Warning - danger! Danger!

I recently bought a fridge magnet - it was nearly 3" square and came with detailed instructions for use and a warning label. I felt a need to share this warning with you all , as it seems very important. Comments are my own thoughts...and are in brackets & italics...

WARNING: This item is not a toy.
This item contains magnets or magnetic components. (This was somewhat of a shock to me - I didn't think a fridge magnet would contain magnets)
Magnets sticking together or becoming attached to a metallic object inside the human body can cause serious or fatal injury. (A little concern here...I could die?!? I'm stuffed full of metal...and they're telling me that my latest £2.99 purchase could kill me?)
Seek immediate medical help if magnets are swallowed or inhaled. (I'm wondering quite how I am going to swallow something that large - let alone inhale it....just how big would your nose have to be?!?)
Please retain packaging for future use. (I've decided not to do that...I shall just refer to this entry...)

I hope this blog post has been helpful and informative.

How to buy a swimming costume....

I have to own up to not writing this, but it made me laugh so much, that I had to post it. I'm not sure who the original author was, but whoever you are, thank you...and I hope you don't mind me taking the liberty of re-posting...

In the 1950s, the bathing suit for the mature figure was-boned, trussed and reinforced, not so much sewn as engineered. They were built to hold back and uplift, and they did a good job.

Today's stretch fabrics are designed for the prepubescent girl with a figure carved from a potato chip.

The mature woman has a choice, she can either go up front to the maternity department and try on a floral suit with a skirt, coming away looking like a hippopotamus that escaped from Disney's Fantasia, or she can wander around every run-of-the-mill department store trying to make a sensible choice from what amounts to a designer range of fluorescent rubber bands.

What choice did I have? I wandered around, made my sensible choice and entered the chamber of horrors known as the fitting room. The first thing I noticed was the extraordinary tensile strength of the stretch material. The lycra used in bathing costumes was developed, I believe, by NASA to launch small rockets from a slingshot, which gives the added bonus that if you manage to actually lever yourself into one, you would be protected from shark attacks. Any shark taking a swipe at your passing midriff would immediately suffer whiplash.

I fought my way into the bathing suit, but as I twanged the shoulder strap in place I gasped in horror, my boobs had disappeared!

Eventually, I found one boob cowering under my left armpit. It took a while to find the other. At last I located it flattened beside my seventh rib.

The problem is that modern bathing suits have no bra cups. The mature woman is now meant to wear her boobs spread across her chest like a speed bump. I realigned my speed bump and lurched toward the mirror to take a full view assessment.

The bathing suit fit all right, but unfortunately it only fitted those bits of me willing to stay inside it. The rest of me oozed out rebelliously from top, bottom and sides. I looked like a lump of Playdoh wearing undersized cling wrap.

As I tried to work out where all those extra bits had come from, the prepubescent sales girl popped her head through the curtain, "Oh, there you are," she said, admiring the bathing suit.

I replied that I wasn't so sure and asked what else she had to show me.

I tried on a cream crinkled one that made me look like a lump of masking tape, and a floral two-piece that gave the appearance of an oversized napkin in a serving ring.

I struggled into a pair of leopard-skin bathers with ragged frills and came out looking like Tarzan's Jane, pregnant with triplets and having a rough day.

I tried on a black number with a midriff fringe and looked like a jellyfish in mourning.

I tried on a bright pink pair with such a high cut leg I thought I would have to wax my eyebrows to wear them.

Finally, I found a suit that fit, it was a two-piece affair with a shorts-style bottom and a loose blouse-type top. It was cheap, comfortable, and bulge-friendly, so I bought it. My ridiculous search had a successful outcome, I figured.

When I got it home, I found a label that read, "Material might become transparent in water."

So, if you happen to be on the beach or near any other body of water this year and I'm there too, I'll be the one in cut-off jeans and a T-shirt!!

Resisting temptation...

I've been wanting to blog now for a week or so, to comment on my guest blogger's entry. My poor hubby, who danced his way to an uneven surface, leapt upwards (I am reliably informed that there were women nearby he wished to impress!) and then came down on the edge of a step, breaking his ankle in the process. Now, in some ways of course, it's his own fault - being a happily married man, he shouldn't be trying to impress other women ...and also everyone knows how dangerous Morris dancing is! Seriously, yes, morris dancing is very dangerous - have you ever seen how they bash those sticks together (hubby's fingers were once saved by a ring getting squashed almost flat in an especially vigorous swipe with a lump of wood) and as for rapper sword dancing - well, wow! To date though, excluding this recent ankle thing, his worse injury was caused in a hankie dance (yes really!), when someone's shoe flew off and hit him between the eyes - there was blood everywhere and he has the scar to prove it!

Anyway, enough of Morris dancing, I'm getting sidetracked, I'm supposed to be commenting on his entry!

The first thing that struck me was the comment that he felt guilty. Personally I seem to spend my life apologising, for getting in the way, or being too slow, or just not being able to do stuff - guilt is dreadful. It's not even like I (or he) should be feeling guilty for things that aren't possible, but somehow we feel that we need to be able to overcome anything to the extent that we ignore little things that get in the way - like a pair of sticks of crutches.

It was also really interesting to see and read about how inventive he's been to get round things. Again, for me, I've had a lifetime of adapting and finding another way and I'm not really sure how much of that has rubbed off. Is hubby being so inventive because he is used to seeing (and helping) me to get round obstacles? If he didn't, would he just have sat in a chair going 'woe is me' and expecting to be waited on hand and foot? I can't answer that one of course - I'm just chucking it out there for you to think about...

