Tag: Cerebral Palsy

Autumn Blues

I know, I know; blue isn’t a colour traditionally associated with Autumn. I know that for most people it’s all about orange, red and brown crunchy leaves, fully PJs and adding pumpkin spice to absolutely everything, but not to me.

I dislike Autumn and I absolutely hate winter. I dread this time of year in pretty much the same way that I dread dentist appointments. I fret about it for weeks in advance, and always go into it expecting the worst. Unlike most of my trips to the dentist though, Autumn/Winter aren’t over in five minutes.

Thanks to my cerebral palsy, this time of year sucks. My aches and pains increase 10-fold (sometimes literally), my poor circulation makes my feet so cold they hurt, and it gets harder and harder for me to leave the house on my own thanks to the slippery fallen leaves/wind/ice/snow that a lot of the people I know IRL seem to love so much.

I’m always the coldest person in a room, which isn’t helped by having to use my wheelchair more and more. Believe me, you get colder than you might think when you’re just sitting there being whipped by the falling leaves/wind/ice/snow that everyone else seems to love so much.

I’m already starting to feel it and the fn’s only just begun for this year, and I’m already not sure I have the mental and physical energy to deal with it.

I wish I could join in with the excitement, but I can’t.

 

Self-service check-outs & physical disability

All I wanted was cat biscuits and some chocolate.

All that stood between me and said cat biscuits and chocolate was a self-service check out.
Sounds simple, right?
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
There are no words for how much these things annoy me. They annoy most of the able-bodied people too; but when you have mobility problems like I do, they are a total nightmare.
I have cerebral palsy so I can’t do anything quickly and I’m not very good at balancing, so I tend to only use one hand as much as possible when I’m trying to pay for my shopping so that I can keep holding on to my walker.
If there is another person operating the till they can obviously see this and understand it, unlike a machine who expects me to move at speed. A chashier often help me do my packing and give me my change in small bits, all without constantly asking me to please take my items.
I know I could always ask a staff member in the shop to help me, but the staff supervising the area is often busy helping people who’ve found themselves dealing with an unexpected item in the bagging area, so I’ve developed a few strategies to try make things easier:
  • As I often wear jackets of hoodies, I try and get my money out before I even start  and put it in my pocket so make it easier to get to. Obviously, I only do this if I feel safe to do so. Otherwise I put up with the machine asking me if I want to continue while I fumble to get cash out of purse.
  • I take a bag that is as wide as possible so that I can hang it on the side of my walking frame and just drop things into it, rather than having to cram they all into a smaller bag that won’t open out for me properly
  • If I have a friend with me, I ask them to help

 

What do you think about self-service check-outs?

I wrote a guest blog for Scope

Hi guys,

Some of you might have seen already that I’ve written a guest-post for the charity Scope about society’s views on disability sex need to change.

If you want to read it, you can do so here.

I’ve had a lot of lovely comments from people about this, so thank you for that. This is a subject that I feel conflicted to talk about for reasons I explain in the article. I’d love it if you could give it a read and let me know what you think.

Much love,

Nic

 

 

Cerebral Palsy and Migraines

As I write this I have a pretty rotten headache. It’s not quite crossed the boarder into migraine city yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it does. The main bulk of the pain is nesting in the nape of my neck, so I think I must have been sitting in a weird position.

I don’t get migraines too often now, but I feel like I had them every day from the age of about 14 to 16. They used to make me go dizzy and fall over.

When I was 14 I started getting horrible shoulder and neck pain. This was back when I was still knock-kneed, and stood with one knee behind the other. I did this so much that my kneecaps had rotated so that they faced inwards instead of outwards.

In other words: my posture was poop, and the way I stood back then gave me migraines. My doctor gave me some stronger painkillers, and my physio at the time tried some intensive therapy on my shoulders to lessen the pain, but we all knew that there wasn’t much we could do until I’d finished my GCSEs and could have operations to reset my knees.

Once I had my hip surgery and the muscle-lengthening surgery afterwards, the migraines went completely. I Hardly even get headaches any more. I’m so, so lucky. I wouldn’t wish them on anyone.

Pain Update 10/08/17

Hey guys,

My pelvis pain finally seems to be settling down. Well, by settling down, what I actually mean is the pain isn’t constant any more and is a lot less intense most of the time.

That said, when it’s bad, it’s pretty freaking bad.

Short bouts of intense pain is something I’m used to dealing with. I usually have a low level of pain on a constant basis, and the bad days are getting more and more frequent. I feel like I’m starting to get the hang of dealing with them.

What I don’t think I’ll ever get used to is intensely painful nights, and my pain is always, always worse at night. I put so much pressure on myself to try and get a good night’s sleep. And, there aren’t as my distractions.

Things are much, much better than they were a few weeks ago though so I can’t complain.

If anyone has any advice on dealing with bad pain nights, I’d love to hear it!

How are things with all of you?