Just a quick note to confirm that Karen found both eyes yesterday with her Mascara brush.

Hot Chicken Day of course, so not in until 10.30am.

Blog comments read out.

Bath.

Bra on – think I have cracked it now. I found out the prices of bras today. If there are any men reading this blog, ask your wives/partners/friends how much they pay for bras, but make sure you’re sitting down first. It’s a lot !! £22 for kp’s sports bra. And apparently, you can get them more expensive. Even Marie, Karen’s sister, who brings in 5 T-Shirts for 4pence everyday said that was about the right price.

Perfect timing for the hot chicken lunch. Lovely. Huge portion of chips today, enough for two sets of chicken sandwiches – Lovely !

We then went out in the sun for a bit, because it was a scorcher of a day. Then we went for a lie-down before physio.

We had about 90 mins.

Physio today was mostly done in standing. Lots of long stands to strengthen kp’s muscles. She had to stand on her right (good) leg and try and lift her left as high as possible. She did well with this and got her foot nearly a foot off the ground. She can’t do the same thing with the left as it is not yet strong enough to support her without a lot of assistance. She has problems keeping the left leg locked. She thinks it’s locked and its not, but gradually she is relearning the position the rest of her body is in and that should reeducate her about what is the feeling when her left knee is locked and her left hip is pushed in.

She did quite a few stands from sitting today. To start off with she just couldn’t lock her left kneed and I was started to get concerned that she may have problems walking as a long term thing, but by the end of the session, it was getting much better. She still hasn’t stood without assistance yet, and I think personally, I need to see that, before I can believe she’ll be ok with her legs.

After the stands, she did “chucking bean bags” practice. As the main man pointed out, this wasn’t to practice chucking bean bags, but more a balancing challenge. She had to maintain her balance when she chucks it.

I stood at lengthening distances from kp and she had to chuck some bean bags to me. If you look closely at the foto below, you will see a red bean bag mid-flight (top of photo)

I then chucked it back and she had to maintain her balance again. She did it no problems. She only dropped one and that was because I had done a poor throw (as one of the physios was keen to point out LOL !

After bean bag chucking, it was walking time. With kp’s right hip agaist the raised bench (for extra balance), she walked about 4 steps.

This photo ^^ shows kp in walking action. The main man (left) sits on a little stool and wraps his feet around kp’s left foot, clamps his knees around kp’s left knee. He makes sure that her left foot moves forward the right amount and makes sure her left knee locks when it needs to. It is very clever to watch.

After the 4th step, kp was absolutely knackered and slumped right back in the wheelchair at the earliest opportunity.

We all laughed.

We have some physio homework for the weekend and it seems we are still on target for a visit home a week tomorrow.

After physio, we went for a cup of tea with Marie, Michelle, Jane and Ronnie and then went to sun ourselves outside. We found a lovely little suntrap and took the photo opportunity that presented itself

Left Top – Marie
Left Bottom – Michelle
Middle Bottom – Ronnie (vdfromboro)
Right – Jane B
Centre – kp