His leg is now starting to improve - he's walking about with a brace and managing to get around without the crutches. His ankle is stiff and sometimes sore and he's not liking it at all. I can't imagine how frustrating it all must be for him when he is used to such ease of movement normally. I am trying to be really good - I'm stiff and sore every day one way or another but I mostly am resisting the temptation to tell him how lucky he is - to have something wrong that will get better, given a bit of time. I know that he has gained a new appreciation of just how hard some things can be - he always knew it, but now he knows what it feels like. I hope his entry will help some other people have a bit of insight too, into what it's like to live inside a restricted body (with an unrestricted mind!). This is my world he's living in just for a bit...and yes, I have day by day by day had loads of self control and have resisted the temptation to say...^*

...welcome to my world...



^* ...um...I may have actually said it once or twice....







 

Guest blogging...

This is just a quick post to explain my guest blogger...

Hubby had a little fall a few weeks ago and broke his ankle. He's been on crutches ever since and is finding life as a (albeit temporarily) disabled person quite enlightening!

I like what hes written and intend doiing a little reply soon. In the meantime, I will tell you all that despite being very, very tempted, I haven't said 'Welcome to my World' yet!

Temporarily disabled...my exciting new guest blog entry...

It has been an interesting 10 months: I have gained a whole new insight into 'disability'. As a child I was asthmatic - I still am, but it is thoroughly controlled by medication and I don't even notice unless for some strange reason I try to run somewhere. Aside from that, I have been generally healthy and able-bodied. Until last September...

Last September, I injured my left leg. Not permanently, but it still isn't quite 100%. Then a couple of weeks ago, I had a little mishap while Morris dancing (yes, I am one of those strange guys who wears bells!) and I fractured my right ankle. So, for some time last autumn I was walking with a stick, in some pain and at the moment I am using two crutches to get around, although without pain - I just have one totally useless leg. What have I learned?

Even the things you can still can do can be limited, and that is enough of a loss in itself. Last year we had a holiday, but spent the whole week beside the pool - Wifey could have explored Kos town extensively in her wheelchair (and she did want to) but I couldn't walk very far at all - it was much too painful. This was a bit of role-reversal from her pre-wheelchair days, when she was the limiting one.

This gave the first interesting insight into a psychological aspect of disability which is not often considered - guilt: I felt really guilty about holding her back.

When using a stick, you only have one free hand for carrying. Ironically, I realised, this can mean more walking, since you may need to make more than one trip to move things! Which is hard on the bad leg.

With the broken ankle, walking with two crutches, carrying is almost impossible. Currently, a messenger bag is my constant companion: it means I can carry a lot of things around, although food and drink is a bit of a problem! This leads to another insight - disability forces you to become a real problem-solver. I can just about carry a sealed drink container with a handle, using one finger, whilst still gripping the crutch, but a normal mug of coffee, or a plate of sandwiches, is hopeless. Leave one crutch behind, and you're reduced to hopping - one free hand, but certainly not the way to carry a cuppa!

So - you put the mug down on a flat surface, move to a position between that and the next flat surface within reach, stand still and move the mug from one to the other; repeat as necessary, but a corridor is a real barrier. Where's Wifey's old wheelchair?

Some jobs don't require moving about, so they? Like washing up. But standing in one place on one leg for any length of time is a strain on the remaining good leg. How long does it take a single-leg amputee to adjust to that? Or to develop the strength to stand it? So - easy answer - sit down to do it. Simples! But it's surprising just how awkward that is. You are not standing over the sink at your usual height, so your view is different, and the angles are odd, making the movements awkward and clumsy. Conclusion - everything is harder.

And also, everything takes more time. Emptying the dishwasher normally is easy: bend, take out plates, stand up, put plates in cupboard, etc. But with two crutches, you just have to sit down, take the plates out and put them on the work top, take the bowls out and put them on the work top, etc., then stand and transfer stuff from the work top to the cupboards. This simple job becomes a two- stage process, and that's without the pots that go away on the opposite side of the kitchen...

Reduced mobility can affect almost everything you do. I hate rain. I've never understood those scenes in films where the lovers embrace in the middle of a downpour, oblivious of getting soaked - I would sprint for cover every time. Oh, wait...

This is as close to disabled as most healthy people will ever get, if they are lucky. But everyone should try it for a few weeks, and see how it opens their eyes.

Hello 02:52 -I'm late!

I was woken the other night in a minor amount of distress. This was distressing for a couple (or three) of reasons

1. I don't like waking with pain and
2. My hands had gone to sleep and
3. It was the third time in four days, and while in itself that's not exactly distressing, it is rather annoying.

Now, it was only a minor amount of distress, since, although I woke with pain, I wasn't in spasm, screaming or moaning or groaning. I was just uncomfortable and on laying there for a bit, I realised that I was sore enough that I wasn't going to get back to sleep without at least a small top up of pain relief. As I got up (slowly) I saw the time was 3:18 and decided that that was quite an odd time. The thing is, I so often wake at 02:52 (yes really!) that I have come to believe there must be a train or something that goes by and that just nips into my unconscious mind and accounts for the precise time. Of course, it has only just occurred to me that the possibly imaginary train might be late, but talking like that and including drugs in the same sentence somehow doesn't seem right at all!

