The potato chipper, p.23
The Potato Chipper, page 23
Many times, the Turkish head chef had his head in his hands as failures were pointed out, “keep the chopping boards for their purpose, this one for meat, this for vegetables” The head chef then highlighted how he was struggling to get the local workers to listen to him and the spectre of sacking these characters would lead us to further issues, the like of which we had already seen with the village chiefs, only a few months earlier.
It was at this point, that the head chef asked us why he had to endure inspections from not only ourselves, but also the Turkish and Kurdish medics? We were shocked by that as we were the official health and safety team, and we reassured him that any other individuals carrying out inspections were not authorised. We told him to “kick” anybody out of his kitchen who attempted to do such things. We investigated the allegation further and discovered that the on-site, part-time Kurdish medic, who was heavily connected with the local gangster fraternity was looking to bring in his own caterers. By doing his own unsanctioned, and biased, probably amateurish inspections, he was attempting to shut the Turks down, and bring in his own crew.
I confronted him through the Kurdish interpreter with the Project Manager and he started to try and argue that this was his land, and he could do what he liked. He then looked at me in an attempt “to try and question me about who allowed me to have an ambulance on the site.” I looked at him and said, “this is none of your business and is nothing to do with you.” I spoke with one of my drivers and told him to tell this guy that the ambulance has been supplied by a Kurdish company affiliated to the political organisation known as the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, who were the controlling party of the area. If he wanted to burn the ambulance down, he could if he so wished, but he would explain it to the local PUK representatives.
Just as I was thinking here goes again, we managed to see off his attempt to take over the catering contract by stating that they could bid for it in six months when it was up for renewal, in addition to taking on the waste disposal, for all the sites. All of this combined with his realisation that he would be taking on the PUK saw him off. At one time during the remaining year of the contract, before we saw completion, the individual turned up with two accomplices, armed with rifles to threaten the life of a Turkish Project Manager was selling construction material at a knock down price and not involving the local mafiosi.
Fortunately, the Turk was on leave and the construction of the new CPF 2 extension to the Taq Taq Oil field, was successfully completed, with no full site evacuations, and despite several near misses, in addition to severe crush injuries and near traumatic amputations, no lives were lost. After two years on the project, I boarded a flight out of the region, and shortly after, was ordering champagne to celebrate the events we had overcome. We had achieved a great deal and assisted in the completion of a project, that at so many times, appeared doomed.
20. Side Effects
July 2016 – “Right, Paul, I want you to keep your eyes closed for five minutes, try to move as little as possible.” Sitting in the comfortable armchair, facing a TV screen mounted on the wall, I remained as still as I possibly could for the second round of five minutes in the clinic near to Chancery Lane Tube stop in London. Securely fastened to my head was a cloth cap, complete with nineteen sensors, with gel inserted that permitted a registered connection via a series of leads that filtered out of the back of the cap and into a laptop. The laptop had specialised software installed for interpretation and treatment protocols to effectively rewire my brain.
“Ok, Paul, what we see here are signs of extensive psychological trauma to your limbic system that is significant in my experience. Basically, you’re hypervigilant to the extreme. That’s not surprising given the many years doing what you’ve been doing. I’ve seen worse, but few cases as bad as yours. I’m sorry that I can’t say that in a nicer fashion”, said the very courteous Christina who was to become akin to a ‘Shrink’ for me during the coming months. She was in fact, the London face of a company called Brainworks Neurotherapy that offered neurofeedback/neuroplasticity training to ‘train the brain’.
I asked, “What do you recommend that I do then?”
To which she replied, “I would consider a dietary, supplementation procedure called Methylation as a starter.” She very graciously, and professionally, did not force neuroplasticity training on me. However, I did immediately ask if this were an option to which she replied, “yes, we can look at that. I am confident that we can improve your outcome significantly. I would estimate that it would be anywhere between ten to fifteen sessions to make rapid gains, although it takes as long as it takes.”
My first few sessions were an hour in duration, about once a week, and involved literally sitting in front of a screen, watching a movie or documentary, with the screen, moving backwards/forwards, changing shape, darkening, brightening, smoke appearing on the screen and other adjustments. It was all with the aim of causing the level of strain on the brain to cause its respective parts that were overactive, to calm down and those that were under active, essentially numbed parts of the brain, to be stimulated back into life, to calm the mind and body.
At the same time, I sought dietary advice and underwent organic acid tests that identified that my adrenal glands were seriously overactive. This caused my Vitamin C count to be extremely low. That was not surprising given that adrenal excess annihilates one’s Vitamin C count. I also went on an anti-oxalate diet which involved cutting out some healthy foods to reduce the effects of oxalate crystals. These crystals which are often caused by extreme stress, over a period, can lodge in the brain and cause central nervous system inflammation. While not directly fatal, they can have significant, negative consequences for one’s health. An example at the lower end of the scale is night-time urination and loss of balance.
