Tag: Cerebral Palsy

Toasty toes please

As well as Cerebral Palsy I also have quite poor circulation. My feet are always a wonderful purple or grey colour (I won’t gross you all out with a photo) and the only time they look my normal skin tone is when I’ve just got out of bed or the shower. I don’t know if this is connected to my disability or not. I keep meaning to ask the physios but I always forget. It wouldn’t really matter anyway. I’d still have both at the end of the day.

My poor little toes are usually always cold so it’s a rare day that you’ll ever see me without socks, sometimes even two pairs. My friends and family love it though because I must be the only person who loves getting loads of them at Christmas.

One year my boyfriend found what I think could well be one of my favourite inventions ever. It’s so good it has to be up there with the thermos mugs that help me carry tea round the house…he got me a pair of microwavable socks! Yes, you read that right, socks that I can heat up in the microwave. How amazing is that? He was really proud of himself for finding them and I have to admit that I was pretty dang imp

My Microwavable socks
My Microwavable socks

ressed too.

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I know that these might not be suitable for everyone to use. I am not a medical professional so I cannot suggest when anyone else should or should not use them. Therefore I can only speak of my personal experience with these mircowavable socks and the post should not be used as a replacement for medical advice.

Given that they have lavender in the bottom to make them smell all nice I can’t walk around the house in them but they are awesome when it’s snowing outside or I’ve spent too long in our stone floor kitchen. They stay warm for ages too which as far as I’m concerned is a bonus.

My hands don’t do particularly well in the winter either. My fingers often go an interesting shade of grey or extra white. This causes quite a problem when I’m out and about because it’s harder to grip my walking frame if the gloves I wear are too thick, but the thinner ones don’t protect me from the cold as well as I’d like. Often my hands end up going numb, which makes it harder to hold on to the walker anyway. Usually I just grit my teeth and wait it out until I get back inside and make myself a huge cup of tea to warm my hands up on. Strangely enough, I don’t have a problem with that.

Thank goodness for my walk-in shower

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My walk-in shower

When I woke up this morning I was a zombie, there really is no other way to describe it other than that. My legs and back had decided that last night they were going to Tag Team against me and ache so much that they would keep me awake most of the night. Next time they plan on doing this, I hope they tell me so I can have an afternoon nap first. Despite their best efforts I think I managed t catch somewhere between three to four hours of Zs  which is not so great –especially when one of those blissful hours was between 7:30 and 8:30 this morning. I’d have loved at least another half an hour but I have lots to do today so I didn’t really have a choice but it suck it up and get on with it. All I can say is, thank goodness I have a walk-in shower.

For a long time, showering was something that my mum had to help me with because we didn’t get the wet-room installed until I was around 17 or 18.  From the age of around 15 I had other things that would help me to get washed by myself including a swivel bather and a bath board, but before that mum had to lift me in and out of our bath shower, and stay there with me to make sure I did slip. This did happen a couple of times though, given that my balance is less than good, especially on a bad day, and it also meant that my daily wash was done whenever mum could fit it in around all the other household chores. Now I can do it whenever I like, which is something I will never take for granted. It takes some pressure off my mother too. I’m grateful that she used to help me all the time (she still does wih some things) but I’m sure this is one thing she’s quite happy about not having to do anymore.

Thanks to the wet room I can just stroll in (quite literally) whenever I like, plonk myself down on the seat and stay there until my aches and pains have gone away, or until I feel human enough to bother facing the day. It works too. My legs aren’t as bad as they were first thing today, I’m half-awake and I’m sitting here writing this post. Not bad, eh?

Like most things in life, getting the wet room installed was a trade off. It meant that we had to get our bath taken out which was really useful on the days that I was stiff and the shower doesn’t work quite so well for that, but at least I have my independence. There is the odd day that it decides to get blocked and flood, but the bathroom is designed to handle the water. It just means we have to do the mopping up afterwards.

The Betsy Chronicles

Betsy and I at my graduation
Betsy and I at my graduation

Before my blue Nimbo Frame Martha came into my life, there was Betsy. She was my silver Kaye Walker. I promised you all that I’d tell you all her story one day and now that day has finally arrived.  If you’re a bit confused and want to find out why I choose to name my walking aids, you can check out this post here. If you want to just hear more about my old one Betsy then grab some snacks, pull up a chair and I’ll tell you.

As I’ve said before, she was given to me the day before Christmas Eve in 2011 and went into retirement last month. Usually these frames last longer than that but she was given to me second hand. I didn’t mind. I got a new frame when I needed it and that was all that mattered to me. I was in my final year at university by this point was making an effort to do as much walking as possible so I made sure we had some good times before we had to go our separate ways.

I like to think of Betsy as my frame of firsts. She came with me on lots of work experience placements, was there on the first day of work at my last job and came with me when I got the bus by myself for the first time. This last one didn’t go so well. It’s safe to say that catching the bus alone is not my strong point, but that’s a story for another time.

Oh, and she will always have a special place in my heart for being the frame that I used to get across the stage at my university graduation, which for me was the most symbolical moment  of my life so far.  It was the moment that me, my family and endless physios and doctors had been working towards all my life to date. People said I wouldn’t, people said I couldn’t and others thought I was just too lazy and would rely on my folks to do it all for me forever, so I upped-sticks, moved away  and went on an adventure to prove them all wrong. In that moment, I knew I’d made it. We all made it, and Betsy was there every step (or should that be roll) of the way. For that, I will love her forever.

