10 May 2011

The morning run went smoothly enough just with Becky and ‘my lovely’ helping where necessary. I hope it shortly gets to the point where they do not have to rely on Alice at all as the idea is to give her a break. Unfortunately, the Continuing Care still has yet to be approved and, indeed, Mel, the physiotherapist, rang up this morning to say that she has to do a further mobility assessment which she will be put before the continuing care committee on Thursday. I must say I am a little alarmed at this, as I thought the whole business was cut and dried. Had do we known that it was going to take so long I think we would have settled on just having someone coming in morning noon and night to assist Alice to get me up onto my frame and managed the rest ourselves for the time being.

The repair man for my electric chair came this morning to confirm that the battery charger was not working properly and so he installed a new one. Hopefully within eight hours the chair will be up and running for me to use.

Today the Arbitration Club held its AGM at Herbert Smith’s officers, in Primrose Street just behind Liverpool Street station. I decided that I would not attempt to attend in person but instead tried to join in the meeting via a laptop using Skype. It worked, after a fashion. We can see each other and I believe they could hear me quite clearly. From my end I could hear most of what the chairman said that many of the other members of the committee were indistinct, mainly, I believe, because the microphone being used was a directional one and they were all sitting around the table at different positions to that. Anyway, I think we can count it as a success.

Last evening the good Dr Michael Skyped me from his Swedish home in Loa. It was lovely to see him on my laptop, particularly as he was sitting in what was my bedroom/study when I last stayed with him. Sweden is particularly beautiful at this time of year and no more so than where he lives overlooking a beautiful lake surrounded by tall pine forests.

Harriet came with Sam for the early morning shower and dressing, by which time I had already had my breakfast, cleaned my teeth and been shaved by ‘my lovely’. We are already beginning to fall into some sort of routine.

Mid-morning Kay and Tony Dunn dropped into a coffee. (They very kindly brought me a punnet of delicious English strawberries). For many years, Kay lived in an adjacent village, Berden, in The Old Kings Head, with her previous husband, who sadly died. Her two boys, Tom and Mark, were friends of my son Smiler when they were in their teens. Now they are both married with children of their own and we still have the pleasure of seeing them and their new families here from time to time. Just after Kay and Tony left, Barbara, from Ross Nursing, popped in to give me my lunchtime walk. Then, ‘Jane the sheep’ came to babysit me. after massaging the fluid from my hands stretching my arms, staying for a couple of hours to allow Alice to go shopping

The evening walk was supervised by Harriet and yet another nice young carer, Becky, who saw me to the point of sitting on my bed after which Harriet left and Becky did the necessary to get me into bed. Literally, the only drawback to the whole performance each day is that they put me me into bed at 9.30 which is just half an hour earlier than I would wish to go, particularly if I’m watching a programme on television which goes on until 10 o’clock. It may be later on that we will change to 9 o’clock and I will watch something on my laptop for an hour before I go to sleep. I assume this will be the procedure for as long as I am able to shuffle through on my frame after which they will no doubt hoist me from my study chair into wheelchair and take me through that way.

For those readers who are not particularly interested in the minutiae of the medical details I apologise about these last few days of boring entries but as the initial objective of this blog was to assist people in a similar position to myself, I just want those fellow sufferers to understand how we are managing and, who knows, some of our ideas may be useful to them. I must say the latest aid which we have found most useful are the feet straps which lift up my toes so they do not drag on the ground when I walk. What is so good about them is that once I’m sitting down they can be unclipped but left in place and then re-clipped when I need to walk again.

The other apology I need to make concerns the lack of the pictures of the elephants that I referred to in my entry yesterday. I really don’t understand it, as they appear in the initial hardcopy before I cut and pasted it into the blog and then they become little boxes with red crosses in them. Never fear, I will sort this out, the elephants will be there shortly.

Now for something entirely different and inspirational. I think that I included this video of this extraordinary young man some long time ago but it certainly bears seeing again. It has been described as awesome and that is no exaggeration. Some of us wonder what is the best computer is in the world – undoubtedly it has to be the Human Brain.

Stephen Wiltshire of London, England is truly amazing and unbelievable

·       Click on this link
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2MBBxU .