I was to also have a consultation with a World-Renowned Kinesiologist based in the UK called Chris Astill-Smith, who through a series of muscle tests over one hour, identified that my Zinc levels were low. He also confirmed the low levels of Vitamin C and through extended testing, gave me supplements with co-factors that would allow rapid absorption of the tablets provided. These were Zinc Picolinate and Potassium Ascorbate for the Vitamin C correction. I would be taking these for the rest of my life, he informed me.
It was at this point, that between us, we worked out that I am naturally a ‘Fire’ type of person as my point of conception was between 11.00 to 13.00 hours, which in Traditional Chinese Medical terms is the time of the day when the Heart Meridian comes to the fore, heart denoting fire. I have always felt that this is the time when I feel most energised and prefer to do my intense workouts then. Conversely, six hours later, between 17.00 to 19.00 hours is the opposite, Kidney Meridian time, and therefore denoting water, which is when I feel drowsy, owing to the excess water requirement that I need to control my profuse heat. Between this time and the previous two-hour window 15.00 to 17.00 (Bladder organ time – Another water organ) – is the best time to rehydrate; it should be noted.
I also started to take tonic herbs such as Polyrachis Ant for the Chi/Energy development, Reishi for the liver and Ho She Wu to help with adaptive Jing energy, good for the kidneys. Other super foods have helped such as Pine Pollen Powder, Maca and Supergreen Smoothies loaded with Sea Vegetables to keep the spirit (or Shen) up.
After about eight to nine sessions of neurofeedback, I noticed improvements but wanted to intensify the process, so I did remote (i.e., at my house) intensives, basically, one session a day for ten days. This was just like doing the session in the clinic, only the laptop was sent to my home by UPS courier with the cap and software pre-installed on the computer. At pre-arranged times, I would hook on to the internet, set the cap up with the gel and crack on. During these sessions, run via a camera on the screen, I would liaise with two people, one was a young Belgian girl who would run the session with the other being a Caribbean based American Neuro-Specialist Doctor. The latter, from the initial scans that we did, could see also that I had suffered a serious concussion some years before, identified through him picking up calcium deposits shown on the EEG. That would not have helped me, he added.
After these ten sessions, my sleep was vastly improved and after having spent thousands of pounds on all of this, I felt much better than just six months earlier. The heaviness in my legs that I endured at times, in some social settings, plus the unexplained excessive sweating started to diminish. While bouts would recur, the incidence of such happenings had reduced, although the specialist did warn me that the sub-conscious mind had an uncanny knack of remembering anniversaries of traumatic events that I had experienced in the past. This would now explain why I would wake up on some days, and feel awful, when the previous day, I had felt wonderful. Over time, I just learnt to manage it.
I firmly believed that my intensive martial arts fighting and healing training had not only got me through some of the dark days prior to the above treatments, but also to have some spells of excellence that disguised the dark reality of ‘my mind,’ which had some horrid thoughts.
I was to suffer a different medical challenge towards the end of 2017 after a long stint in Australia. I attended several intensive seminars and training courses related to several professional requirements across England, Wales and Ireland. I crammed everything in over six weeks and unbeknown to me at the time, the effects of immuno-compromise were playing out.
In September of 2017, I boarded a flight from Dublin to London Heathrow and on arrival at my father’s house in Kent in England at 01.20 a.m., I had to force my way through the back door (of the house into the kitchen) to be confronted by an overturned table, not to mention plates and food littering the floor. As I slowly made my way through the house, I could see a dim light on, in the distance but cleared every room in the house as it appeared that there might be burglars present. The whole house looked as if it had been turned over. I got to the last room, which was the living room, only to be confronted by a door, only slightly ajar and on pushing it, was hit by the stench of ketone riddled, stale urine and my father lying on the floor, barely conscious, in a diabetic coma.
I had returned in the ‘nick of time’ to find him flat on this back, on the floor, by his bed. His voice was barely audible, so after checking that his hip and legs were not broken, and that he hadn’t hurt himself anywhere else, I lifted him off the soaking wet floor and onto the dry bed. With my years of medical knowledge, I set about doing an examination. However, this time, it was different. It is always different when it’s one of your own, be it family, friends or colleagues. I did it, but it wasn’t easy.
Over the coming weeks, he slowly recovered but his progressive dementia was to take its toll on my spirit. One would think that it would have been his spirit that was suffering, but he was oblivious and his oscillating between moments of sheer genius where he dissected stock market reports with precision and hallucinated about being in South Africa when he was in London defied belief. Moreover, I had over-committed myself to such a degree that driving to various parts of London, before returning to visit my Old Man in a Kent hospital, weakened me to the point where I was having unexplained, profuse night sweats, together with pain in my shoulders and lower back. Just getting out of bed in the mornings gave me the sort of pain one would expect the morning after a seriously hard physical training session the day before. However, I had not had a surge of lactic acid so I was at a loss.
