Morning ! [await reply]
Eh? What? [hand to ear]
[pantomime voice] I can’t hear you!!
I’d like you to do me a favour. Last year I took an assembly for the juniors, and when they said good morning they nearly deafened me!
Which, in the event, would’nt have mattered much.
So, I want you to pretend you are 5 or 6 years old again, and get ready to raise the roof with [baby voice]:
‘good morning mr jack’
Ready? Ok, now…[comment]
[demo decibel meter]
My daughter bought me this decibel meter, because I tend to talk too loud.
If I talk ok, the light on this is green or yellow – too loud it is red.
So, once more and make the light go red!!
Ready? Ok…[comment]
I’m going to give this to Mr Taylor to check your hymn singing!
I’ve had some interesting experiences since last time I stood here, which I’d like to share with you.
Not the bad ones, they can go, but there has been a lot of enriching experience, and some funny ones.
Strange, strange experiences.
When I woke up in Wigan hospital in December, my brain was totally scrambled!
I thought I was at home, but they had converted our house into a hospital!!
But everything – nurses, doctors, were on huge computer screens in our living room.
Apparently I kept saying to the nurses – ‘you aren’t really here, are you? you are virtual, on a computer!
I got my dimensions wrong – instead of seeing people walk [demo vertical]I saw them walk demo horizontal].
I thought [point horizontal] was down, and that if I didn’t hold on to the bed I would fall and hit the opposite wall.
I thought all the doctors were my son or daughter, kept shouting [and I was shouting] ‘there’s Hayley over there!’
I kept thinking I had taught every nurse somewhere, and kept asking them ‘did I teach you in such and such a school?’ till they must have got tired of it.
I heard music playing in the ward all the time, but |I could change the lyrics. I could make them sing anything |I wanted – numbers, colours, even rude words – not that I would have, but I was scared of thinking of any bad words in case they sang them out loud!
I kept asking people, ‘can you not hear them singing those words? I’m making them sing that!’
I don’t think I was a very well behaved patient.
Apparently when I woke up, the first thing I did was try and rip off all the tubes they had stuck on or in me, and they had to knock me out again to stop me. On my patient’s file, which I sneaked a look at, it said ‘inappropriate behaviour’.
When they tried to feed me, I started shouting ‘hospital food is horrible!!’, and all the other patients started nodding and doing thumbs up. I then shouted ‘but the nurses are nice!’, so I think I got away with that one.
Anyway, my brain slowly unscrambled, and is now ok, or no worse than it ever was.
Communication is fun, by lip reading , signs or writing.
It’s kind of like playing charades all day.
Lip reading is tricky.
It is impossible to get more than 30-40% from the lips, even for experts.
Some sounds have no lip movement, like ‘g’ or ‘k’.
Some things sound different but look the same on the lips:
‘where there’s life, there’s hope’ looks exactly like ‘where’s the lavender soap’.
Also [lip it] ‘scottish’ looks like [lip it] sausage’.
So if someone says ‘are you scottish?’ it looks like ‘are you a sausage?’
Signing is fun too, though I haven’t got very far.
The alphabet [sign]is easy, and I’m hoping some of you will learn it.
My wife can spell things out pretty quick for me, which is interesting, because she could never spell before!! – not true.
Daughter Hayley goes to signing classes and is teaching us.
Some are strange :
[demo Scotland] that’s Scotland – bagpipes!
Water [demo] = tears; Milk[ demo]milking a cow.
Brother[ demo]= someone you fight with, I guess.
Sister [demo] – don’t know, maybe someone whose nose looks like mine?
And now I have these bionic ears, which are to help me hear a bit.
I have magnetic coils embedded in my skull – one each side .
I can stick paper clips on my head, or carry teaspoons there.
With apologies to my 4th and 5th years who have seen these,, I’ll show you the technology, because it is amazing – it should be, at £20,000 per ear!
[take one off] – it’s a physics lesson in itself! Energy transfer.
Sound – processor – elextric pulses – coil – radio waves
To coil and magnet inside my head – to electric – wires which go into my inner ear, or what’s left of it, to stimulate the brain.
I have to say they are not doing much yet, but it may take months of training.
I can hear some things, but voices just sound like [demo].
But last week I heard my baby grand daughter catherine say ’ba ba’, and I’m sure I heard the ‘b’ sound.
I nearly cried!
And finally, this whole thing has made me think about what it means to be a human being.
There are people who think we are just machines.
That is partly true – our bones and muscles act like levers;
our eyes are camcorders with lens , focussing and so on;
our brains are computers, worked by electrical signals.
But we are not ONLY machines. We are more than that.
Others say we are animals, like any other animals.
That is partly true too.
We have evolved from other animals.
Our DNA is 99% the same as a chimpanzee’s, and isn’t actually that much different from a spider, or a turnip’s.
We do the ‘mrs gren’ thing you learn in biology, move/respire/senses/grow/reproduce/excrete/nutrition.
We are animals, a single species.
But we are not ONLY animals.
And it’s that , with this experience, that made me think.
We have gone past evolution in a very important way.
Evolution does not look after the weak.
It does the very opposite.
Only the strong survive, the weakest don’t .
All through nature.
That’s how evolution works.
Except us.
We are the only species that cares for the old, the weak, the ill, the dying.
Whether this is a gift from God or whatever you believe, it is true, and it makes us different from all the rest.
It really struck me, watching the doctors and nurses, family and friends, caring for people who are suffering, that we are rather special creatures.
Stand for Lord’s prayer
[Lord’s prayer and benediction]