My hands were of some concern. They've been getting more of a nuisance recently and I haven't been able to imagine the cause. The cure for waking with dead hands is to thrust each arm into the air in turn (sound is not necessary) and to jiggle them vigorously - actually I'm not really sure it's a cure at all, but it makes me feel I'm doing something and they do come back to life. My cat, Clumsy also thinks he has a cure for my dead hands - he leaps on the bed the second he thinks I am awake and repeatedly head butts my hands until I repeat the soothing action of stroking him. In this way the numbness passes and they come back to life - although I'm not sure quite who's benefit that is for!

My physio thinks there may be a link to something (she isn't sure what) that makes them 'die' and so she's asked me to keep some sort of a diary to see if we can track down the cause. It is for this reason, and no other that I found myself writing an email at 03:18 which said the following:

Dear phyzo

Typoping thus nia at 3am. Wiki agains with ded haends . Don

't think I dud any thigh different toady but was sleerping on my left sodde when I wike . Am cheeszed off with this nw so really wany to get it fized. Any new iddea s.

Sorry for bad spollong but fingers done work & cat head butting me.

Soo seen

WW

The fact that I then hit the send button instead of the draft button and that it actually left my out-box should be a mark of shame on spell checkers everywhere....

 

3 Doors Down Are Doing a World Tour!

I'm quite a fan of Nickelback and via the wonders of modern technology I went to buy a track on iTunes. ITunes said 'if you like Nickelback then you might like Theory of a Deadman' so I had a listen and they were right. The Theory of a Deadman page said 'if you like Theory of a Deadman, you may like 3 Doors Down' and I had a listen and I liked them too - in fact, I became quite a fan! It was then with some delight that I heard they were doing a tour and were coming to a town near me.

Hubby came home from work recently and I said to him that 3 Doors Down were doing a world tour. The conversation went something like this:

• Me: 3 doors down are doing a world tour.
  
• Hubby: Are they?
  
• Me: Yes, isn't that exciting
  
• Hubby: I suppose so. How did you find out?
  
• Me: On the Internet.
  
• Hubby: Oh - how? Do they have a blog or something? I guess you might do if you're doing a world tour.
  
• Me: Um, no, IMF told me...
  
• Hubby: IMF? How did he know?
  
• Me: Well, I'm not sure, but he told me...
  
• Hubby: I did wonder what they were doing with that big van...
  
• Me: Big van? What big van?
  
• Hubby: You must have seen it, huge thing...but I guess you need a big van if you're doing a world tour.

I look at him blankly - things are not registering in quite the way they should...and I plough on regardless.

• Me: Yes, shame though, in the US, they are doubling up with Theory of a Deadman - that would have been really exciting!
  
• Hubby: Um...rewind a bit here...I thought you were talking about the people in number 51? The ones 3 doors down with the great big Winnebago that they've just bought?
  

I think then when I told him I wanted tickets, he didn't have the heart to refuse!!....




....oh yes, and they were great 😃




 

 

On painkillers and perseverance....

Just recently I've been doing too much...

Actually, I don't know if that's strictly true, after all, just what does 'too much' mean? Too much for whom? I guess in my life you'll just have to accept that that's too much for me - which might not be too much for you, but there you go!

The big question is, just how do I do this, this too much? Well, I take painkillers - of varying quantities and strengths depending on how good a day I'm having. Sometimes they work really well and sometimes they don't work so well at all, but they allow me to keep going for longer than I should - hence the 'too much'. Over and above how well they work, we have a secret ingredient in my life and that secret ingredient is called perseverance.

So, just recently I have started mentally cataloging my days into 2 types:

1. Those where I get out of bed and take painkillers - which I am calling 'perseverance over painkillers', and

2. Those where I take painkillers to get out of bed - which I'm calling 'painkillers over perseverance'.

When I put it down on paper like that, it doesn't look so hot, does it? And when I think about it, I am sure there must be some kind of solution to this problem...Don't you think?...

...Aha! I've got it! Of course! Stop doing so much!.....surely that would do it..... .

 

25,000 Hits!

I have now been keeping a blog for just over 6 years. What started out as a way to inform other scoliotic people that it was ok and normal to be confused and upset and painful to live in a twisted body has turned into so much more. It is a window to the world and mostly I keep the curtains only open a crack, as I'm actually quite a private person - believe it or not!
Anyway, I know I now have 21 followers - special "Hi!" to you all and thanks for following...but I was astonished when I last checked my hit counter and released that I have now had over 25,000 hits on my blog. I can't believe it - 25,000 times someone has opened the page and read something I've written. Well, maybe they haven't all read something come to think of it. There must be a proportion who open it up looking for warped personalities and realise its not what they're looking for and equally another set of people who suddenly realise that warped woman is not related to Star Trek and warp factor^*1 anything. There will be others too who open it up and go "Eek! Purple!" before swiftly clicking onwards. Some more are probably from Outer Mongolia and have probably clicked the 'next blog' button and are wondering what all this stuff in a foreign language with no pictures is all about... The rest though, well, that's you....so.....thank you! I hope I can entertain you to the 50,000 mark sometime in the next few years...
^*1 Ha ha - bet you Trekkies didn't expect me when you started looking for Captain Picard on Google!

 

 

Gosh, blogger how much do I love you....

I've been with Blogger quite a long time now, in fact I think it's a very long time, when I come to think of it, in computer lifetimes anyway. You all know what computer lifetimes are - they are those short snips of time where the hardware you bought 3 weeks ago, whether it's a computer, camera, phone or fridge, is suddenly way out of date and you just must have the latest thing now!^*1 

I own up to it, I'm actually a bit of a shocker when it comes to all the new stuff too - I'm not exactly what you'd call a geek, and I'm not rich enough to be an early adopter, but I love all that technology stuff. I do admit to having bought an iPad (on which I am typing at right this moment) on the day that they were released, but to be fair, I had been saving for months to do so. It took me a massive Ebay offload - selling clothes, old equipment and various other stuff (I was restrained from actually putting up a post to sell my mother!) to raise the funds but I love it. I guess I use it every day - and not just as a tea tray...and buying it on release day, was just luck that the shop I went in to had it in stock. 

