Bike Ride To Nowhere

Music plays a big part in my life, but not like it would with most. The majority listen to the words, relate to the song and like it for that reason. Not me, I listen to the music. That's why I like club music. Not this naff pop dance that you get in the charts, but hard dance, jumpstyle, hardstyle, trance and such. When I do move, I like to move at a fast pace and the high BPM rate, coupled with a decent tune, can pick me up quicker than anything else in my life.

This is why, when packing for my final bike ride, the first thing to go in was 8 batteries for my MP3 player. They'd last me about 5 days and half of them were rechargeable. Onto my MP3 player went the hardest, fastest music I could find. A couple of gigabytes of music that would distract me from the deep muscle pain of that first 130 mile leg of my trip.

I set off at about 4pm on the Sunday afternoon. It was cold, but the snow and ice which had made winter so horrible had disappeared and after 5 minutes on the road, I was warmed up nicely and looking forward to the journey ahead.

I knew the route I was taking, I'd taken it hundreds of times before, as a passenger in Dad's car. In hindsight, it would have been a better view had I left early in the morning, taking in the Cheshire and Staffordshire countryside. But I chose to time the ride so I'd get into Northampton the following afternoon.

I'd take in 4 major roads on the journey. The A50, A34, A51 and A5. That would get me to within a couple of hours of Northampton. I had marked out waypoints along the way. Major parts of the journey in which I could mark my progress. This would split the journey into four, easier to manager quarters.

First up was Talke Pits. Yes, that's a real place, a few miles North of Stoke. Even up to that point, my journey was eventful. It got dark about half an hour into the journey, somewhere between the M6 and Knutsford. Obviously in the dark, you can't see hazards on the road that could pop a tyre. I had lights on, so people could see me, but I had to rely on my night vision to see anything myself.

Puncture number one came in the leafy village of Peover Superior, hope of Barclays bank and William Stobart. There's actually a chance that the building site I fixed the puncture in was to be the future home of Eddie's brother, that's not been confirmed though. There was a bright light in this building site and I used it to fix the tyre. It was dark, it was cold and it was raining. It took about an hour in the end. Most of that was spent trying to find the hole in the rubber.

I had a good run then. I stopped at a roadside pub for a cold glass of coke, before continuing on towards Talke Pits. I'd crossed the whole of Cheshire now, and was heading into Staffordshire. Puncture number two arrived on the hill up towards the crossroads at Talke, where I would join the A34. I sat in the beer garden of a pub, fixing the offending wheel. It was the rear tyre again and I didn't rush it, I knew the layout of the route ahead and I was looking forward to it.

The crossroads is halfway up a hill. So after climbing up the remainder of the hill, it was time for the fun bit. Downhill, for 3 or 4 miles, all the way into Newcastle-Under-Lyme. Boy it was fun. It was around 9 or 10pm going down that hill, so traffic was quite thin. That meant not having to stop the entire way down and I was soon whizzing past industrial estates, retail parks and most of Newcastle aswell.

The A50 and A34 run pretty much parallel to the M6 from Warrington down to Birmingham and after skirting the borders of Stoke, I was coming to the town of Stone, after which I would turn off the well lit, dual carriageway and onto the pitch black, country road that is the A51. I stopped at a petrol station on the outskirts of Stone to fill up my water bottle and buy a packet of fags.

It was when I tried to set off again that I realised I'd hit a brick wall. My muscles were screaming at me to stop and I sat on the wall of a fancy hotel, just before the A51 turn off. It hurt, hurt a hell of a lot, but I've heard enough runners to know that you get a second wind. My second wind was to be delayed thanks to that problematic rear tyre. Two miles down the 51, around the same spot as the Hixton Rail Crash, my rear tyre was flat again. Off I got next to a rare street light, to have a look at it. That's when the police car drew up.

I was expecting a right going over by them. But after asking what the problem was, asking where I had come from and going to and calling me a complete nutter, they set off again. I walked into the next village, and fixed the puncture. Or so I thought. Less than a mile later, the tyre was flat again and I just didn't have it in me to sit down and fix it in the drizzle, covered in sweat and aching like never before. So I walked it. I was 11 miles from my next waypoint, Rugeley power station and I just walked and walked. Mile after mile went by, miles that I recognised but couldn't see. After a particularly lonely stretch of road, where my thought quickly turned to finding a canal and jumping in, I stopped at a small road junction. This road was slap bang next to Colwich junction, a major railway junction on the West Coast mainline.

