9 Sláinte

 9 Sláinte

I receive disability benefits, but the payments have been suspended while the “deciding officer” performs his meticulous, detailed investigation. The question is: has my condition improved? Has anything changed for the better in the past two months since I became homeless and discovered this unknown world? Let’s start from the very beginning. The day I entered the house of evil, Eileen put me in the legendary room 16. At the time, the place was very crowded – there were already 7 guys sleeping in the bunks when I arrived (I won’t use the term “lived in” because that’s a far cry from the description). When she opened the door to this dark cave, tightly fenced off from daylight, I thought I was going to throw up. Everyone was smoking in there, and the entire space was thick with smoke. Of course, I had told the “office” earlier that I didn’t smoke, but Jason O’Mighty assured me that: “Smoking is prohibited in every room, so you would be fine”. I thought that I won't survive even the first night, that I'll suffocate, but who cares... The landlady showed me the top prison bunk and said: this is your bed, make yourself comfortable. I really thought it was a joke, because I have serious problems with my spine and my right hand, which is still partially paralyzed. But it all turned out to be very true. Of course, I didn't expect any five-star standards, neither four nor three, these are mainly reserved for our guests from the East, but as I wrote, I thought that maybe because of my problems - severe depression and suicidal thoughts, in addition to a spinal injury - they would assign me to the bottom bunk or just to the bed as such, not a top prison bunk... No! They couldn't even provide that. Every night I wake up at least twice and after that have to go to the toilet. Apart from the fact that the toilet in this room offered no privacy whatsoever (the part that should have been glassed in was empty, providing everyone in the room with both: an acoustic and olfactory experience), the prison bunk I was assigned to creaked terribly, waking almost everyone in the overcrowded room. After a few nights, I began to feel terrible pain in my shoulders and upper back. During one of my office visits, when I saw Maryanne - a good policewoman - I complained that I had a very big problem with the place I had been assigned to. I also mentioned this to my social worker, but the only solution they could give me was to: "talk to Eileen about it". I was very afraid of this, because I knew that if I complained about anything, I would end up much worse - one of the first and most basic lessons you learn in Ireland. So I pretended that everything was fine and that it really was fine.

From the very beginning I had trouble sleeping – I take three different antidepressants every day (one of them twice a day), one of which is supposed to have a sleep-inducing effect, but it's hard to fall asleep in a place that looks like a waiting room at a train station: people are coming and going; they're smoking non-stop; some of them are vaping; some are snorting speed, which of course stimulates them even more; they're scrolling through their phones, not caring that the people next to them are going crazy. All of this is completely irrelevant in this world, because here nobody pays attention to anybody – dog eats dog. The party and fun last until 1 or 2 a.m., because the next morning starts in the afternoon anyway. Why wake up early? To, as one of my fellow inmates put it, "extend my day"? It makes no sense. After the third night my pills basically stopped working. Every night since, I take 3, sometimes 4 of them. I get to the point where I feel really sleepy, but I can't fall asleep because of the noise, stress, and anxiety. No matter how hard I try, I can't fall asleep. I have another problem - I snore. So my cellmates wake me up very often and even if, by some miracle, I'm able to fall asleep for a while, after they wake me up, I can't fall asleep until morning. If I take a sleeping pill, when I get to that point where I should be asleep and still awake, then I end up with a really bad headache. I take another one, hoping to get some rest; finally fall asleep, but sleep doesn't come because it's: too loud; too stuffy; too cold and it's literally impossible to breathe. Instead of sleeping, I'm already in pain; in terrible stress. I know that even if I were able to fly away from this hell for a moment, someone would quickly bring me back there because my snoring would irritate them. As a result of all this, I'm unable to rest; I'm constantly tired, I suffer from a chronic headache from an overdose of sleeping pills literally every night, and as an additional side effect I have a really bad hangover after them. The really funny fact is that one of the antidepressants I take should prevent the migraines I used to suffer from because of other pills. Such a small irony - another in my daily comedy.

