Tag: Cerebral Palsy

My London adventure

Hey guys,

Sorry things have been a bit quiet around here lately, but there’s a reason for it.

I spent most of last week on holiday in London. It was the first time I’ve been there and I’ll admit that I was really nervous about going because of the size of the place and how busy I thought it would be.

Thankfully, I went with some members of my family who go to London quite a lot so they know their way around fairly well. They’ve been trying to get me to go with them for a good couple of years now and I’ve always refused out of fear of the unknown, but I finally decided that it was time to face my fear and go experience the city first-hand.

I have to say that I’m very glad I did. I took my wheelchair with me rather than my walking frame Martha so that I wouldn’t get too tired from walking and so that I’d be able to see more things. I would’ve liked to have taken Martha instead, but I didn’t want to spoil my holiday by overdoing it.

In the end I was really glad that I did go because I had a really lovely time. I got to visit lots of nice places, see lots of nice things and I found that the public transport wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be once you figured out where you were going.

Don’t me wrong, I didn’t like all of it. Lots of places were really busy and crowded so I don’t think I would’ve liked to try and walk through them. Some people were really nice and moved out of the way as best they could, but the amount of people who stepped over my wheelchair footplates to get past me was also quite a few, and this is one thing that really annoys me because I personally find it quite rude.

One of my favourite days was the day I spent the morning that I spent in a park. My little sister spent ages pushing my wheelchair up and down some humps that I think where there for people skateboards and bikes to use; went with me on the swings and helped me down the slide. Other members of my family helped me do other stuff like sit on a zip wire. I took lots of photos of this stuff so I’m going to do a post dedicated to that later on.

The holiday was nice while it lasted and I think I’ll definitely visit London again at some point.

My frustrations about making tea

In case you all haven’t guessed by now; I love drinking tea. There are times that I like to dunk biscuits into too, but that’s a whole other story.

Thankfully, I can use the kettle to make a drink for myself, and with the help of my thermal cup that has a lid, I can carry it round on the ground floor of my house so I can sit down to have it. Before that, I used to have to leave my tea in the kitchen and keep coming back to it but I’d normally forget about it and let it go cold.

Despite having found a way around that problem, there is still something that I find frustrating about tea making’: the fact that I still can’t carry the drink upstairs.

My family are always helpful and will bring my drink up to my bedroom for me when they’re in the house and not too busy. That way I get to have it at my desk while I’m working on a blog post, writing job applications or spending longer than I probably should scrolling down my Facebook timeline.

If I’m home alone I have to go back to my old ways of leaving my cuppa downstairs and coming back to take sips every so often in amongst doing other things. It’s a small thing but it gets frustrating sometimes but I know I can’t dwell on it too much. I know I’m lucky that I can do as much as I can do already.

My first full night in night splints

There has been an achievement in Nicland this week, or it feels like one to me at least.

I’ve managed to spend my first full night in my night splints since I got given them a while ago!

My night splints
My night splints

At first I couldn’t wear them for a whole night because I can’t put them on for myself so I would have to take them off again if I needed to get up in the middle of the night for anything. Then I took them back to the hospital and got some walking grips put on the bottom so I wouldn’t need to keep taking them off.

Even after I’d had the grips put on, it still took me some time to be able to wear them for a whole night because I had to build up wearing them for longer periods of time slowly by a couple of hours at a time until I got used to it.

Now, I’ve finally done it! I was pretty surprised when I woke up the next day and found that they were still on.

Hopefully I’ll be able to do this most of the nights that I wear them now.

More thoughts on remembering appointments

Hands up anyone who remembers the childhood excitement of receiving something in post. I’m talking about the days when all the postman usually brought you was birthday cards and postcards from your Great-Auntie Ethel’s annual holiday to the seaside. There might have been the odd reminder that you were due an eye test, but that just meant that you could go and wear some funny glasses and pretend you were a spaceman for a bit then maybe get to choose a new pair of specs at the end of it. Meanwhile, the grownups got to look forward to opening a new letter almost every day it seemed.

C’mon, I can’t be the only one who remembers these good old days. Raise those hands up high!

Well, I’m an adult now and I’ve decided that getting something in the mail isn’t nearly as exciting as it used to be. I’m very disappointed indeed. I’ve come to realise that post usually means, a letter from the bank, a bill needs paying, or perhaps some junk mail. Hooray…or not. Even those reminders to go to the opticians aren’t fun anymore. Instead of looking forward to playing astronauts, looking at those letters just makes you think about the money you might need to spend on a new pair of glasses.

In addition to delights such as these in my cases there’s the hospital appointment letters too. When I was younger, my parents would stick these to boiler with an assortment of fridge magnets and they would tell me when the day arrived and where I was going. I’m not entirely sure when this happened, but somewhere along the line, they became my responsibility to remember them.

I’ve blogged about some of the tricks I use to help with this briefly before. I know I don’t have as many to remember as a lot of people, but it can still be a challenge sometimes. Here are some more of the ways I try commit them to memory. These work for me, but they might not work for others. They’re just from my personal experience. I’m not a memory expert, nor do I pretend to be.

Keeping all the letters in one place

At the moment, the current ones that I have to try remember are sitting on my printer. Trying to not lose the letter in between doing that and then attending the appointment is a whole other task entirely. As for remembering to take it with me when I go the less said about that the better, I think.

Refreshing my memory constantly

Eventually the appointments will work their way into my phone a bit closer to the time so that my memory gets a little refresher about it.

Remembering the information in small chunks

For me, remembering the dates often tends to be the easier part or I try and get that part in my head before I worry about anything else. I find it harder to remember the times, especially if I have a few quite close together. I have to spend the week before looking at my letters and phone calendar constantly in the hope I can make something sinks in. If I’m really struggling I try to at least remember the month so that I can ring up and double check if I have to.

It seems strange to think that my parents used to have to do all of this stuff for me, and that they used to make it look so easy. I took that for granted at the time. Sorry mum and dad! There were probably more of them to remember back then too.

How do you remember your appointments?

My Botox injections

I had my appointment to get some more Botox injections in my legs yesterday. It’s hoped that doing this will help to ease some of my muscle tightness. I had this done as few times as a child and I’ve had them again as an adult too. I go to most of my appointments alone these days but this is one that I usually like my mum or my dad to come to with me. If I’m being honest I think it’s mostly so I can squeeze their hand while I’m having it done. However neither of them were free to come with me, so I had to make do with digging my nails into my palms instead.

Personally, I’ve found that they’ve worked well for me in the past, and I have to make sure that I really work at my physio after I’ve had the injections to get the best possible results. It really is a good motivator to try my best to keep on top of things.

Yesterday, I also had the idea to put a pair of shorts on underneath a baggy pair of jogging bottoms I bought to help me keep warm when I had my serial casting pots on, so it would be easier and faster than having to change into some sorts when I got to the appointment. This is something that I think I’ll definitely try to remember to do next time because it really did make a big difference.

I’ll go back and see my physio in a couple of weeks time so she can see how well she thinks the Botox is working. In the meantime, I’ll just have to try my best and do as much work as I can.