"1st's"

Yesterday was our third wedding anniversary. I did not deal with the day very well. I have not been dealing with "1st's" very well. My first trip home from hospital is the "1st" one since the injury, our wedding anniversary was the "1st" since the injury...and so on. On "1st's" I tend to focus on what in my life is not the same as the last time a particular event occured rather than celebrate a day out from the hospital, a happy marriage, or small improvements.
However a new and very different "1st" occured today, one that has really made me apreciate my recovery. As I walked across the dining hall this evening - very slowly, limping and supported by splint and stick, I stopped to talk to a young lady who was admitted here today. She is currently in a wheelchair and has extremely limited use off all limbs. I asked how she was settling in and if she was ok - her reply? She wished she could walk like me.

Pads Wine of the Month

Marlborough is now widely regarded as the benchmark for Sauvignon Blanc throughout the world. If you can get away from the over hyped and over priced Cloudy Bay and look just down the road you will come across this little beauty. It has fantastic gooseberry and blackcurrant leaf flavours with a crisp acidic backbone that would go supperbly with a big bowl of Havelock green lip mussels. We picked ours up from Sainsburys for £10.http://www.jacksonestate.co.nz

Those miracle workers at the wolfson

Three and a half weeks ago Mel came home from St.Georges for her final weekend before her rehab started at the Wolfson. Our little terrace house was chocca with her borrowed wheelchair , commode and various bits and bobs. Once she was settled on the sofa in front of the tv she was somewhat like a beached whale . It was a bizzare situation to get her from the sofa into her wheelchair to go next door for supper and then back to the sofa, a roundtrip of no more than 20 feet. Today the blue St.Georges people carrier rocked up at 2.30, the doors opened and there appeared Mel . She got out of the car and under the beady eye of her physio walked to our front door with the sole use of a stick. She still needs to build up a lot of strength but it was an amazing vision, her physio Helen seems to have the midas touch. Within 3 and a bit weeks this lovely lady has managed to get Mel back up on her feet and given her the confidence to tackle the most important thing , a staircase. While Mel and Helen start the final ascend of 38, Church Path, we have her occupational therapist, Nikki, running round measuring everything! The height of the sofa, the height of the dining table and its benches, the height of the bed and so on and so on. The upshot of it all is that we need a few grab rails here and there. Much to Mels dismay Merton council will only fit plastic grab rails or at least that's what Nikki thought. Needless to say Mel spent the rest of the afternoon looking through yellow pages for a carpenter who specialised in bespoke grab rails.

Magnetic cat flaps

While my gorgeous wife has had weekend leave , I have unfortunately had to work to ensure my flock in Southfields have had sufficient opportunity to fill their boots with the offerings of my booze shop. In between shifts I have been belting down the A3 to see Mel and returning via home to make sure our lovely two cats,Ben and Kevin ,have had plenty of tucker to graze on in our absence. Sometime ago we invested £65 in a staywell infra red cat flap. The idea being that Ben and Kevin wore a little tag on their collar that allowed them to come and go as they pleased . Nice we both thought. Little did we think that Mr Kevin would spend all day sitting in front of the cat flap letting it go on and off and inviting all his chums in for a free feed! As I was about to leave home I heard a nudge on the cat flap and then it all fell into place, Kevin ran to see what the noise was , cat flap goes click and in stroll Top Cat, Benny the Ball, Choo Choo, The Brain and Spook.

Weekend pass

Well it has been wonderful! I have slept in a proper bed and have eaten BBq lamb and steak.I have even had wine. Funnily enough a glass seems to assist with getting up the stairs, makes me worry about them less.I have not been out of my mum's house - apart from going into the garden - since my arrival on Friday. The main reason for this is that I can get around the house without the wheelchair, it has been lovely not to see it and have the feeling of more independence. I am now however stiff as a board, I have walked more this weekend than in the last 8 weeks put together. Getting quite nifty on the zimmer!
Today is Andrew's birthday,it will not be his most memorrable. He has had to work and this evening we will go for a meal.Our choice of eating venue is no longer governed by where we want to eat and what style of food we are in the mood for, we now choose places by their disabled access and facilities.You would have hoped that in 2007 this would be a huge choice - this is sadly not the case. Disabled access and disabled facilities are two different things. What's the point of going somewhere for a drink and a meal that has a ramp for a wheelchair to get into the building but then a flight of stairs to the toilet.We will be gracing one of the local pizza chains. Oh the glamour!!

Stairway to heaven

It has been a good couple of days. Tuesday saw me on a home visit with an OT and a physio, sadly not to ours but my mum's. She has what is fast becoming the holy grail - a downstairs loo! They are very thorough here and prior to letting me leave here at the weekends they wanted to visit with me. I was on form and managed to bound up the step into the house (zimmer assisted) and whizz round the ground floor. Every chair in the house was measured for height and I then duly sat down and stood up from them all. Mum had set up a bed for me in her study, however one look at what can really only be described as a camp bed and I announced that I would like to try the stairs. I did set the scene in case of failure by saying that it would be good for the physio to see where we needed to concentrate our sessions.With a picture of the bed and a vision of the bad nights sleep it would surely provide firmly fixed in my mind I approached the stairs. It took a stick in one hand, the bannister and about 5 minutes but I got up them! Obviously that was the easy bit, getting down is MUCH harder. My left leg is so weak but going down stairs it really has to work. The stairs seem to be so much steeper when you feel you are simply dangling a limb over the edge of each step, still I made it down and have been deemed "safe with assistance". This basically means some poor bugger has to stand in front of me and if I fall they are coming wih me! I am so excited, this weekend will be the first time I have slept in a proper bed, upstairs and everything for over 2 months.
Still lest I get over excited by this its been back to physio and looking at my still relatively immobile ankle. The splint I have does a good job at holding the foot up so I can walk but I still need to work on regaining the movement. It is so very hard to isolate a muscle and to work it when you can bearly feel it. Movement was also so instinctive before that it is new and unnatural to think about tiny flexes.I spent most of an hour tensing my whole body and moving all my other limbs in the effort to lift my toes in order to flex my ankle. Didn't get anywhere! I try too hard and by tensing everything cannot get the tiny movements that I need.
Muscles are so weak the movement will not be like I remember, in fact at the moment it may be bearly there. It is all to easy to assume that if I try really hard and strain away that my ankle will suddenly spring into perfect full action. Later in the evening sat on my own I finally managed to get the small movement and flexed my ankle up, lifting my foot just the tiniest amount from the floor. Its bearly there but at least its there at all.
On a positive, note all this physio and activity is burning calories like never before. I can currently eat as much chocolate as I like. M & S chocolate coated fudge sticks - yum!

Bestival 2007

Its all fallen in to place today! We have managed to secure the hire of a 6 berth beauty for our jaunt on the isle of wight with Bert and Heidi this September. Mel is so excited as it will be her first jolly for some 9 months! She was a little worried today that she would not be able to get busy in the big top or go bonkers in the bollywood bar , but a little e-mail to mr rod d bank would hopefully make that dream come true. If all else fails then I will push her up the hill to the womens institute tea tent and she can have a lovelly cream tea.