Tag: Cerebral Palsy

My (estimated) birthday

April third is the due date that my parents were given when my mother was pregnant with me. To cut a long story short, I arrived early, at 26 weeks, and was born in the first week of January.

I think this date will stick in my mind for the rest of my life, and at this time of year I always find myself feeling thankful, but also wondering how my parents must have felt at the time.

The older I’ve become, the more we’ve talked about it over the years, but every now and then, either my mum or dad will tell me something about my time in the hospital that I didn’t know before. Sometimes it will make me laugh, sometimes it might make me cry, and other times it will leave me surprised.

Even though I was quite young at the time, I still remember my dad telling me that I spent the first three months of my life in hospital. I hadn’t really thought about that very much before then, but I still remember being quite shocked by that nugget of information even though I was just a child.

Another story that gave me a surprise more recently was something my mother told me when we were sitting in a coffee shop at Christmas time last year. We were talking about what it was like when I was born, and she started telling me how excited she and my dad got when they first saw me open my eyes.

This was news to me. It had ever occurred to me that they wouldn’t have been open yet, but apparently they weren’t. Needless to say I was very surprised. I was 22 at the time, and I was only hearing this story for the first time, but I was glad that she was telling me them all the same. That memory was a happy one for her, and I’m sure my dad would tell me that it is for him too if I asked him about it, and I always like to hear the happy stories.

I wonder how many more untold tales there are that I’ll get to hear one day?

How easily I become unbalanced

Sometimes I think I underestimate just how easy it is for me to start feeling unbalanced and start to wobble. I come close to falling over quite often, sometimes I catch myself in time, sometimes I don’t. Often I’ll feel myself becoming unsteady and know exactly what’s happened to cause it, but occasionally there seems to be no reason at all.  People I’m with will ask “What happened there?” and all I’ll be able to do is shrug my shoulders, say “I have no idea” and then give a nervous laugh. I always get nervous when I think I’m about to fall, but I don’t think that’s really surprising.

There are also plenty of instances when I know what made me start to wobble, and I’ll be amazed at what a simple thing it was. The other day I was leaning against the kitchen worktop, using both hands to butter some crackers; one of the broke in half when I wasn’t expecting it. The surprise of it cracking in my hand was even to make me jump and start to tip over backwards. Luckily I managed to reach out and grab the counter in time to steady myself. It was a good job too because if I had gone over, there’s a good chance I would have hit the oven. It wasn’t on at the time, but it still wouldn’t have been pleasant.

After I felt stable again and I stopped feeling nervous I realised that I was surprised that something so simple was enough to throw me off. It’s not the first time a crumbling cracker has made me wobble either (I eat rather a lot of them), but I’m always shocked when it does.

I try not to think about all the things that could have happened when I manage to avoid crashing to the ground, or how much worse it could have been when I do take a tumble. I just try my best to be as careful as I can.

Finding fancy footware

My mother is getting remarried and I will be one of her bridesmaids.

She and her husband-to-be picked out the bridesmaid dresses a few months ago and spent a couple of days trying to decide if they liked them best in teal or red. They settled on the teal, and I got very excited when one of my friends pointed out that it’s only a few shades of blue lighter than my walking frame Martha is.

Once the dress were picked out, we thought that we would have to get mine taken up because they were maxi dresses that would’ve been way too long for me, but then we noticed that they had the same dress in a shorter cut too, which, when I tried it on, happened to be almost full-length on me.  Result! I say almost because I think it stops a couple of inches above my ankles but that’s fine with me. I’m less likely to trip on it that way, she says. She hopes. Oh please, don’t let me fall over.

Anyway…

With all that sorted, I knew that we would have to try and find me some footwear to go with it. The very idea sent a shiver down my spine. Trying to find something for everyday wear can be hard enough, and trying to find something for a special occasion, especially something that isn’t a boot, is even harder.

My mum did some shoe-scouting without me and then took me along to show me the potentials she had found, with me saying all the while that I’d be quite happy to go in whatever pair of (probably worn-down) boots I happened to be working my way through at the time.

My mum said that she wanted me to have something nice to wear so that I’d feel good about myself. This made me happy, but I was doubtful that we’d find anything. I sat back, literally, on Martha’s seat and let her take charge.

The first pair of sandals that we tried were no good. I was expecting this. It usually takes a few tries to find something. Not always though. The second pair of sandals fit me, stayed on my feet AND had Velcro straps so that would make things easier for me. I felt quite sturdy walking in them both with and without the walker. I was amazed. I wanted to buy them as quickly as possible in case it was some kind of magic spell that would be broken if we took too long in the shop. She did help me try another pair, but I was pretty happy with the ones we found.

Okay, that’s not quite true. I was pretty excited about the ones we found because I haven’t had any sandals since I was a kid I don’t think.

Oh, and I should also mention that they’ve bought me a nice pair of fluffy slippers to change into if the sandals get too much for my feet. I’m hoping I won’t need them, but you never know.

 

10 reasons I think my walking frame is awsome

My Nimbo walking frame that I call Martha
My Nimbo walking frame that I call Martha

My Cerebral Palsy means that I use a walking frame outside the house. I use a wheelchair too but I think that my Nimbo frame, which I’ve named Martha, is especially awesome. Here are just some of the reasons why, in no particular order:

  1. I would find it very difficult to leave the house alone without it
  2. It has a seat on the back
  3. I love the colour
  4. The colour makes other people smile
  5. When my friends are trying to describe a shade of blue, they will sometimes say things like “a shade lighter/darker than Martha”
  6. When I’m standing at the top of a hill or ramp I could just pick my feet up and roll down it if I wanted to. I haven’t done this since I was a very small child, but I still get tempted. Pretty much every single time.
  7. It can double as a clothes horse when I’m trying to get my laundry dry
  8. I can hang my bags on the sides when I’m out shopping
  9. I once saw a little girl in town who was crying, when she saw my walking frame she looked at it and stopped crying for a couple of seconds.
  10. I could choose to accessorise it for special occasions or fancy dress parties if I wanted to.

My physio appointment

My Physiotherapy session the other day went well. We focused a lot on my ankles, my hips and my legs. I came away with some new stretches to focus on. One is something that I’ll be able to build pretty easily into my normal daily routine. It basically involves sitting in ways that will stretch my adductors, the muscles around your inner thigh that you use to bring your knees together. This I should be able to do while I’m on the computer, watching TV or reading, so that it shouldn’t be too hard. The other stretch will lengthen the gastrocnemius muscles in my ankles and lower legs, (these are the ones that help you run and things like that), which have been feeling pretty tight lately. I have to remember to stretch three times a day. The gastrocnemius stretch will be the one that I’ll find hard to do at first I think, partly because I don’t find the stretch itself all that easy to do, and secondly because I’ll have to try and remember to build it into my day at intervals that work well for me. I know this sounds like it should be easy, but believe me, it’s also easy to let it pass me by when I’m doing other things. Maybe I should do it before my meals or something? Hmmm…

We also discussed the Botox injections that I’ll be having in my legs in the next few weeks. These should help to relax the muscles so they won’t be quite as tight as they have been. When I have these done I’ll have to do lots of intensive physio to get the best results out of the treatment. This appointment was made months ago, and I’ve been looking forward to it ever since. It’s something that’s worked well for me in the past, and I’m hoping that it will again. As always, time will tell and I’ll keep you all updated

I also managed to pick my night splints back up the other day and they now have walking grips on the bottom so I won’t have to take them off if I need to get up in the middle of the night. I’ll let you know how that works out.