In early October 2017, I was booked to head to Bangkok to train intensively in Muay Boran. I had a ticket from Dublin to Bangkok via Dubai and as I boarded the Emirates flight to Dubai, the feeling of mild nausea progressed so that after seven hours on a Boeing 777, two miniature bottles of red wine had me gagging and how I didn’t vomit, I will never know. After landing, the walk from the plane across the tarmac in the comparatively mild Emirati heat felt like a cold autumn Northern European day as I shivered beyond belief, gripping my bag to such an extent that the white of my knuckles bore through in order to try and regulate the trembling in my arms. This was akin to a malaria attack, having worked in Africa, it was a possibility, but I had never been diagnosed; plus it had been a few years and I hadn’t suffered such symptoms before.
I dismissed the above as a forty-eight hour ‘bug’ and pressed on. However, things did not improve and as I arrived in Thailand, I started to hallucinate in bed and no matter how much I drank, my pee was a horrible clay colour with all physical movement such as getting out of bed, feeling tantamount to driving a car with the handbrake applied. My body ached to such a degree that doing five press ups hurt my shoulders to a point where I wanted to collapse. After twenty-four hours, I had to concede defeat and withdraw from the intensive five-hour training days that I was about to do. I could barely walk-up stairs for five minutes, let alone go hard for four to five hours, so I trudged through the polluted Lad Prao streets of Bangkok, searching for a clinic that could help me.
After two hours of agonising plodding through the thirty plus degree a hundred percent humidity conditions, I found a clinic and my mood was not enthused as the first round of blood test results showed that my liver function was abnormal, with anaemia being a sinister complication. I initially felt relief that I had an answer to why I was feeling so bad. However, my relief was to be short lived as the specialists ruled out Dengue fever, Malaria, Hepatitis A and B but hadn’t ruled out Hep C. I was to report in the following day for an ultrasound on my liver and spleen. At this stage, my resting pulse rate, lying in bed was just short of one hundred. Sleeping in bed required me to lie on a towel with a spare ready to go on the side, lest I wake up in soaked sheets. I can honestly say that sleeping until three a.m. and waking up in cold, wet sheets, with a soaking pillowcase is not a pleasant experience.
The ultrasound showed that my spleen had enlarged and that a second blood test showed a further deterioration in my liver function. I was showing signs of borderline jaundice as my Sifu, Paul Whitrod and some of my training brothers visited me at my hotel to see how I was. The look on their faces said it all, so I gave them the run-down prior to my third and final visit later that day.
Paul is an expert in healing arts, a skill of which I have acquired some knowledge and he did an impromptu assessment on me there and then. After looking at my tongue, eyes and feeling my pulses, he gave me a serious look for a few seconds before adding, “this is a viral issue with your blood which has affected your brain (a fact verified by the UK liver specialist later). Your immune system is locked in a battle with this virus and it isn’t winning at the moment, it’s like a stalemate …” There was a long silence as he did some other checks before adding … “This won’t be the end of you Paul. The best thing you can do is get some prune juice and purge your system. Clear it out, just get whatever it is out of your system.”
I honestly breathed a sigh of relief on hearing this as his knowledge is extensive but realised that his findings suggested that I was suffering from a potent viral enemy. The following day, I headed for a day out to Ayuttya, a series of Buddhist temples and statues that were popular. Shortly after, I initiated the prune juice protocol.
The Thai Specialists were now saying that while they could rule out Hepatitis A-C, they were now suspecting Lymphoma. I had by this stage heard enough speculation so resolved that I would head to the UK to see a specialist there. It was strange because my first trip to Thailand had proved to be a nightmare, and while it’s a lovely country, no sooner had I arrived at the airport, than I started to feel just a slight bit better, and the positive effects of the prune juice were noticeable. Not much, but maybe psychologically, I was escaping from the pit of despair. I stopped in Dubai for two days and felt that my resting pulse rate was slowly dropping, indicating that the strain on my body was subsiding. I went to the Cinema in the Dubai Marina Mall and felt that my pulse rate was sitting at between sixty-eight to seventy-two. I felt more positively drained shall we say, it was at this point that I finally felt that the worst was over and I would get through this.
I flew to London Gatwick after having secured an upgrade and was very well looked after by a kind African Emirates’ air hostess who didn’t voice her concerns as to my demeanour but could see that fatigue was only part of my problem. Two days later, I was content to have several ailments that the Thais had queried ruled out as Dr Barnardo (nephew of the founder of the well-known charity in the UK) opined that the chief suspect of my woes, in his eyes, was Hepatitis E. After six weeks, the test for this showed up as negative; to which my physician added that this did not mean that we could rule it out. If it wasn’t that this, it might be a separate, unidentified virus/parasite that he was prepared to leave as an open question; if I continued to improve.
Over the following twelve months, I slowly regained my strength to train full on in not only my fighting pursuits, but also, swimming two to three kilometres at a time. In October 2018, I felt redemption as I returned to Thailand to train with Sifu Paul, his Thai Kru Pramote, an eighty-three-year-old former instructor to the Thai Military and the small select group who I had been deprived of the opportunity to train with the year before. It was a great trip.
As of November 2018, I write to you from an unspecified location on the Iberian Peninsula, I am still here and going strong.
Author (third from right at the back, as you look at photo) with Training Brother’s, and Sifu Paul Whitrod in Thailand, October 2018