The second factor is smoke – fumes from cigarettes, joints, vaporizers… a truly deadly and toxic mix. As I wrote, in the 3 rooms where I was assigned bunks in the house of evil, I was the only one who didn’t smoke. My memories of room 9 at Finnegan’s are particularly painful. The room was relatively small, and the landlady put the male incarnation of Judora Fletcher right next to my head (the distance between his mouth and my head was maybe 45, 50 centimeters at most, because both beds literally touched). As I mentioned, this guy would wake up in the middle of the night, roll 3-4 cigarettes and smoke one after another in bed. I felt the hopelessness of the whole situation like a nightmare, because I knew there was nothing I could do. After the first 24 hours of his presence, on the second day after returning from my stepfather’s funeral, I got a very bad cough. The combination of the biting cold and the intense smoke caused a terrible cough and runny nose. Several times when I was coughing and vomiting I felt as if I was literally going to choke; it was so intense that I almost threw up. I decided to talk to the guy, but I knew it wouldn’t change anything and… I was right because his answer was a short and firm “NO!”. After the second night, when I noticed that I was spitting up black phlegm, I decided to talk to St. Eileen of the Images about it. That same day one of the officials from the “office” called me on a completely different matter, to inform me that I could not apply for HAP while the investigation lasted – which I had already known. I was on the street, in the centre of Tralee; at rush hour; but despite the many people around me, I again had an emotional breakdown: I started crying, having spasms and could not calm down in any way. In total desperation I asked him: “I know you provide free accommodation, but is lung cancer included in the price?” I couldn’t believe where I had ended up: what kind of world was this? During this conversation I repeated over and over like a mantra that "I have done nothing wrong, I have committed no crime, and I don't know why I am going through all this." But that was just an expression of my despair, an outlet for grief that had absolutely no meaning to anyone. 

After they moved me back to the legendary room 16 in the house of evil, I started my relatively regular routine (splitting the day into three parts). I asked a few guys about their stories - most of them (all Irish) had, like me: been granted disability status, had social workers and what went with it, all the help they could get from the Irish state, which meant - absolutely nothing except €242 a week and a free travel pass, which was very useful for killing time travelling to and from nowhere. I realized that even if I was lucky enough for my "decision officer" to give me back the disability after his "investigation" that I had never lost, I would never be able to get out of this hell on my own. I decided to take action, otherwise I would end up like most of them: drowning my sorrows in alcohol or chasing an illusion in drug-induced dreams. After a few weeks, when I couldn't do any of the therapeutic exercises that I used to do every day in freedom, I started to feel serious discomfort related to my previous spinal injuries. Sciatica was making itself known much more often, the pain in the lumbar section was increasing, and my right arm was getting more numb with each week. Daily visits to the swimming pool, although of course helpful, did not change the situation fundamentally - uncomfortable beds, lack of sleep and conditions for exercise, chronic fatigue and exposure to constant stress took their toll. I had no other choice and contacted the rehabilitation and physiotherapy center in Poznań; it is thanks to their incredible work and skills that I can still move both arms, to a limited extent but still. Despite them being very busy, I managed to find a few days for several-hour sessions each, thanks to which I hope that I will somehow recover. Of course I know that the moment I said: “I am going to Poland for at least three weeks of rehabilitation”, the “crew” from the “office” would give me hell by not agreeing to my going (which is more than certain, as they weren’t “sure about my travel arrangements” for stepfather funeral), threatening to throw me out on the street, or harassing me with constant relocations. That is why I intend to send an email the day before I leave, and my actions in this matter are solely in the nature of defending my fragile health and my own interests (at the end they are giving us one hour to move, organizing the Kerry version of Hunger Games). Ultimately, there are they, along with the painfully meticulous “decision officer”, who are fully responsible for my recent condition. I almost forgot to mention a rather funny story about the rehabilitation option in Ireland. I had my first back injury in the spring of 2019, and another in the thoracic-cervical spine in February 2023. After both of them, I put myself on the local waiting list for physiotherapy (actually my doctors did). In the meantime I spent a real fortune on various treatments in Poland, feeling a significant improvement after each session. About a year and a half ago, out of the blue, I got a call from a Tralee number. “Hello, this is Kerry University Hospital in Tralee. I’m calling in relation to physiotherapy after your spine injury.” I was quite surprised, but asked, “What injury are you talking about?” The lady on the other end seemed quite confused. “I don’t have any other injuries on your record besides the one in 2019.” I started laughing quite loudly but she continued, “Would you still be interested in physiotherapy?” I thought she was going to give me specific dates and finally after four years of waiting (it was summer 2023), I would get the treatment I should get from the government. I said, “Of course,” but her response was even more surprising than her call, “I’ll keep your name on the waiting list.” To call that funny is to say nothing. I asked, “So you’re calling to tell me I still have to wait?” She confirmed and added that they were updating the system and database and she had to ask all potential patients if they were still interested in treatment. Well, we entered 2025 four months ago, the accident she spoke of happened in the spring of 2019, so I will soon be celebrating my 6th anniversary on the waiting list for physiotherapy at University Hospital in Tralee. Let this short story serve to serve anyone who would like to recommend me for rehabilitation here in Ireland. If I had relied on the local healthcare system, I would probably have ended up in a wheelchair with almost complete paralysis of my right and partial paralysis of my left arm.

