Category: Uncategorized

Happy New Year

I just wanted to wish you all a very happy New Year. I hope that you all achieve the things that you set out to achieve, and have one that is full of happiness and joy.

The other day I wrote a post talking about how I was still trying to decide if I should make any New Year’s resolutions for 2014. I haven’t done them for a while, but this year I’m going to try again with them. Here is my list

  • Comment on more blogs – I love reading other people’s blogs but I don’t always leave comments on them as often as I should, so from now on I’m going to try and do more of that.
  • Get better at trying to cook for myself – On this blog I talk a lot about how I don’t always find it easy to cook because my Cerebal Palsy means I struggle to do things like lift pans and chop vegetables. I’ve improved loads on this over the last couple of years, but I want to try and do better. I’m not really sure what form this will take yet. This could mean that I end up making my own food more often, or that I learn how to prepare new things in a way that is safe and easy for me, who knows?
  • Read 50 books – Okay, so I know that this one isn’t really relevent to what I blog about, so I probably won’t mention it all that often, but I would like to try and read 50 books this year. A few years ago, I used to read loads, (and would even wake up early before school to do so), but when I went away to university I didn’t really do much reading at all, and still don’t seem to do as muvh as I would like. So this year, I thought I’d set myself a challenge and see how I get on.

 

The post Christmas post

I was very lucky because I had a really nice Christmas. I really enjoyed getting to spend time with my family and friends. There was lots of quality time spent together, lots of good food eaten, and lots of good films watched. I am grateful for all of these things.

As usual, my family and friends were also very kind to me, and gave me lots of lovely gifts that I can enjoy. Some of them could prove very useful to me in helping me stay warm, manage aches and pains, and maybe help me to be more independent too. These included a foot massager, a mini massager type thing that I could use on my legs or shoulders when they get stiff or achy, and a microwave oven that might help me become more independent in the kitchen. I’m very excited about that especially. I’d love to be able to cook more, but I think a lot of you know that by now.

Of course, there were also lots of nice warm socks and big thick jumpers to wear over pyjamas that would help me keep warm.

I’ll blog about all of these things as I use them and let you know how useful I find them all.

Now, at this time of year, I start to look at the 12 months ahead and what I can do to try and make myself a better person during that time. For the last couple of years, I haven’t actually bothered making any New Year’s resolutions because I haven’t been great at keeping them, but I think I might try again this time around. I’m still having a think about what these might be, but I guess I’d better hurry up and decide.

It’s also my birthday later on this week, and then the day after that I’m off to physio for a review on how my new splints are working out for me. It’s going to be another busy week here, but I like being busy.

I hope you all have a great New Year’s Eve tomorrow, and a very happy new year. I’ll let you know if I decide to make any resolutions or not.

Socks, socks and more socks

Whenever someone is stuck for ideas of what to buy someone for a gift, there always seems to be a joke that you’ll get them socks. I don’t know where it came from but I actually quite like getting new ones. For lots of reasons.

As I’m pretty sure many of you know by now I have really cold feet most of the time, so I’ll sometimes been seen wondering around in multiple pairs, even in warmer months so I like to keep lots of them on standby. I seem to have developed quite a big collection of Christmas slipper socks too. Even though I know I probably shouldn’t I wear them all year round to help me stay warm.

Another reason that I like getting socks is that I have a habit of putting holes in them. Partly I think because I find them quite hard to get on in a morning, so my toes end up where they end up, which isn’t always in the part of the sock that’s meant for your toes, so I end up putting a hole through the material because it’s stretched in the wrong place.

Sometimes, when I’m walking my sock will start coming off my foot, and then it will get a hole in it because it ends up trailing on the floor until I can get to somewhere to sit and sort it out. Most of the time I’ll wonder round in a pair that don’t match because I refuse to throw away the one that I haven’t damaged yet because I know that will happen to it soon enough and there’s no point letting it go to waste. .That said, even though I probably have more odd socks than I do pairs, my collection go so large at one point that my drawer would no longer close and I had to start keeping them in seperate bags.

New Splints update

My new splints
My new splints

So, I’ve worn my new splints a few times now, and the right one feels quite comfortable, which is good.

The left one isn’t quite as comfy.

It just feels too tight on the sides and underneath parts of my feet and it leaves red marks when I’ve been walking on it around the house. It’s not as easy to get my foot into either. I’ve managed to avoid any blisters so far though, which is a bonus. These things just happen sometimes, it’s not anybody’s fault but hopefully it will be easy to fix.

I’ve spoken to the hospital and they’ve said that I can go back in and they’ll try and heat it up a little so they can try and make it a little less snug for me, which should help.

I’ll let you know how this all goes.

My new splints

My new splints
My new splints

My serial casting pots got taken off yesterday which I was very happy about, and my new day time splints (also called AFOs) have also arrived.

I had the pots taken off yesterday morning and then went straight round to the department that deals with the splints to get them fitted.

It looks like the serial casting has helped to make my ankles less tight, which is what we wanted. I’m not entirely sure how much difference it has made, but I have an appointment with the physio in a couple of weeks so she’ll be able to give me a better idea.

When I first came out of the casts my ankles ached for quite a while afterwards but my mum and I did a bit of stretching and that has passed now, which is really quite nice.

The thing that took me by surprise the most was how strange I found it when I first put my new splints on yesterday. I had them for most of my childhood but stopped wearing them about a year ago when it was decided that we would try to see how well callipers worked for me.

Although I’m sure they work well for a lot of people, this wasn’t the case for me because I had a lot of problems with blistering. This is why we made the choice to give splints another go after we had relieved some of the tightness in my ankles by doing the serial casting.

I kind of thought that because I’d worn splints for so long before that it wouldn’t really feel odd to me, but it did. Now I just have to go through the process of bedding them in slowly a couple of hours at time until I get used to it again, which could take a while.

As I’m only on day two of the process, I’ll update you all about it a bit later on when I’ve got a bit more to say about it.

They fit inside a pair shoes that you can buy in the shops too although I have to buy them a size bigger than I would normally take without them and make sure that I get a pair that is wide enough to accommodate them.

I guess it’s time that I dug out my old collection of over-the-knee socks that I used to wear with my old ones. I find that helps to make them more comfy because it stops them sticking to the back of my legs.

I’ll let you all know how I get on.