Last night, kp was out like a light and I couldn’t help looking at her in bed and thinking “I am so glad you are here, love”. I kept stroking her face. I was up 2 hours just feeling happy. We discussed it in the morning, and kp said she remembered me doing it

Unventful Day.

Big snoozes in the afternoon, nice sits outside in the lovely cool sunshine and a nice tea.

We both had an awful night’s sleep, probably due to excessive snoozing the day before.

Uneventful day really.

Home help lady #1 came round to get kp up. Pretty much as soon as she left, kp and I went back to bed for a snooze until Marie came.

Marie did loads of jobs round the house, she also brought with her some knitting needles and wool for me. I had been pestering her that I wanted to get back into knitting and today she came up trumps. She taught me the pattern for a scarf. It took me ages to crack casting on, even longer to suss the difference between knitting and purling, but I feel I have just about got it. Unfortunately, I can’t turn corners. I can get to the end of a row of the scarf, but can’t seem to start the next row, so it’ll have to wait ’til she comes up next time.

kp has started to comment about the variety of food I am presenting her with each night. I think she is getting sick of “something + chips”. It’s not as if I don’t vary the “something” part of the equation.

She’s threatening me with having to cook veg and do different kinds of potato like mash. Yikes ! All depends if I have time love ! I may be half way across knitting a row !

She’s gassing as I write this.

No doubt we will be going to bed soon – oooooooooooooo, it’s an exciting life we lead ! Knit one, purl one.

kp dropped a bit of a bombshell tonight.

kp:- David, I have something to tell you

Of course, my mind goes into overdrive. She is having an affair. She doesn’t love me. She is in love with her lesbian Lover Ronnie and she is moving down south etc etc…………

kp:- I am having problems swallowing and have been since about a week before I left hospital.

?!!!!!!!?!?!?!??!!

She went on to say……..

kp:- It seems to be getting worse. Like tonight, I have had to close my eyes to get each mouthful down.
dp:- Why didn’t you tell me earlier ?

I was quite annoyed. I don’t like her keeping things from me.

kp:- I think, because if I tell you, it becomes real, and I was hoping it would get better not worse.

As soon as she had told me this, I remembered a choking fit she had had whilst the homehelp lady (#1) was here. I didn’t have to resort to the Heimlick maneuvre, but I did have to nearly slap her into tomorrow from the back to stop her choking.

We are going to contact the consultant from the hospital tomorrow to see what he says.

That aside……….

Usual Snoozy Day. Lovely snooze in the afternoon.

Thanks for all the recipes

That’s it.

Physio today at 9.30am at Chester-le-Street hospital. This means an early rise for both kp and I. I was out with the dogs at 6.30am, and kp had to get up at 7.30am when homehelp lady #1 (HHL1) arrived. Time doesn’t start until 9am in kp’s book and even then that’s early, so 7.30am is EARLY (in capitals).

I braved the room before the home help lady. After 30 seconds, I was brave enough to put the light on and was greeted with this……….

Let’s take a vote………..Do you think she wanted to get out of bed ?

Well, she had to and that was that. I let HHL1 do the honours!

Physio today was good and concentrated on kp’s arm. The lady physio did some strength tests on her arm and then proceeded to see how much dexterity she has for practical jobs.

She asked kp to put some cones on top of each other………

kp needed help with this. Her left elbow tends to stick out more than it should, apparently because her muscles (in her left arm) have moved to a different position due to disuse.

She then tried kp on the sticks. Basically kp had to move a stick from one hole to another. She needed help with this also…..

It was clear kp’s shoulder was too stiff to achieve any of these tasks so she set away trying to find kp’s pressure points and exerting pressure on them to ease the stiffness. It seemed to work a treat. I saw kp’s shoulder go from really stiff (and raised higher than her right), to quite relaxed.

She showed me how to find these pressure points and how to release them a bit. So, that’s my homework for the week (once a day).

Finally, she got kp to try and grab some tiddlywinks between her thumb and finger. kp can do this if she gives the tiddlywink to her left hand from her right hand, but she tends to grip the tiddlywink lower down her forefinger than she normally would, but practice makes perfect.

Karen was given homework for the week and we have a visit next week by the Occupational Therapist (OT) to see how kp does at day to day tasks like ironing etc…

Physio is Friday next week (LATER IN THE DAY I AM PLEASED TO REPORT).

Physio over, we went to Lydia’s for some breakfast and to meet up with her Nan and boyfriend. That’s Lydia’s boyfriend and not her Nan’s. Her Nan is well past it (private joke).

Lydia has 2 of the most beautiful cat’s (Blynn and Persia). Peria is a black persian cat with ginger coloured eyes, and Blynn is another brand of cat (I forget), but is beautiful. I couldn’t take a photo of Persia ‘cos he was too fidgety, but here’s Blynn….

