Before I start I would like to make it clear that this is neither a complaint nor a plea for sympathy it is merely a clarification of where I may have given a wrong impression. Reading back through my blogs it seems as though I have fairly accepted my existence with all the limitations it involves. This is not the case. There are many occasions during the days and weeks when I suffer from frustration and annoyance at the things I cannot do. It is necessary for me to have a number of routines to make sure that things which I have to do get done and, mostly, in the order that they should be done. Sometimes this becomes extremely irritating, especially when I forget a step until later. There are also things which, although I accept that they are essential, are still very annoying. All in all my life is not a level playing field but a series of troughs and peaks.
Having given my talk yesterday (see previous blog, No. 18), which was a great success, I am going to have even more difficulties with my weight control. This is because, in return for my giving a talk, I was presented with a one pound box of Thornton’s milk chocolates. They normally present speakers with a bottle of wine, but thought I would have a problem getting it home. The change was correct, but for a different reason. One of my tablets, one of the most important ones, specifies that I have to avoid alcoholic drink, and that is a tablet which I have to take four times a day. An occasional drink of wine wouldn't work because I have to space out my rare drinks by quite a distance and the wine would go off before I had drunk it. That is the advantage of my one treat, a bottle of ten-year old malt whiskey, it doesn't seem to deteriorate through time.
The firm which provides the carers for putting on my socks and shoes in the morning have been getting a little slapstick with their scheduling of the carers. This reached a peak last Sunday when the carer who should have been scheduled for 8.50am had actually been scheduled for 9.45am. The reason for needing a start at 8.50am is because I have a taxi booked for 10.00am and there is my usual morning routine to fit in before that. On Monday I had a word with the chap who does the scheduling and followed it up with an e-mail - so there is no excuse for him forgetting. In my specified times I have made a small allowance for the fact that carers cannot be expected to arrive spot-on time because of the possibility of their previous call causing the delay. Hopefully things will run properly for a while although I realise that rostering is a difficult task having been in a similar position when I was in the RAF. Then my problem was to provide two police dogs each night, throughout the night, at each of five missile sites. The problem was compounded by the fact that, although the handlers could work a normal eight-hour shift, the dogs were limited to 6 hours per shift and I only had an establishment of 30 dogs.
I have a new wheelchair which is a little unusual in that although it is electric it can be used in the shower. This makes it very much easier for me to get to the shower than was previously the case (when I had to use a walking frame to get to an ordinary shower chair). I am now in the situation where I have four chairs, three of which are electrically operated and the fourth one folds up in case I want to go in a car. The three powered ones each have their specific uses, my normal indoor chair (provided by the National Wheelchair Service), my outdoor one which is the fastest of the three and is used for nearly all my outings and the recent arrival for the shower.
Talking instead of typing seems to let me write more but I think I have probably given you enough for this episode. I also find that, in changing the font to make it easier for me, I have picked a font which differs somewhat from previous ones. I will continue to use this font in future ( Arial 12 point) .
Mike
