         working from the ages of 11  to 27 as an escape artist doing all sorts of crazy thing such as escapes on burning ropes from cranes , from high explosives and from the 'trial by fire' in handcuffs that took Harry Houdini 1 hour and 10 mins to get out of in 60 seconds before it blew my nuts off.
• ·         Doing the above with an undiagnosed spinal condition at the time that meant at any point I could have ended up in a wheel chair for life. (this cost me a small fortune to get put right).
• ·         being threatened with a bloody shotgun and managing not to get my head blown off by sheer good luck.
• ·         I've had knives pulled on me more than a few times over the years, somehow even when at my most annoying as a guy in his late teens I somehow managed to talk my way out of most of these.
• ·         managing to survive a 10 thousand volt shock from a lighting rig back stage somehow. 
• ·         came away for a gig where an entire light system exploded  in a shower of glass about 50cm from my face with not so much as a scratch (the video still survives somewhere).
• ·         ending up in a very bad way in A & E after simply bleaching my hair. I had been unaware of a severe allergy to bleach my entire life.  Cue adrenaline shots and flashing blues to get me to hospital.  That was the last time I went near bleach :)  I might not like my hair colour but its better than dead.
• ·         I got the living shit kicked out of me more times than I care to remember when homeless.  sometimes by one or two people, sometimes by larger numbers.  It's amazing how fast you can run in a situation like that.... suddenly you become carl fucking lewis.
• ·         I got so drunk one snowy new years eve I fell asleep on  a park bench in the middle of nowhere when it was minus 10 degrees C.  The ONLY reason I am here is a middle aged guy that was passing woke me up and made sure I walked into town with him.  I never did find out who he was to say thank you.
• ·         went through a phase when about 17-19 of taking anything offered me, often mixing shit together to see 'what would happen' (A& E is 'what happens').
• ·         the now 5 times I've ended up coming out ok after crazy stuff with pills prescribed by doctors outlined above.

This compounded by:

• ·         the caffeine intake of a small nation
• ·         sleeping only 2 hours a night
• ·         only having had any sort of a holiday 5 times in my life.  yes really!  1st time to Great Yarmouth as a small 2 year old (it pissed it down all week), twice to Butlins Filey, once to Butlins Skegness and a random piss up holiday to some bloody holiday camp in Yorkshire. My family were dirt poor and a holiday was a luxury.  To this day I still don't take holidays away anywhere as I never really got into the habit of them.  (Plus there was always something more important to spend any money I did have than on them).  Nearest I get is when I'm away lecturing.

So you know what? I am one lucky son of a bitch as any one of that first list could have ended badly.  So I'm either the luckiest bastard alive, a vampire or fucking Batman.  So maybe my irresponsible teenage self was 'that' far off the mark really.  As by all logic I certainly wouldn't have put money on me seeing my 40th birthday lol.

Luckily these days I've learned a lot of harsh lessons from my life and hope I'm not as such a stupid bastard as I once was.  These days I'm a rather boring guy who is a digital artist, who works hard and takes life as mellow as I can. I hardly drink and am teetotal for 95% of the year and only 'drug' you'll see me near is a cigarette.  But it took the shit at the doctors today to make me realise exactly how much shit I've been through that should have killed me or affected me in other very negative ways.  I think it's a thing we should all do at some point.  

 Once you start making  a list you realise how lucky you really are.

I've had it fairly easy, some poor sods have it far, far worse.  Sometimes you have to put things into perspective and realise that as long as your still here, then your probably doing far better than some other poor bastard who isn't.

So be glad for what you have. So why am I still here? The universe must be broken or something lol.