If I'd have realised that, I wouldn't have sat there for half an hour, trying to scan the road map in my mind for the nearest river or canal. Something made me get to work on the tyre though and the last couple of miles to Rugeley were almost as fun as the hill down to Stoke. I'd hit my second wind and was gunning through the night at some speed, hitting the new bypass with a smile on my face.

I decided that having a proper rest under the towers of the power station was my next task and I got my blanket out to keep the cold out. I was sat on the hard concrete, with my bike in front of me and after half an hour or so, I thought I saw my tyre softening up. It was the rear tyre again and that second wind fell out of me sharpish at the sight.

The plan had been to set off again at first light. I arrived at Rugeley around 2am, so had around 3 hours to mope around and decide what to do. As the light came, I started walking again, towards Lichfield. After a couple of miles I just stopped. My bike seemed to be telling me something, it didn't want to go any further. I couldn't go any further either.

After some soul searching, which included the thoughts of ending it entirely, I thought I should head back home. The bike had packed up, my body had packed up and at least at home, I could sit down and think about things rationally. The problem was, I had £2 to my name, and that was in my bank account, which I couldn't get into for another couple of hours.

Hitch-hiking was the first plan of action. But I wouldn't get a lift with the bike, so it was locked to a lamp post and abandoned. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the remnants of it were still there to this day. Off I walked, back the way I had come, thumb sticking out and car after car speeding past with none stopping. I was quickly losing the will to live when I noticed something on the other side of the power station.

Now, the length of the West Coast mainline between Milton Keynes and Warrington is stored in my head, every mile of it. I knew that Rugeley had two train stations, and one was next to the power station. That was the station for trains to Warrington. A plan started to form in my head and with a bit of luck, I'd be back in Warrington before lunch time. I was aswell.

The plan was to get on the train and get as far as I could. If I was stopped by a ticket inspector, i'd “attempt” to pay with my debit card and if It didn't go through, I'd get off at the next stop and try the same thing on the next train. Yes, it was illegal, strictly speaking. But you can't go running to tell a Mr Policeman because that's not how it panned out.

Walking up the station approach road, I spotted the ticket office on one side and a ticket machine on the other. I thought I'd try the ticket machine, just on the off chance. I knew there was a couple of quid in my account, you never know. It was hit and hope and I wasn't feeling too confident about it. But, I had a bit of luck and Midland Trains and Halifax bank worked together to give me a train ticket back to Warrington, even though I couldn't afford to pay for it. £16 it was and Halifax would charge me £10 for being overdrawn for two days, but luckily, I had money to come back to in the shape of wages. Back I went to the house of Fletch and slept for pretty much 2 days straight

The problem now though was I had rent to pay and apart from my final wage packet, nothing coming in. I was thoroughly in a depressive stage at that point.

It was during this stage that a number of so-called friends turned their backs on me. I borrowed £20 from the married couple so I could go to a friendly match and because I was unable to pay them back after a while, they not only abandoned our friendship, but they also poisoned my friendship with others. Well, I say them, but it could really be any of a bunch of the friends from the rugby that got the rest jumping on the hate Danny bandwagon.

Most of you will know, or will now have realised that rugby was my life, Warrington were my life and a matchday was the only thing that kept me going through the week during my depressive stages. Well this group made it unbearable for me to go to games anymore and even think about enjoying myself. They'd ignore me, make snide remarks, threaten me at times aswell. One person knocked on my front door after one particular game, telling me that he had had to pay my £20 debt to the married couple because they had been threatening to kick the living crap out of me.

I think that had been the game I decided was my last. Leeds at home, in 2010. I still remember that day, I was seriously depressed, almost in tears most of the time and I trudged back home in abject misery. I had decided that the following day, I'd be off up to Hollins Park mental health hospital to get myself sectioned. I would have probably made a scene had I gone and been turned away.

I didn't go the following day though. My mind started having fleeting ideas about going to get help. After my first experience with seeking help though, I was scared to try again. It was a health scare, like that first time, that finally got me to the doctors. The problem was though, when I found the lump, I had a week or so before I could seek help and I had acquired a bit of money from a friend. Lidl got my custom with their bottle of whisky for £7 and I drank three of them in a two day period. I was pretty much drunk the entire time.

I remember being in some sort of internet chatroom at 9am one morning, drinking straight from the bottle and not caring one little bit. I'd realised after my drinking in October 2008 that I'd certainly be an alcoholic, if I could afford to be. I couldn't. It was a good thing too.

I'd moved back to the mothers' prior to the Leeds game. I hadn't given her the choice, I just moved back in. During this period I remember talking to my sister online. We were talking about getting me help. She wanted me down there, so she could drag me to a doctor herself. It's exactly what my new family are willing to do. They will go well out of their way to help people. I was actually quite confident that it was going to happen.

