Well, good week overall, with a big dip in the middle.

Monday was a full day of shopping (for Karen and Laura). First, Costco for some pig’s ears, then for the weekly Sainsburys shop. Karen was “done in” by the end of it, but still in high enough spirits to do exercises on her return.

Tuesday is where things started to go awry. Karen had a double physio session booked at Seaham. It needed to be a double, ‘cos the usual thursday physio couldn’t take place ‘cos of the Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) meeting. The idea was that she would have an hour with Steve doing normal physio, before having an hour with Joanne (doing left shoulder loosening and left arm stuff).

I think Steve’s bit went fine, and Joanne set out about doing the usual left-arm stuff, but for some reason, Karen was ultra-hyper-sensitive on her left side. She later told me she was close to tears, but managed to hide this by joking with Joanne….

kp:- “You’re a fraction away from getting a punch”

Whatever it was, and it wasn’t Joanne’s fault, it was too much for Karen’s left side and she couldn’t stand any touching of her left side at all afterwards. This weird sensation lasted until Saturday, and although it’s still not 100%, it’s much improved. But……….at the time, it _REALLY_ brought Karen down; she described it as taking her back in time to nearer the accident.

This bad sensation made her mood tumble and I recall a particularly frosty wednesday morning. Laura had come and together they were going to wrap all the Xmas presents. But, noone could say the right thing, and the atmosphere around the house was awful. Of course, later, Karen felt dead guilty for all of this and texted Laura & Adele to apologise for the atmosphere.

So, Wednesday’s was wrapping presents.

Thursday was the MDT. This was the 6-monthly legal MDT, where our solicitor (and her assistant), the other side’s solicitor (Nicola), and all the professionals involved in Karen’s rehab came to discuss how she was doing.

It went great and it was really positive, and this is all down to Karen and her rehab team. Karen has given her programme 110% and her team have done the same and this was evidenced by the reports they had done, all of which, showed improvement across all areas. Well done everyone and of course kp !!!!!!!!!!!

Normally, Karen bakes some biscuits for the crew, but a bad night (a less common occurrence now) meant that I was on biscuit duty. Karen had bought cakes at Costco, so she had done her part !

So, really positive MDT, and I think this helped set kp in the right direction mood-wise. Certainly it was better than the previous day !

Friday was another good day. Laura (kp’s current support worker) is leaving us shortly. We always knew we didn’t have her for long, but the end came a bit sooner than we thought and had hoped. Luckily, when Karen and Patti interviewed for the last support workers, there were quite a few who would have been good candidates. So, Friday, saw Karen and Patti interview Natalie and it went really well, and she starts in early Jan 09. Karen is very pleased that she is taking the job as she thinks they will get on well and continue the good work Laura has done.

So, that brings us to the weekend. Karen has been gagging to walk the dogs at the weekend. But, bad weather and bad pain have put a stop to this for the last couple of weekends. Not this weekend however, kp managed to come on both dog walks. Her only criticism was that because we were talking so much on the walk, she hadn’t taken in the dogs and her enjoying it.

So, good week overall.

Pain – Generally little, but spiked mid-week with her left-side.
Sleep – Some good sleeps, with bad sleeps being the rarity at the moment
Meds – The same, but coming down shortly

Xmas – next week. We are going to the Middlesboro family on Xmas Eve, but fog is predicted and we are hoping that this won’t be the case when it comes to the day, as kp hates driving in fog. And Xmas Day, to my parents for lunch.

Looking forward to Xmas.

I’ll end with some funnies. These were all recorded while Karen was asleep…..

Well, this first clip isn’t funny, but interesting…..

This is Karen asleep, but in pain.

kpowowowowow

This next one is great to end on…..It always make me laugh when I hear it…..

kplaffingsleep