We enjoyed a cracking breakfast and kp braved Lyd’s bannister-less stairs to the loo, with me in front of her and Deborah behind her. She was a bit wary to say the least. Coming down, she was very scared, but again one in front and one behind and the odd “nearly fell”, she made it.

Straight home for a snooze. HHL#1 returned to do 90 mins of housework which was great.

That’s pretty much today.

After a fairly energetic day yesterday, kp was worse for wear today. The steps at Lydia’s had taken their toll on kp and she was much stiffer than usual and in quite a bit of discomfort.

HHL#1 arrived and got kp up and dressed. She stayed for a cup of tea before kp and I started on her homework. She has been given various exercises to do to keep her left shoulder relaxed.

We sat her in a comfy chair and then thought……….

“Right, what were the exercises we had to do………”

For a couple of minutes neither of us had a clue what she should be doing, although kp could remember the “pressure point” massage that I was supposed to do.

Anyway, they came back after a while.

One of the things we were supposed to do was to try and desensitive kp’s left hand by letting it experience different textures.

The reason behind this is Karen can’t do one of the exercises because it involves her holding her aluminium walking stick in her left hand and it is painfully cold to Karen, so much so, she felt it was burning her with cold and couldn’t hold it.

So, I went on a trip around the house and came back with
Sandpaper
Hammer (cold metal end)
A set of rawplugs
20 long (cold) nails
Some fake fur
Draught Excluder foam

You’d think I was going to do a Blue Peter, and turn it into some Hellraiser puppet or something.

One by one, I presented each item to kp’s right hand (first) so she knows what it should feel like, and then to her left hand.

She hated the hammer (same burning sensation as the stick) and the rawplugs.
She didn’t mind the rest and loved the fake fur.

This over, we started on the walking stick exercise with a little solution (that both kp and I hadn’t thought of) suggested by the Physio…….

(Note the tea towel under her left hand)

The idea of this exercise is kp tries to lift the stick with her right and left hands/arms equally. Invariably, the right arm leads the way. She needs to be told constantly to straighten her left elbow, but it is definately improving a little bit on previous days/weeks.

Lots more exercises of different types and then I did the “relief of the pressure points” thing that she really likes. It hurts her, but the after effect is really appreciated.

Homework over, we went into town to pick Marie up and get some shopping for the weekend ahead. Marie is staying tonight, Tracy and Margaret are coming to stay for the weekend.

So, we should have some good nights ahead.

I took a photo of kp doing her “lift the stick” in the air

Early start today for me. I had to be at the airport for 8.25am to pick Tracey up so got up at 6.15am to walk the dogs.

Marie had stayed over so she got the house ready for visitors while kp slept in until HHL#1 arrived.

kp was still stiff this morning, but after an hour or so of being up, she was a bit looser.

I went for a 3 hour snooze while all the ladies caught up on the gossip. We had a nice afternoon with Marge, Freddy and Michelle when they eventually got here. (They got lost).

We watched kp’s 18 min homecoming video and there weren’t many dry eyes in the house.

kp has had a really good day so far, and very kindly, Tracey (who has been up since 5am) and Marge (Tracey’s mam) are cooking tea !!

We had a lovely night tonight and didn’t get to bed until about 11.30pm. Tracy and Madge had done a lovely dinner for Karen and I (Fillet Steak and Chips).

Tracy is a bit wary of the dogs and is a bit anxious about getting up to the loo in the middle of the night. So, Karen and I suggested she could borrow some of kp’s commode like items.

Here is Tracey with bedpan, commode pot and female urinal. We like to keep out guests happy at the Pollard household

kp up at 10am when HHL#1 arrived, back to sleep by 12pm after a breakfast cooked by the girls.

Didn’t get back up until 4.30pm !

The ladies (Tracey and Marge) have been preparing meals for kp and I that are to be frozen and reanimated in the oven. They have also done loads of housework. Bloody stars the pair of them.

We all had a good night watching the usual Saturday Night entertainment !

That’s it for today

Karen’s New Tricks

I forgot to mention some achievements that kp has been dead chuffed about over the last couple of weeks.

About 2 weeks ago, she mentioned trick #1

She could wash her right hand with her left hand. She was keen to demonstrate it. I looked on. She was basically opening her left hand whilst rubbing her right hand around her left hand. It was a little sad to see, but the fact she is thinking about using it more (without prompting) is excellent.

Last night………..she announced that she could pull her right sleeve up her arm with her left hand. She basically used her left finger to hook the sleeve and 50% of the movement was her left hand holding the sleeve so it couldn’t move, and the other 50% was kp moving her right arm in the direction so her sleeve would go up.

