Well, things are heading up, although monday night we definitely didn’t think so.

Monday was uneventful, the Tesco shop arrived and Doreen and kp put it all away. Rachel (OT) came and they discussed kp mood’s and did some exercises to de-sensitise kp’s arm. kp’s left arm is hypersensitive to touch. If I lightly touch it by accident, all hell breaks loose, it’s like I’ve sprayed acid on it, with the reaction I get. We had some lovely Lemon Sole Goujons for tea and kp started to feel sick (unrelated we think). As the night progressed, she felt more and more sick, and before bedtime, she was always a quick grab away from a sick bowl.

We had an early night, thinking that would help things and she had a sick bowl by her bedside. No sooner had we turned the light out, that she shouted…..

kp:- David, get me up !!

I did the normal push out of bed and went alongside her. She already had the sickbowl to hand and then the vomit spewed !! Poor kp. Don’t you just love this detail !! (sorry !) Towards the end of the vomiting, another load came out with “blood” in it. At that point, I was fretting, thinking….”Right, that’s it, we’ll have to go to the hospital”. “Another night in the hospital”, “She’ll have to stay in”, “She’ll hate that”, “It’ll bring her right down”, etc etc…..All these thoughts rushing through my head.

dp:- I think that’s blood love.

She could just make it out in the dim light of the room.

Close to full, I ran for another bowl, and took that in (with some wet wipes), and then took the “blood” filled bowl to the sink in the bathroom. With the light on, the blood looked a bit like ………. BROWN SAUCE !!! (which kp had had on her chips). So, we think it was brown sauce and to be honest, we were both happy to accept that to avoid another hospital trip at that time !

That was the end of the sickness for the week, so bit of a worry but it’s all over.

Tuesday, Syd (Case Manager) came and he had a long chat with Karen. In the afternoon, Doreen took kp to meet up with the physio (Steve) at the local gym. They have a trampoline that doesn’t require you to climb on it which kp had been on before with Steve. Today, she went on and started bouncing (with Steve alongside). As her confidence grew, she started doing it so much that her feet left contact the trampoline. Karen later told me that she was over the moon and had tears in her eyes. She couldn’t believe she had done it. She was so excited when she told me on the night time ! Later in the afternoon, Matt (the speech therapist) came and together they did some trial calls on the phone. kp struggles with speaking to people when they overload her with information. So, we were planning a big trip to the States which involved flights and booking of a motorhome (RV) and as you can imagine it’s quite a tricky thing to book, so together they practiced the phonecall and then did it for real.

Karen preempts the conversation with a little monologue (that I have mentioned before) that sets the expectation of the person on the receiving line to slow things down. Well, every person she phoned, said “No problem” and was very understanding UNTIL it came to actually “being patient”. The sticky point was always when Karen got confused about some information they had said, at which point one of them showed their impatience.

Karen :- It would only take a couple of calls like that, and I would lose the confidence to do it.

Matt agreed. Name and Shame time. TRAILFINDERS, have some patience !!

Matt showed Karen that it may help to have a piece of paper with fields that she can fill in which had been prepared before, but kp got a bit flustered when she used it, and the information was all over the sheet.

Wednesday, the girls (kp, Doreen and Adele) all cleared out the garage. It looks great ! Once that was done, they took the dogs for a walk.

kp is REALLY trying to keep active, because we think her sleep is improving (slightly) the more she is active !

Thursday saw Doreen and kp go to the Metro Centre shopping. As they were parking, Doreen bumped the car. kp was very unnerved by it. Doreen got out to inspect the damage, at which point, with kp still in, the car started moving. Rather than put the handbrake on, kp froze with fear. Not the best start to a shopping trip. Poor kp and poor Doreen (car a bit scratched).

Good news is – kp got your birthday present Dad !! We’ll bring it down next week !

Friday, kp had an appointment in Newcastle. I met kp there. It’s the one I can’t discuss, but suffice to say it went REALLY well ! We both came out feeling quite positive about kp’s wellbeing. Another physio in the afternoon, again at the gym.

We thought kp would be wrecked the following day, but she was still keen to walk the dogs. It was raining, but we still enjoyed a good dog walk, kp’s mood was in ascendance. It was Yvonne’s 50th party on the night time, but we didn’t attend. We didn’t want to risk it going bad, kp isn’t comfortable in big groups like she used to be. Hope you all had a good time. A bit of a scare on Saturday, ‘cos Strike (Marie’s dog) went missing. kp was on tenterhooks the whole day.

And today, we walked the dogs and decided to abandon the big American holiday (later in the year) in favour of some shorter holidays. But, good news about Strike – Freddie found him

So, things are looking up. Karen’s mood outwardly appears fine, but the best way to describe it is that she is “on autopilot”. She describes it as “nothing has meaning for her”, but she would agree that things are definitely better than they were !!