Tag: Cerebral Palsy

Cooking with pans

Many of you probably know that I struggle with cooking. I talk about it often and I’m hoping it’s something I can gain more confidence with, or at least be able to find more meals that I can easily make for myself. I’m also hoping to come up with some ways around doing things that I find hard.

There are lots of reasons why I find it hard to make my food because of my Cerebral Palsy. I’ve mentioned some of these quite a lot and you can read more about some of them here.

One of the things that is tough for me is cooking in saucepans on the hob. I find it hard to balance, hold the pans in place and stir whatever is in them. If it’s a large amount of food, that makes it harder for me to mix it around the pan too. More often than not, bits of it end up falling out so I make a huge mess, and half of it ends up stuck to the pan because I hardly ever seem to be able to do it properly.

The other day my heart sank when I was asked to keep an eye on something that was cooking and give it the odd stir. I placed one hand on the worktop to balance myself and stirred the food constantly with the other, even though I probably only needed to do it once every so often. Thankfully, the pan was sturdy so I didn’t worry too much about it slipping.

My mother came back and I asked her to check if any of it had stuck. I was so relieved when she told me it was all fine. It felt like a small achievement, because I’d been a bit worried that things would end up going wrong.

I’m glad they didn’t. I hope that one day I’ll feel more confident when it comes to cooking. For now, I guess I’ll just have to keep trying.

 

 

 

 

An Update about my night splints

My night splints
My night splints

People who’ve been following this blog a while might know that I got given some new night splints a bit ago. These are to wear when I’m in bed or just resting in the house. I like them. I personally find them really comfortable and can feel the stretch when I’ve had them on.

However, I could never manage to wear them for an entire night because I haven’t yet managed to be able to get them on for myself, and they didn’t have walking grips on the bottom. This meant that I had to take them off if I needed to get up in the middle of the night, and kept them off because I didn’t want to wake my mother up to get her to put back on again.

However, at my last appointment with my orthotist, he offered to put some grips on the bottom for me if I brought them back in to make this easier.

I’m really excited about this because I’m hoping that I’ll be able to move around in them easily so I’ll be able to wear them for longer.

It will be a little while before I get them back, but I’m already looking forward to it.

I’ll let you all know how it goes as soon as I can.

Feeling unsteady

Thankfully today’s post is not about falling over. I think you’ll all agree with me that that’s a relief given that I’ve managed to hit the deck twice in the past fortnight.

That said, I have been feeling a bit more wobbly on my feet than usual over the last few days, and a lot more aware of how I’m moving around, even when I use my walking frame Martha. To be honest, I think this is mostly down to nerves that I’m going to land on the floor again.

There were several occasions during the weekend where I felt like I was going to topple over, but managed to catch myself in time.

Sometimes, when I have a fall, it makes me feel unsteady for a couple of days afterwards and I find myself being extra cautious for a few days until that passes. It knocks my confidence for a bit. How long this lasts depends on what I was doing that made me lose my balance and how much I hurt myself. Sometimes it doesn’t dent my confidence at all and I just get on with things, but if it I hurt myself quite a bit, or have a few close together  as I have done, it makes me feel a bit unsteady for a while.

I’ve certainly felt this way over the past couple of days, but I’m hoping it will pass soon.

Another fall

In Monday’s post I told you all about a fall I had last week. Well, I had another one yesterday, but thankfully I wasn’t hurt.

My mother and I decided that we’d go out for a wander, so she put my walking frame Martha up for me because I don’t need to use it when I’m in the house. I went out of the door, got into it and started to turn it around when I noticed that it started feeling wobbly. Then I realised:

When you unfold the walker you can always tell that it’s been put up properly because there is a little clicking sound as the buttons you press in to collapse it again lock into place. When these are in place it won’t collapse again until you push the buttons, (there’s on each side), inwards.

As the Martha started to wobble, I could tell that that she was starting to fold up with me still inside. I was falling over backwards and Martha was going with me. It’s also worth noting that I wasn’t stood on the grass, but on our paving stones.

This time, I didn’t really have time to think other than the usual Oh please don’t whack your head and Oh dear I’m actually falling. Truth be told, the words running through my mind were far less polite than ‘oh dear’, but I don’t think you’d be very happy with me if I typed what they really were. All I will say is they weren’t very pleasant ones.

Somehow, I managed to keep my head up and didn’t bang it. My mum came flying out of the house as she heard Martha clattering and my yelping. Yes, I yelped. When she got to me I was on my back holding my head and arms up. I dare say I probably looked a bit like a turtle.

She pulled me up and was really apologetic even though it wasn’t her fault at all. Martha had looked like she had been put up properly and when there’s lots of noise around you don’t always hear the clicking noise that it makes. I hadn’t noticed myself, so it really wasn’t her fault. I don’t blame her. These things happen and are easily done.

If anything, I should have checked that the buttons were locked in before I started moving Martha, who, you will be pleased to know, wasn’t damaged in the fall either. Phew!

About a fall

One thing that I mention on this blog from time to time is falling over. Sometimes I just lose my balance and end up hitting the floor when there is nothing for me to trip on. It happens. I can’t always stop it and just have to go with the flow and hope I don’t get too badly hurt.

I had a fall last week when I was in the kitchen, holding a mug of gravy. I started to wobble and felt like I was going to go backwards. There was a split second when I thought I had managed to catch myself in time, but then I started to wobble again and I knew that was it.

I let out a scream to let the people near me know what was happening. I usually let out some kind of noise when I know I’m about to take a tumble, but this scream came out far louder, and far more high-pitched than I intended.

So many thoughts ran through my head in the couple of seconds that it me to land on the floor, like:

  • I hope this gravy isn’t as hot as I think it might be
  • I really hope this mug doesn’t smash all over me, and,
  • Please don’t bang your head, please don’t bang your head

You will all be happy to know that none of the above happened. Yes, the gravy was quite warm, but thankfully not warm enough to burn me. I ended up with quite a bit in my hair and some running down my nose, mind you. Somehow, I managed to tighten my grip on the mug and not let go, and landed on my bottom and avoided hitting my head. Phew.

Oh, and I also managed to make quite a mess of the kitchen. Some of the cupboards, walls, and some of the floor had also been splattered by the liquid. I was mortified when I realised how bad it was but luckily, it had all been cleaned up by the time I got out of the shower. Believe me, I needed one.

I’m even more amazed that the white-and-pink onesie I was wearing came out of the wash with no lasting stains too.

Still, I don’t want to do that again in a hurry.