 Getting back to Blogger, as someone who's used it for years, I rarely even look at my design page any longer. I have a design, I like it, why would I change it? It was a bit of a shock to me then recently when I was digging around thinking I needed to do something complicated and found that Blogger had made it easy. I'm not even sure what it was any more - it was that easy; I didn't have to scrape the bottom of the Internet for a solution - not like the olden days... Back in the (good?) old days, changing something on the design of your page involved 3 weeks head scratching and lots of lateral thinking in your choice of words for Google searches. No wonder that almost everyone used one of 3 or 4 basic templates which were fixed in style and colour. I was a renegade, using a template I had snaffled from somewhere and then had monkeyed around with, by learning teeny tiny bits of HTML (mostly from PTV) and then uploading them just to see what the effect would be. Sometimes I'd end up with the background in front of the text (not very readable) and other times with borders so wide that they'd cover the whole page - sometimes it just crashed and I couldn't figure out why. Easy it wasn't, but I certainly learnt a lot. 

 I like to write too, I use writing to get my thoughts in order and I love to tell stories. Blogger is just great for that - and even though many of my posts are quite long, it's not really like trying to get a book (or series of books - M!) out there - hats off to those who do, but blogging is just a bit more bite sized for me. Over the years as well, knowing I have some regular readers, I feel a connection to those people - in some cases, even though I've never met them. I have shared my surgery and struggles and my hysterical moments too (both good and bad). Blogger does all that for me...So, in a nutshell, I love blogger - not just because I have an outlet for my writing, have met new friends (hi WCD!) and can relay all my friends' funny stories to a wider audience for them, but because it made me learn stuff. It forced me (by being so awkward) to learn enough HTML that I'm writing this with HTML tags (because it's quicker in the package I'm using) and enough that I'm happy getting my hands dirty with website design. 

Now, back to all that stuff being easier...had it been so when I started, I wouldn't know as much as I do....I shall leave it up to you to decide whether that's a good thing or not - cos I can't decide! 

^*1Well, maybe not the fridge, but you get my drift!

2012 ....already???

I just realised that I didn't send you all a happy Christmas message for 2011 yet and it's 2012 already! How remiss is that? In fact, there's not been a huge amount of blogging at all going on lately, but that's partly due to a bit of winding down at the end of the year and partly the fact that the year really was a difficult one for us.

They say that things happen in threes (I'm not sure who 'they' are!) and thinking back, that was the story of our 2011. Early in the year we lost my MIL. It was a real shock at the time, as even though she had breast cancer, it wasn't aggressive and she actually succumbed to pneumonia which caught hold within a couple of days. We then had another shock in April, when my BIL found my FIL collapsed from a stroke. He was severely affected and was in hospital from April all the way through to the end of September, never really managing to improve too much and often not knowing where he was, or who we were. In the end, he was transferred to a nursing home and passed away from a chest infection in November. In the middle of the year, hubby injured his leg. He had an infection, a haematoma, a pair of crutches and a pair of walking sticks (stolen from me and lengthened somewhat) and this resulted in twice weekly hospital visits for dressings right the way through the autumn and up to Christmas. This morning, finally, the last scab came off and for the first time in months, he is dressing free and looking forward to a bath. I'm not suggesting he hasn't at least had a shower in the intervening time, (seriously, he doesn't pong!) but he hasn't been able to have a good soak for months. The year was fraught with other small things too, I had a shoulder problem and my brother was trying to sell his house in a rotten housing market....all in all, sounds like a rough year, doesn't it?

But, to be perfectly honest with you all, the year had its high points too and mostly the people that I love were happy and healthy. There are always tough things in our lives and then there are the high points that go along with them. We had a great trip away with PTV & HLW and I went away with a bunch of really successful friends in the summer which was memorable. I made new friends and rediscovered old ones and my brother moved into his new house in the street behind mine, so I can see him often.^*1 I even managed to get Christmas organised - albeit right at the last minute!

So, now we are looking forward to 2012. It's going to be a great year, I can just feel it. I can see some amazing stuff heading our way. In Britain this year, we have the Olympic and Paralympic Games being held in London and all in a year when the Queen celebrates her Diamond Jubilee. Big things like that will touch us all in some way and I am looking forward to it all. I hope that you too are also looking forward to 2012 with hope, optimism and desire and that all your dreams come true this year. 

Here's to a happy, healthy and successful year to you all!

*1 - He didn't buy the house just because I lived nearby ;-)

Different cultures different ideas?

As you may have gathered if you've read my recent posts, in the kindness of strangers part 2, I fell out my chair. Now, I know that you non chair users are all shocked and the chair users are sitting there snickering a bit in a 'been there done that' kind of way, but the truth is I wasn't hurt. Actually (in an attempt to gain some sympathy), I did end up with a bruise on my arm (from where it hit the wall) and my back was very sore the next few days. Now, before you panic, I need to be truthful here - none of that is so out of the ordinary for me, since if I'm not falling out my chair I'm simply falling over on a regular basis...

