May 3rd 2024

Hiya been a long while again, things have been up and down, no real surprise there though but lost my Aunt and couple of Uncles recently. My Auntie and one of the Uncles were like my second mum and dad, I spent a lot of time round there growing up and in my adult life too. Although my larger family are really close to be fair (more so my dad’s side) maybe because they were from a large family, the big shame is it’s getting smaller the older they get but you could say that at least they all made it past middle age and beyond, especially as some people don’t make it that far in life.

Had a really bad start to the year spent the first four weeks in bed. I think I had what they called the 100 day cough. Trouble with me catching a cough is that every time I cough my pins and needles go mental and also all over my head due to my nerve damage. Which really messes with my head so was unable to get out of bed, even having to go on all fours to get to the en-suite toilet (only mentioned en-suite so you get a idea how little I have to go to get to the toilet from my bed).

It then took a while to feel like trying to get on with life, I think it didn’t help that I withdrew into myself a bit after being stuck looking at the same four walls continuously for that amount of time. I felt quite down, as the weeks went by I started to feel better thanks to the support of my lovely family. I have started trying to keep going to this strength and balance class (don’t always make it). It gives me a reason to go out as well as help me although that’s it for the rest of the day. Have very recently tried another class Chair Yoga on a different day of the week. Only made it once so far, as the first time I went I spent the whole of the next couple of days in bed. I have emailed the instructor to let her know, I’m going to try again so I’ve got another reason to get out whenever I feel up to it but must not try too hard (although anyone looking in would think it is so easy to do, which I’m trying to come to terms with that for me it isn’t). Got to remember just going to the class is an achievement in itself for me.

Have finished with physio and wasn’t quite what I thought was going to happen. To be fair to the physio therapist sometimes I wasn’t up to it and he realised this and was very good with me and was happy in the knowledge this was going to take a long time, hence was only seeing him once every 3 to 4 weeks but the consultant physio therapist I was seeing said he felt good about my progress bearing in mind that I couldn’t do 2 out of the six exercises I was given to do which were very simple to do too. This was because they hurt my back too much to do them and I was only doing 1 set of 5 of the other exercises (form stated 3 sets of 10 reps) and normally staggered through the day so not very good at all. But he said he was happy with me and they couldn’t do anymore for me and signed me off (I see this really - that I was on his list for too long so needed to get me off the records). So I’ll just persevere myself, try do things and push forward accepting help from family and friends, try and accept when I can’t, but attend when I possibly can.

I don’t want to write too much each time (especially as, if I do too much this affects my head too) but I will try to write more often as really have quite a bit to say and maybe I might just get better at constructing this as I do more of it (fingers crossed) 😁. Thanks for reading.