Tag: Cerebral Palsy

A surprising shopping trip

It was my birthday earlier this week, and it was a really lovely day for me.

The weather was quite kind to us too on that day because it was dry instead of rainy, and I went out for a shopping trip with my friend. I decided that I would take my walking frame Martha with me instead of my wheelchair like I might choose to do if I was going to be out for the whole day.

I haven’t walked as much as I would have liked to over the past couple of weeks. I didn’t really leave the house all that much in the couple of weeks leading up to Christmas, and when I did,  I mostly used my wheelchair because of the wind and rain that we had.

When I went out, I was expecting to need to take more rest breaks than I would usually have needed to because of all of this, but actually, I surprised myself by not needing as many as I was expecting to.  I think that this is mostly because I took advantage of the seat that my walking frame has on the back of it. I could just unfold the seat and use it while I was waiting for my friend when she stood in line to pay for her things or use shop changing rooms to try things on, so I think I took most of my walking and standing breaks in more frequent, shorter bursts throughout the day. I think this probably made a huge difference. Don’t get me wrong, I still had a couple of long sit downs, but I’m still quite proud of myself on the whole.

A couple of years ago, I really don’t think I would have been able to handle walking around the place that we went to because of the size of it, and so I always used to take the wheelchair with me. I still do go there in my chair if I’m having a bad day, but I like to think that me being able to use my walking frame there now, even with lots of breaks scheduled into the day, is a sign that the effort I’ve been making in recent years is paying off.

While I am feeling rather tired today, I think that has more to do with the fact that I don’t think I’ve quite managed to catch up on my sleep from the past couple of weeks just yet. I think a couple of early nights are in order from now on.

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.