Anyway, hubby resisted the temptation to laugh or take pictures of my upside down chair and me acting like a beetle on my back and grabbed the chair to right it as I sat up and leant against the wall. I assessed my body - was did anything hurt (more than normal), was I concussed, bleeding or shocked? My arm seemed a bit scraped from the wall, which was by then acting as my friendly support and a man rushed over to help. He stood and looked at me - I smiled back, which I guess reassured him a bit and then he looked on as I fussed with the chair (putting brakes on etc) ready to get it. Did he interfere? No. What he actually did was say to me "Do you need help getting in? Do you need me to lift you?" I said I was fine, but he stayed close by until I transferred into the chair at which point I thanked him and he headed off to the bar.

It was an odd experience for me - the perfect offer of help and it got me wondering about stuff - a practice that I am sure I am quite famous for, by now!

The thing is, this friendly helpful chap, wasn't British and my experience of this kind of thing while on home soil usually results in one of two things:

1. People completely ignore you, making sure they are looking the other way and 'didn't see anything (guv!)'.

2. People rush to help, grabbing you by the arm (please don't restrict the bits of me that actually work fine - thank you!) and ignoring all protestations of "I'm ok, please let me do it on my own!".

So, the question is, why the difference? Is there better disability awareness in other countries? Do other countries have better manners? In fact, this guy was German and they aren't widely renowned for their good manners are they? (Although I base this observation purely on the fact that they are famous for putting towels on sun beds early in the morning ^*1 and don't wish to offend any German readers at all) Do they have more respect for the elderly (and possibly infirm)? I just don't know, I simply don't know the answers to any of these questions. Let's face it, if I did I wouldn't be wondering about it either...

The strange thing is that it extended further than the German guy. I was wheeling down beside the pool and as I approached a gap between the flower bed and a sunbed, the (Russian?) lady indicated 'was the gap wide enough?'

In Britain, I am more used to:

1. People completely ignore you, making sure they are looking the other way and 'didn't see anything (guv!)'. Or

2. People leap to their feet, moving their sunbed, their partner's sunbed and anything else within a ten foot radius ignoring all protestations of "Its ok there's plenty of space"

These are just two examples, but I could give you many more. They all make me wonder why things are the way they are. I actually think with Brits, that those who ignore you mostly do it because they don't quite know what to do. They don't want to appear patronising, and so they do nothing so as to allow you to be independent. Other people go to the opposite extreme - they are desperate to help, but don't know how much (or how little) to give and so go over the top. In all cases, I think that people are basically kind and helpful. But then...the big question is, just why are people from the continent so different? Any ideas anyone?

^*1 which may in fact be just due to the fact that they get up early in the morning maybe?

A life well lived.

I know that many of you are aware that my FIL had a stroke on Good Friday and I now have to report that he passed away. In the end, he caught yet another chest infection and just wasn't strong enough to fight this one off. We will miss him very much, but in some ways we all know just how much of a release this is for him as everything has been a struggle for him since Easter. In the end, as he needed continuing full nursing care, we found a really nice home for him and they gave him a lot of love, care and attention over the last few weeks of his life.

I was wondering just yesterday, just what an impact my FIL had on my life and the lives of the people around him and thought I'd tell you a little bit about the man behind the acronym. 

My FIL was a small man, who probably only ever lied about one thing in his whole life - when he claimed that he was a whole 5ft 1.5" tall on applying to the army! He was very proud of his time in the army but apart from that, never really strayed too far from home - he never owned a car and spent all the time he could with his wife...who he adored. I sometimes think he never really got over her death in January and that's so sad to relate. His stroke took so much from him; so many times when we visited he wasn't with it at all, but through it all, he remained remarkably cheerful. From the time he saw the wild dogs running around the ward(!) to the time he was off out to get the car (when he couldn't drive) and all the other strange places that his confusion took him, he chuckled his way through most of it.  In fact, all the time I've known him, if you asked me to name one thing that was the essence of him, I'd say it was his little chuckle. He'd be telling us about a TV programme and he'd give that little chuckle as something had amused him - he saw humour in many things - and that's not a bad way to be.

So, short in stature he may have been, but that didn't stop him being a loving father and the most devoted husband you could imagine. Like my MIL, he was just a really nice person and I don't think I ever met anyone who didn't like him. That's not a bad epitaph, is it...just being universally liked? Do you know, I think most people would be happy with that.

Donald 

20/12/27 - 16/11/11

Aaargh, aargh....and balm to the soul.

I've been quiet, I know, but just for once, it isn't my problem!

I'm not sure how many of you are aware, but I have an iPad and I do most of my blogging on that. I have small hands and the virtual keyboard just seems to fit me perfectly. I love the way that I can balance it on my lap, or sit almost anywhere and just write as the mood takes me.

For some time now, I have been using an app called Blogpress, not only to write with, but also to save drafts locally and then upload whenever I am happy with them (and have a wifi connection!). So, all was well in wwland and a little while ago, I had really busy time, with ideas flowing out of me and onto the screen. I am what I like to think of as a 'bash it out' writer. I write as I think as I speak...minus little things like spelling and sentence construction. I then (once I've got the initial stuff out my system) go through it, correcting it, removing people's names and adding in links etc. it's the way I like to work. Back to the busy time....