Depression and suicidal thoughts are other health problems that I have to deal with on the daily basis. Every day I wake up with a great wish to: "cease to exist". I open my eyes and dream of a painless and quick death. The people I meet, with whom I share my terrible fate, have no idea what is going on in my head, about the intrusive thoughts that are bombarding me every day. Usually they see a smiling, funny guy who somehow found something to do that occupies his time in quite terrible circumstances. But the truth is completely different: my last serious suicide attempt took place in July 2024, I don't want to go into details here, but I woke up when 2 guards and 2 paramedics were calling my name in my bedroom, and my landlady in a bathrobe standing behind them. After then I realized that my mother was in a terrible condition (physical and mental), due to my stepfather's brain cancer. Towards the end of his life, the disease took on a particularly nasty face - the tumor was inoperable - it grew just behind his left eye, causing pressure on it. As a result, my stepfather, in addition to completely losing touch with reality, took on a rather cartoonish appearance towards the end of his days - the tumor almost pushed his left eye out of his skull. Knowing all this, I realized that at the moment I simply could not afford the luxury of suicide - as I told my new psychiatrist, another in an endlessly swirling kaleidoscope of very useful doctors. But still, because I am in my new reality, I have come very close to taking my own life four times already; and please do not get me wrong; it is not a thought: "oh yes, today it is raining, so maybe I will go to the river bank and maybe throw myself into the water", it is really far from anything like that. Those who have experienced this state of mind know very well that it is not even a kind of obsessive need. It is a state of mind that literally takes over me. During it, I literally see nothing around me. An oncoming car; a streetlight; a river; a kitchen knife; antidepressants in a backpack: everything, literally everything, takes the form of a solution that I crave with all my being. Despite all the tricks and techniques, I have been brought to this state by government officials four times recently in the beautiful, green hope of Ireland. There are cameras everywhere in this “lovely” office on Denny Street, and I am sure they keep records of every visit; it would not be hard to check them – if anyone had a problem with data protection regulations, no worries, I would even agree to publish all of these recordings; and in each one you'll see my crying, convulsing, sometimes in a panic, trying to understand why government officials, sitting comfortably behind bulletproof glass, treat me like a carcass, humiliate me, address me in an arrogant manner, often with obvious disgust. My mental state has deteriorated again recently. I have become very emotional, most of the time when I have to tell what is happening, I start crying for no reason, I have convulsions, spasms, my hands shake and I often experience panic attacks. This happens not only in the "office", but also: at the post office, at the Citizen Information Centre, everywhere where I mention or talk about my problems. This is the effect of the "peaceful facilities" and "proper treatment" that I receive from those who are supported by your taxes, by your money. At the moment I have two things that keep me alive: my mother's poor health and the project that I am already finishing. After the planned physiotherapy in Poznań I have to go back to Ireland - I have no other choice - I am 52 years old and all my affairs are here. After twenty years spent on the Evergreen Island, Poland is de facto a foreign country for me; like Germany or Portugal - I am completely detached from local realities. I have no idea what I will return to, I have the worst premonitions about it. But at the same time I believe, I hope, that something can change, because continuing in this hopeless state of being is the worst possible option - in such a case, no matter what, it is better to end this nightmare, because I do not want to be another junkie who will be found in feces on a prison bunk in the homeless shelter.