#WordyandWheelyWednesdays: Woofy and Walky

Hello my lovely readers!

Last week I wrote about all my favourite aspects of being at home. This week I'm not at home (and actually at the beginning of a pretty long stint at uni) but nevertheless I'm going to write about a combination of two of those - my physical regime and my dogs.

At the end of my post about my prematurity, I mentioned that I had tried my hoist and walking sling again, to check that it was still comfortable. As was hopefully evident from the photo I included, it worked, so when I had a whole week at home I was excited to have another go. Not only did I walk successfully across my room for the first time since before BA graduation, I then had a cuddle with my dear dogs - whilst standing up! They were a bit confused, since it's not my usual position, but once they realised what was happening there was joy on all sides.

Rather than me rambling on, though, you can just verify this by watching the short video we captured:

Now the plan is to walk with them across the room - but I think we need a few more desensitising sessions before we attempt that! At the moment I'm just happy that this bit was successful! Hopefully our joy will come through on the video.

Love until next week

Jx

#WordyandWheelyWednesdays: H is for Home...

Hello my lovely readers!

This week I'm at home, for a variety of reasons, so I thought I'd use tonight's #WordyandWheelyWednesdays entry to document some of my favourite things about spending time here. Most of these happen to begin with 'h', so I had an excuse to indulge my penchant for alliteration whilst making this list, too.

Health

When I'm at uni, I'm there to do uni things, which often involves long days spent on campus with little opportunity to get out of my chair. This means I don't always have time to factor my body in - so, when I'm home, I grab the chance to reverse that priority through myriad appointments. Now that I'm twenty-five (!), I'm a lot better at balancing everything than I was as a fresher, but it's still nice to have some dedicated physical top-up time.

Hydro

Hydrotherapy, whilst by no means the most significant of my appointments (since they're all pretty equal!), is the only one I could comfortably fit in my 'h' list. It's also the one that is most difficult for me to do elsewhere, because provision for adults is scarce. So I felt it deserved a mention - particularly because, this week, I've been able to do things in the pool that I haven't done in years. Right now they won't seem huge to most people, so I won't bore you, but I will say that I'm probably going to be swimming independently again very soon.

Heath

I'm very vocal, both in person and in writing on this blog, about my love for Hampstead Heath and how lucky I feel to live so close to it. I won't, therefore, repeat all that - but I will, as a way of breaking up this text-heavy blog post by including a picture. The smile on my face (despite the cold) hopefully sums up my relationship with this glorious green space.

Hounds

On a related note, I love nothing more than to zoom across my beloved Heath with my equally beloved dogs by my side. They are also great for snuggles, as I've written before, which brings me to my final word...

Hugs

I'm not a particularly 'huggy' person, since I can't give them very well myself and feel that other people are then getting the rough end of the deal. However, at home it's different, because my Mama knows how to make sure we both fully participate in the hug - and it's just the most comforting thing. I'm so very lucky.

And now I'm going to snuggle into bed.

Night all!

Jx

 

#WordyandWheelyWednesdays: Helping Hands

Hello my lovely readers!

This week's #WordyandWheelyWednesdays entry is comparatively short - partly because I'm tired and have a lot of work to do, but mostly because I'm writing about a smaller change that has occurred. Smaller, but no less significant. This is in an effort to take stock of just how many things are shifting for me at the moment, on all sorts of levels - because, when faced with the bigger things I've accomplished recently in terms of regaining mobility, there has been a tinge of sadness that I've been without it for so long. 

This doesn't quite make sense to me, and it doesn't sit very well with my predominant positivity (despite the fact that my therapist would probably be thrilled that I seem able to acknowledge negative emotions now without immediately suppressing them). So, in order to remind myself that it's far more fun to look forward than back, I've used the early part of this week to take stock of all the much less grandiose changes occurring, some of which have been germinating for a while.

The first of these gave rise to this post's title, and is as follows: I now have enough stability and mobility in my right hand to safely drive my chair whilst holding (empty) plates or bowls. I know this because I just tried it, in order to take my pasta bowl back to the kitchen, without disturbing Fiona from essay writing. It worked - so she'll hopefully have no idea until she reads this post!

I think I'll tackle washing up soon...! For now, though, it's back to (academic) work.

Love for tonight

Jx

#WordyandWheelyWednesdays: One-person wonder

Hello my lovely readers!

Firstly, hugest thanks for the overwhemingly wonderful response to my extra post on Sunday, regarding my renewed resolution to improve my physicality - the support is very much appreciated.

Secondly, in relation to that, tonight's (much shorter!) post is essentially to document a rather exciting - and speedy - development. One of the main impetuses for my efforts, as mentioned on Sunday, was the difficulties I've experienced in recruiting enough Personal Assistance. These have been compounded by a number of different factors, but one of the most significant is that fact that I have, for the last eight years, required two people to help with all personal care - because that stretches my limited hours allocation even further. It also makes it difficult to organise logistics and can often mean that I have to hold on if I need the loo unexpectedly.

Due to this latter difficulty (which can often cause great discomfort), and spurred on by my independent standing at Wicked over the weekend as well as the increased strength that has been steadily developing in my legs, my lovely Fiona and Lynda suggested that we should try out a one-person transfer - since this is what I do with Mama. 

Cue a controlled experiment in the spaciousness of the bathroom at my Leamington flat, with extra hands on call should they be needed. I am extremely pleased (and relieved!) to say that it worked and, moreover, was safe and comfortable for everyone. Huzzah. There are still elements to fine-tune of course and, for now anyway, this will mostly be a contingency for when there aren't two people around. Nevertheless, this was a huge breakthrough, on many counts - not least that my confidence in my independent abilities has increased enough for it even to be a possibility. 

I was able to trust that my legs could support me without the safety net of someone behind me - and they lived up to that trust!

I haven't got photos because of the delicate nature of what we were attempting (a little British coyness to balance out the frankness of my last post!) but hopefully you'll feel the glee that emanates from my words. This development will increase my independence exponentially, and it's a sign that I'm regaining the ability I had prior to the tumult of mid-adolescence. So, however preliminary these changes might be, they are a cause of great celebration for all of us - I'm on the way to standing up for myself once more, both literally and figuratively!

On that joyous note, having promised you a shorter post, I'm going to sign off.

Love and gratitude as always 

Jx

Beginnings (copyright Jessi Parrott February 2017)