You see, there I was, creative juices flowing and away from wifi and I wrote half a dozen entries. Came home, backed up my lovely device and then discovered ios5, the new operating system was out. I installed it - the installation went perfectly and I was happy until I tried to open Blogpress. Aaargh (number 1) - it did nothing but crash and I couldn't get to my entries at all. I checked the developer's website, no mention of crashing. Checked other people online (don't you just love Google!) and found it was a common issue. Emailed the developers...no reply. Emailed the developers again....no reply....and the same response a third time too. Bad, bad support....hmmm, sorry, I meant no, no support, didn't I?^*1

Never mind I thought....I can at least work online directly through Blogger and write a new entry, just to let you know what's going on. So I did....I wrote, then I hit publish....and then got a snotty message saying they couldn't publish my work. And then...Aaaaargh (number 2).....they lost my work!

Last night, after no joy with Blogpress and the iPad problem with Blogger, I decided to download Blogsy. It won't get me my written entries back (maybe one day the upgrade will come^*1) but at least I can get blogging again. Nice app this Blogsy...and it means i can bash out all those thoughts, feelings and wonderings. As I said, balm to the soul!

^*1 The app store states that they have submitted an upgrade for ios5, but there's no sign of it yet.

The kindness of strangers (part 2)

Its funny, but when a day dawns bright and sunny I always find I am full of optimism again - regardless of how many steps there are where I am staying! As long as I can get down them and have good coffee inside me, I am ready to face the world. There was only one problem that day and that was that we needed to collect some towels from the hotel next door. Hmm....remember the ramp? The one I need a hero for? Well, if I went next door to get towels, then I wouldn't be able to get back up the ramp, so hubby needed to go with me. Poor thing, with his poorly leg too...but it had to be done. It was on our way to reception of that hotel, that we discovered another (steep) up-ramp and I was determined to have a go at getting up it on my own - after all, I'm a big, strong independent girl, aren't I?

I must admit, I managed to give it a good go, if I say so myself, but a good go is sometimes not enough and about half way up I suddenly felt like I'd hit a brick wall. I know when to admit defeat (yes, I do, so stop sniggering!) and so I gripped the wheels lightly to lower myself back down the slope. I guess I gripped a bit too hard and misjudged it completely and so I found myself flipping over backwards - and landed on my back, legs in the air, showing my knickers off to the world! Hubby stood back and waited, only getting hold of the chair to stop it flying off in to the swimming pool. He knows I need a few moments to compose myself and do my own diagnostic check of my body to see what I've done now. Turns out I hit my arm on the wall on the way down, but little else - and I couldn't complain about my bruise after looking at the state of hubbys leg!

I was almost rescued anyway by some nice German man too, who offered to get me up - and who was really nice about it. Of course, I was too stubborn to take up the offer and climbed back into the chair on my own. Towels had to wait until I could a) swallow my pride and get a push, or b) find another route!

Who ever would think that just getting a few towels could be so complicated? In the absence of any other comment, I have decided to mark the occasion in points out of 10:
Accessibility 5/10 (for at least installing a ramp)
Slope angle 1/10 (since I could get halfway)
Legs in air photo opportunity 8/10 (my legs aren't that good!)
Bruise quotient 5/10 (definitely had more spectacular)
Towel colour 6/10 (orange, JIC you care!)
So...all in all, could do better...

The kindness of strangers (part 1)

So, we decided to go on holiday - we needed a relaxing break after a long summer (you only have to read my last entry to know what sort of a summer it's been & we thought we were due a break). Those people who know me well (and many who don't know me that well), know that I am an organiser and a planner and so, before booking anything I checked all the facilities of the hotel online - especially those relating to accessibility. I emailed head office, I emailed the disabled help department and I emailed the resort as well as phoning the specialist helpline to let them know I was a wheelchair user before we travelled. I checked Thompson's website (oops, did I name and shame?) and I did everything within my power to make sure that we were going to have the most chilled and relaxing holiday ever, with nothing left to chance.

A week before we were due to go, the unexpected happened (I guess thats what makes it unexpected - you don't often say the expected happened, do you?) and hubby had an accident where a huge lump of timber fell on his leg. At the time, the emergency department were amazed it wasn't broken - it was that bad (I can post pictures if you like really gory stuff) and we were immediately worrying about whether to cancel the holiday or not. Well, over the next few days the leg improved a bit and so we decided we wouldn't cancel, but hubby (abandoning the crutches issued by the hospital) still needed to use a walking stick. He was (kind of) ok, but as my normal helper, was suddenly unable to help much, which was a bit of a blow.

We arrived at the hotel at stupid o'clock in the morning and discovered a ramp up to the front door. Now, this ramp, was some ramp - it looked like at least 45 degrees so I manned (womanned?) up and took a run at it. I got...um...about two thirds of the way up; ran out of steam and found myself travelling backwards at an increasing rate of knots, desperately hoping I wouldn't trash whoever was coming up the slope behind me! Hubby was struggling with a stick and 2 cases and couldn't help and so some hero just dropped his bags and ran to push me up the ramp...and the next ramp ....and the next ramp. To be truthful I probably could have managed the last one, but it was late, I was tired and he was doing a great job ;-)
Anyway, we got to our rooms (my hero went off with his wife!) and we crashed out...exhausted.

The next day hubby's leg was worse - (not good news!) and so I headed out on my own to a welcome meeting. I should have known it was a bad omen when it was up some steps, but in the little optimistic world that I live in, I just managed, with some help to get my chair up to the top, and then on the way out, just chucked my chair down the steps and climbed back in at the bottom (to be fair, a nice lady did stop it from rolling clean across the lobby...). After all, these things happen...