My new Nimbo Frame Martha
My new Nimbo Frame Martha

There are a few ways that the Kaye Walker differed from my new frame Martha, aside from the fact that she was silver and not blue. My Kaye Walker didn’t have a seat on the back. This meant that I couldn’t always sit down as much as I would have liked, but it also made the frame a lot lighter than my current one. It meant that my arms didn’t get as tired when I was using it (guess this means I should probably work out more, huh?) and that it was easier to lift it up and down kurbs, and for me to deal with every time I got the front wheel stuck in a pot hole (this happened more times that I would care to admit).

It also means that the frame is less compact and takes uo more room in the car  but it was all still worth it in my eyes. Like I’ve said before I can now take rest breaks as and when I need them, sit down if I need to take notes when carrying out interview and I’m guaranteed to have somewhere to sit. To me it’s totally worth it even if it does mean I have to grow some muscle and buy less shopping on my trips out. In the end it’s probably better for my body and (my bank balance) anyway.

The fine art of making people smile

In all honesty I was actually planning on blogging today something happened that I feel the need to tell you all about. Martha and I made some strangers smile. That is always a good thing if you ask me.

When I woke up this morning I had no plans to leave the house, but when I saw how sunny it was there was no way I could pass up my mum’s invitation to go and visit a local art gallery. We’d probably been there less than five minutes when I heard a voice ask “Can I have my car painted that colour?”

Being the nosey person that I am I turned around to see which of the paintings he was looking at and was pleasantly surprised when I saw a man by the side of me admiring my blue walking frame Martha,

“I wonder if I could have my car painted that colour?” he grinned “It’s lovely.” I nodded back at him and was just about to launch into my why-I-love-Martha so much speech when his family came and joined us and started chatting about how great they thought she was and listed all the things they like about her: the blue paint (of course), the fact that she still looks like new (give it another two weeks and I’ll have scratched all the paintwork off) and the fact that she has a seat. I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself, they’d come out to see all the brilliant work of real artists and here they were stood looking at Martha and praising her as if she were a prize winning picture. After a couple of minutes of smiling and chatting they waved us goodbye and went on to look at other things, but I was still left feeling all warm and humbled inside that I’d managed to make someone else smile. I love that.

When I was a teenager I once had a man stop me in the supermarket when I was on holiday and tell me that he “hoped his granddaughter ended up like me” because they’d just found out she was disabled and they didn’t know if she’d ever be able to walk. At the time I felt really awkward and mumbled something about the doctors telling my parents I might be able to walk around the supermarket at best so never to give up. At the time I felt guilty because I felt like I should have been able to do or say something more. It is only now I’m older that I see I probably did far more than I had realised. If this happened to me tomorrow I’d handle it better. I’d feel proud that I managed to give someone I’d never met before some hope, even if it was just for a moment. I’d feel happy that he’d had the courage to pay me the compliment. I’d like to think that he went home and gave his family hope too. It is moments like this that make me feel very humble and very grateful. That day I made a stranger smile. That day, the same stranger made me smile too.

The ups and downs of clothes shopping

If there’s one activity that can almost be classed as physical exercise that I love it’s shopping, especially for clothes. I love wondering idly around the racks with Martha looking for the latest edition to my wardrobe, or at least I do most of the time…

Clothes shopping for me has its massive sets of ups and downs. In the ‘yay’ column I get new things that make me feel good about myself and know that I’m doing something that will help me keep fit (kind of). Then there is the ‘not-so-yay’ column which boasts a lot more elements: I have to spend money (boo), find something that fits, and battle with the changing rooms. Ugh.

For those of you who don’t know already, I’m really quite tiny.  I’m 4ft 9” . This makes finding jeans that fit an absolute nightmare. If I want to buy any that fit me properly in the leg I usually have to ones for an age 11 child because even ones from the petite section are way too long. However, I am not an 11-year-old, I am a 22 year-old woman who just happens to have hips that this size of clothing doesn’t always cater for. Thankfully, I have quite a small body frame in general, so the ones for a 12 year-old will often fit around my waist, but then they have to be taken up and then I have to find some that don’t look miles too young for me. Do you see the problem?

Tops, t-shirts, skirts and dresses are simple enough because I can buy those in smaller adult sizes, but I’m lucky enough that I can still get these from the teenager section too if I want –yay for cheaper clothes!

Then, if all that wasn’t enough to take into consideration, I have to try and go to places where I can try the stuff on at home and return it if it doesn’t fit because most store changing rooms and I just don’t get on. I know that more and more places are getting disabled changing rooms installed, many of them don’t have the facilities that I personally need. Lots of the ones that I’ve been in (when I’ve had no other choice so I’ll admit I don’t use them very often) are wider to accommodate a wheelchair or walking aid and a lot of the have a seat (bonus), but the ones I have seen don’t always have handrails. Even though I am perfectly capable of dressing myself, if one doesn’t have a handrail I don’t feel safe enough to get changed by myself given how good I am at falling over. This means I have to take my mum in with me to hold me up. So by the time you have squashed, me, my walking frame, and my Mum into the cubicle there’s not very much move to move around, which when you have problems moving in the first place, isn’t a good thing.

So, now that I think about it, I really don’t know why I like shopping so much. Maybe I just like the challenge of finding something that fits? Hmmm…