The problem was though, she couldn't offer the help that I needed. She just didn't have the available finances to put up someone who needed long term medical help. It certainly wasn't her fault, she did more than she had to, a lot more.

It was a knock back for me and I didn't speak to anyone for 7 weeks after that. Not a single soul, in person or online.

I went to my last rugby game the week before I went to the doctors. It was my birthday game, Hull at home. I was forced to stand in a different part of the ground because I had been scared to be anywhere near the people who had threatened me, my former friends. I hadn't had a shave since the Leeds game a couple of months earlier and I was starting to resemble a homeless paedophile. I used to cut my own hair using friends clippers, but that stopped when they turned their back on me, so that was long aswell.

But yes, it was the lump that changed it all. I really don't think it had been there very long. I certainly hadn't felt it, or felt the effects of it and I was forever messing around with my Tsurav Ganguly's (Google it kids).

My unmedicated mind was made up, I had knacker cancer and I was either going to die or lose righty. To be honest, at the time, I was secretly hoping for option number one.

I made an appointment, but thanks to a bank holiday weekend, I had to wait nearly a week to see my GP. Even a second successful cup win for Warrington couldn't bring me out of the gloom.

I had decided I was going to bring up the mental health issues while I was there. I was labelling my self as bi-polar by then. I wasn't far off to be fair. The appointment would help me on the recovery with one issue, but the other issue, would go unchecked for another 16 months. As I sit here, writing this, in November 2011, the lump is still there and it's not yet had a diagnosis. I'll get to that though. First let me tell you my experience with Dr Wrong.

Dr Wrong isn't his real name of course, but it's certainly a very apt nickname. You hear most people complain about at least one of the doctors at their local surgery and this one was that doctor at mine. I hadn't asked for him to be my doctor, I wasn't even informed that my GP had changed.

With my anxiety (or as I saw them, paranoia) issues. The wait in that waiting room was hell. I'd been panicking for days beforehand. Going through all sorts of scenarios in my head and acting them out. Oh I haven't mentioned the talking to myself bit yet have I? There'll be a whole blog on that later.

But in I went. Dr Wrong was fairly young, in his thirties. Inexperience wasn't his problem. It's just that he didn't give a damn about the patient. He wanted you in and out as quick as possible. We discussed the lump. Down came my trousers and he set about feeling me up. Medically of course.

He couldn't find it. The lump that is, you cheeky bastards.

He told me it was probably a part of the Tsurav that was supposed to be there. Hold on a minute! This lump, that seems to have appeared all by itself, after 17 years and that's all I get? A probably? Probably is doctor speak for maybe, or even I don't have a fuckin clue. Stupid me though, that all went out in my inside voice and I said nothing about it.

Next up was the mental health issues. I'd been in there about 10 minutes by that point and he seemed to be rushing through it now as quickly as he could. I told him the basics. The work problems, education issues, lack of motivation, depression and suicidal thoughts. He asked a few generic questions, then told me he was going to refer me to the Five Boroughs Mental Health Team. They were based up at Hollins Park.

I had one more thing to ask about. I had been feeling very light headed and it was getting increasingly worse as time went on. I couldn't stand up without getting an extreme headrush....

That's as far as I got. He told me that I'd have to make another appointment because I'd already taken up so much of his time. I'm sorry Dr Wrong, but are my severe medical issues stopping you from going and sitting in your fifty grand BMW with personalised number plate, so you can feed your already over-inflated ego? Again, that was my inside voice. I wasn't happy one bit though. He'd fobbed off a lump as nothing, with no further investigation via a referral. If he couldn't find it, it didn't exist, obviously. Then he tried to kick me out of the door when I asked about my dizzy spells. As far as I was concerned, the dizzy spells could have been caused by a major brain problem, but he didn't give a flying.......duck.

I'd have later appointments with Dr Wrong, but I worked out how to use the GP system to my advantage. I'd ask, and still do ask, for one of my two preferred doctors. I'll only see him if I need something quick and nobody else is available.

Luckily, his referral to the mental health team was the first step on a long road to recovery. It was starting to look like I may get out of this alive.

Considering my journey up to that point, it was nothing short of a miracle.

You're now caught up with the bad years. That's not the end of my story though. Rehabilitation was next. Drugs, mental health hospitals, therapy, benefits and the death of Danny Ibbitson. I know you hate cliffhangers. That's why I'm leaving it there. You'll have to wait until tomorrow for some answers