Back to the room, collected hubby and went to find the dining room. Guess what? It was down steps (lots of them!) - ok, so out of chair, random man carries chair down (hubby just struggling to get down on his own with his stick), get back into chair and have lunch. Decided to go to the pool. Guess what? Pool is up steps (only a few) - so, abandon pool idea, decide to go to bar instead but guess what? Yep, you got it, the bar is up steps (different ones)! Anyway, hubby struggles to the bar (probably feeling that alcohol will anaesthetise the leg a little) and gets a couple of beers - for a while, life is good. I then decide that the toilet might be an idea, but guess what? Yep, you guessed it again. The toilet is downstairs!

To be fair, I did talk to a lady who said that if I headed down past the pool and around the road (there was no drop curb to get onto the road and no footpath), that I could actually avoid most of the steps - but - remember that ramp at the front door?, well, the road took you round to that....and there's not always a hero around when you want one!

Two things came out of this start to my holiday. One was that Thompson have a load of lessons to learn about how they market their hotels (I don't expect everywhere to be accessible, but I do expect the disabled helpline to tell me if they aren't) and the other is that people generally are wonderful and helpful. From the hero who pushed me up the ramps, to the lady who caught my chair flying across the lobby and the men who carried my chair up and down steps all over the hotel - they were all fab! I just hope they come across my blog and realise I am talking about them. If you have - this is a very heartfelt thank you!

FIL

I know, I know, I've been very lax lately - no funny stories, no disability rants, no wondering of any kind. I'm guessing that my followers out there in blogland are wondering things about this on my behalf, assuming of course that a) I still have any followers and b) that they are wondering about me at all.

The thing is, I have an excuse and it's something to do with what seems to have been a long summer for our family. Way back just before Easter, my FIL had a stroke. It was a bit of a shock (to say the least), as my MIL only passed away in January and we hadn't really finished getting over that. It was especially tough on my BIL as he lived in the same house as them both and suddenly found himself in the house on his own, dealing with all the paperwork, laundry and such silly things as putting the bins out on time. For us, when it happened, it was deeply unsettling and worrying, but we really didn't know what was to come or really even what had happened.

My FIL is pretty tough; a few years ago, he was rushed in to hospital with heart problems and before we knew it was having a triple heart bypass. The surgery went well, but immediately after being transferred back to the ward, he stopped breathing and ended up being ventilated for some weeks. All in all, with the visit to intensive care, high dependency, an internal bleed in his stomach and exploratory surgery and a dose of C-difficile, he was in hospital for months. It was tough, but he battled though it all and entertained us frequently with all his stories of heroic derring do (of the things he had hallucinated whilst under the influence of morphine after the op), where most often, he was a fireman rescuing children from burning buildings!

I think, after all that, that we almost expected him to pull some miraculous recovery out of the bag after his stroke. To start with, it didn't look likely - he was paralysed all down one side, and could only say yes or no (and even then not in the right places!), but his speech recovered quite quickly and he started to get the use back in his right arm. Physically things have improved, but the type of stroke that he had means that some of his brain tissue has died and even though brains are very clever and can rewrite pathways, sometimes they can't and he's pretty confused much of the time. Mostly he displays all of the symptoms of vascular dementia which is very sad for everyone. It's sad for him, it's sad for his friends and family and the people that visit, to see a man who has lost such grasp on his life.

So, here we are, many months on and now it is clear that my FIL won't be returning home. We are currently trying to find him somewhere nice to live where he can be looked after in a way that any of us would be unable to do.

Forgive me then if blogging is a bit sporadic...

Are there voices in my head?

I turned up the other day to a small gaggle of people, all egging on CUB^*1...."Go on", they urged, "Tell her....tell her about the voices...." - and so she did. This is her story...

It was a Wednesday night like any other, apart from the fact that CUB was away with her team and was in a hotel. She was sharing a room with WMW^*2 and they were both in bed, having turned the lights off and were warm and cozy and just dropping off to sleep. CUB was tired and sleepy and just dozing off when she heard a rustling sound from somewhere in the room. Puzzled and half asleep, she lifted her head off the pillow and thought she heard a whisper - a whisper that sounded like someone was softly calling her name. She turned to WMW, who seemed oblivious to the noise and so she thought maybe she'd imagined it - she was after all, half asleep and so she started to settle back into bed.

It was then, that she heard her name again...a bit louder this time. She sat up wildly and put the light on. Now she really was freaked. She started throwing questions at WMW - had she heard it?...where was it coming from?...OMG...OMG. She heard her name again and was now pretty frightened. She got up...where was the noise coming from? She made WMW check the phone and she rushed over to the dressing table where she thought the noise was coming from. It seemed to be coming from her glasses case, so she picked it up and looked inside. In her sleepy and befuddled state, logic had completely deserted her...and still, she could hear her voice being called...

It was at that point that she spotted a small hole in the wall and scrambled over to it. The voice changed and suddenly told her to look at the wall and then she really panicked. She thought of peeping Toms, she thought of how she was wearing Disney pyjamas and how she looked without makeup and what had she been wearing when she came out of the shower. She was so frantic that WMW started to get really worried...........and cracked! She wandered over to CUB's bed, lifted the end, and retrieved the walkie talkie that had been hidden there!

Well, CUB was furious and screamed down the walkie talkie - "I'm gonna kill you!!!!!" - without even knowing who was on the other end....all she heard was Click! as the person the other end rapidly flicked the off switch!

Well, who was the culprit? In the end it turned out to be none other than the BMB and our new MIC^*3 and WMW had been in on it, having been the one who hid the walkie talkie. How she kept a straight face I will never know!

I am just hoping now that this isn't some kind of new hazing ritual - one where we will all be subjected to something similar in time. I must admit though that I will be checking under my bed for a bit...and I bet CUB will too...!

^*1 CUB stands for completely utterly bonkers...which she is!
^*2 WMW - Warped man's wife. WM has his own blog.
^*3 MIC - Our new Man in Charge

Priceless? No, not really...

A while ago (a long while ago now, but it's been a long summer^*1), we went away with PTV and HLW. It's not the first time we've been away together and I hope it's not the last, because I, for one, had a lovely time, but it's the longest we've been away together. You always do that thing, don't you, where you'll be away for a bit, where you hope it all works out and that you're not at each others throats within three days, but I needn't have worried at all as it turned out. One of the worries with other people is that you won't agree on what to do or what to visit, what to eat or even where to eat and even in this we didn't fall out, even when we fancied a drink stop and HLW picked the closest cafe.

Now, we should have guessed it was expensive from the people we saw exiting, as we stood in line waiting to be seated (by a man in a full suit with bow tie). On his way out was Michael Keaton (at least it looked like him, but in Vegas, who can tell...!), and several very rich looking people accompanied by burly men wearing sunglasses indoors and with suspicious bulges under their armpits, where they might be carrying a perfectly legal, concealed weapon. Of course, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but it was beautifully decorated, real birds were swooping around the open windows and it all looked very swank to me...

Eventually, we were seated and looked at the menu. There was a sharp intake of breath as both hubby and PTV looked at the prices and did their best impression of a car mechanic/ electrician/ plumber/ builder before submitting their best estimates for work. HLW and I were captivated by the description of the cakes...a Tuile with strawberry, with ganache and fine patisserie and all sorts of other things which sounded exquisite...with or without ice cream.

I only wanted coffee, but hubby pointed out that coffee at $15 a cup and cocktails at $20 a glass almost cost the same and so, that was how we found ourselves drinking cocktails at 11 o'clock in the morning. The thing is, even though we didn't go in wanting cake, there were all the wonderful descriptions and so we decided to share 2 cakes between us - partly because we only wanted a taste and partly because they were stupidly expensive.

We went for one chocolate option and one strawberry option. PTV and I had the latter and it seems a light sponge with a soft mouse of strawberry topped with real cream ice cream and a spun sugar birds nest (complete with lots of French words I can't remember) looks very posh. The thing is, it was early and we were drinking cocktails - you just knew things were going to get silly and predictably it was PTV who started it. The thing is, our birds nest of sugar was spiky in a prickly way - the kind of prickly way that loft insulation is prickly and some conversation ensued about why there was such a need for such a spiky topping. In the end, I think we decided that it was protection for the cakes from the birds that were flying around and ended up laughing so much that the rest of the very posh clientele all turned around and looked at us.

So, is this story so funny that I had to tell you? No, not really, as it was actually one of those things where you had to be there. Was the expensive cocktail and cake worth it? Well, maybe not in themselves, but for the memories they provided, they were worth every penny and more besides. I guess sometimes it proves that if you do something unexpected, the rewards are unexpected too!


^*1 For reasons that I will tell you about at some time...I promise!

Clever car...?

A few years back we went to Arizona and were heading out for the day. There were a few of us and we all piled into an MPV which had been hired for the purpose. As happens so often when anyone is going out, there was the inevitable load of questions before we could go. These questions seem to vary depending on whether you are on holiday or at home, but there's always some mix of the following:

Home (on leaving)
~~Have you turned the gas off?
~~Have you locked the door?^*1
~~Have you got your keys/ glasses/ walking stick/ teeth/ coat/ umbrella/ insert as appropriate?
Home (on leaving with children)
~~Have you been to the toilet?
~~Have you got your mobile/ iPod/ DS/ PSP?
(If visiting grandma)
~~Have you combed your hair?
~~Are you wearing the jumper you were given for Christmas?
(If going on a date)
~~Have you brushed your teeth?
~~Have you got 'something for the weekend?'
(On holiday)
~~Have you got your camera?
~~Did you shut the room door?
~~Have you got/ handed in the keycard?
~~Have you got the map?

Well, you get the picture...

...so we fired all these questions at the driver (as well of asking, of course, "Are we were there yet?"!). Something tweaked a nerve and the driver felt compelled to go back in to check and left us all in the vehicle. You know how it is...we were in a foreign country, in a new hire car we hadn't seen before with all sorts of interesting knobs and buttons that we didn't know the function of. We were bored, waiting for the driver, and since they'd taken the keys (no doubt suspecting that we might go careering round the car park on two wheels) we pressed all the buttons, trying to see what would work without keys.

Well, we were in luck, we found the radio and we thought it was pretty cool that under the radio was a little display that seemed to give you information about the car. "Open Door" it said - so we did. We then shut the door only to see that the display read the same. We tugged on all the doors - they all seemed to be shut. We opened them all and then shut them all again - it said the same! We got out and checked the boot (trunk), got back in, opened all the doors, shut all the doors, opened each door in turn, shut each one; opened them and slammed them really really hard - the display didn't change and we figured that we had somehow managed (in all the button pressing) to have broken the vehicle (or the doors at least). We started to panic since our driver was going to get back any minute and we thought we'd be in trouble...what to do....what to do?

It was at this point, that the next record was played on the radio and suddenly the offending display changed - it now read "She Loves You" and we realised that this was some new fangled radio that none of us had seen before - one that cleverly tells you what track is playing! Doh!

Well, in our defence, none of us had ever heard of Open Door - what would you have done?!

^*1 I once failed to ask hubby this, only to find out when we returned (6 hours later) that the front door was wide open and had been all day!!