It’s all things she couldn’t do a few weeks ago…….I am very pleased she is so chuffed at her new achievements.

Lovely day today. I walked the dogs in the freezing sleet this morning and by the time I had come back HHL#1 had got kp up, washed down and sitting having a cup of tea in the front room.

It was lovely to see her looking out at me as I walked the dogs past the window. She was lovely, warm and cosy and I was dripping and cold

I treat the girls to a cooked breakfast this morning. Tracey (on a diet) had something that looked like cardboard. It didn’t look quite as nice as our Bacon and Eggs

After our late breakfast, kp went back to bed until teatime when it was my treat again – Roast Chicken and all the trimmings. It was lovely not have to wash up

We have had a nice evening together and the weekend has gone all too fast. Tracey and Marge fly to Southampton early tomorrow morning. It was lovely having them, really lovely. It was a real bonus that they did loads of jobs while they were here also – thanks Ladies !!

Look forward to your January visit.

Mixed bag of a day today.

kp had said goodbye to the ladies last night and I dropped them off at the airport this morning.

After walking the dogs in the snow, I let the home help lady #1 (HHL#1) in to get kp up and we all had a nice breakfast cuppa in the lovely warm living room

Then for a snooze. kp had barely been up an hour. We had a couple of hours.

After the snooze, I made us both a cup of tea. Tracey had left some of her fruity teas so I decided to have a cup of mango and cinnamon tea. Mango and Cinnamon tea is bright red in colour !

When both teas were ready, I took them both in to the front room, but was met halfway there by Karen walking in the other direction. Well I sh+t a brick !! The red tea went up in the air and I uttered a few expletives to karen’s surprise.

Normally, it takes so much effort for kp to get out of a chair, she normally waits for me to get her up. So, I REALLY wasn’t expecting to meet anyone in the hall. The red tea that I thought would have really stained the carpet was actually easy to get out.

Geraldine, our next door neighbour but one, popped round to see Karen. We had a lovely chat with her and she kindly brought some wine round

After the tea and when Geraldine had gone home, we had a natter. kp is getting a bit concerned at the amount of sleeping she is doing and I am starting to think it may be a bit too much sleep as well. So after the snooze we had a chat about it and we are going to stop the tamazepam (sleeping tablet) to see how she fares.

Later in the afternoon, kp went to check her emails and we went to confirm some flights for holidays next year. One of the websites for the flights was asking what level of assistance we needed to get on the plane.

“Do you need a wheelchair to the plane steps, but can then board the aircraft yourself via the steps ?”

“Do you need a wheelchair to the plane steps, and need assistance boarding the aircraft”

“Do you need your wheelchair to be hoisted into the aircraft ?”

The wording was a little more professional, but as I read these out to Karen, she started crying. I am welling up now thinking of her getting upset. The tears got worse and worse.

dp:- “What’s wrong love ?”
kp:- “I don’t know”

I left it for a bit and just hugged her as the tears got worse.

kp:- “I don’t want to be in a wheelchair. And I can’t take everything in !”

Basically, she is obviously realising more and more about her predicament, but I think what got to her more was the fact that she couldn’t take in all the flight information. I was perhaps reading out the wheelchair options at my normal speed but obviously too fast for kp to comprehend. Even when I repeated them, it just wasn’t sinking in. I felt so sorry for her.

She just isn’t as fast as she used to be at times and this is very sad for her (and me) ‘cos she knows how much more switched on she used to be.

I tried to distract her for the rest of the day but I know she is still not 100% in her head, far from it.

Let’s see what tomorrow brings………

We have lined up a nice meal with Mum and Dad (their treat) with Tommy and Eileen for Friday, and we have a busy Wed, Thurs and Fri day as well, so hopefully this week won’t be as bad as today.

As always, fingers crossed !

First night with out Tamazepam and it didn’t go too well. According to Karen, she hadn’t slept at all. I have learned not to take this literally and normally it means she has had a bad night’s sleep. She has said this a few times, and I have caught her snoring her little head off.

Her first question to me when i woke her up to give her her tablets was “Was I snoring ?”.

When I said, “I don’t think so”, she then responded “I haven’t slept a wink”

I think it will take her body a while to get the Tamazepam out of her system. We are going to persevere.

HHL#2 arrived (HHL#1 is on her day off) to get kp ready to meet the world.

Whilst she was here, all hell broke lose. The postman arrived setting the dogs into “frenzy” mode. The HandyVan came with two what-seemed-like 80 year olds who had come to fix a KeySafe to our wall. The Keysafe allows the home help ladies to get in to the house without me being there. Jane Burns phoned to see how kp was and all of this occurred within seconds of each other. kp was oblivious to it all with HHL#2 drying her hair at the time.

Marie texted us during breakfast to let us know she was coming for the afternoon. kp had offered to take her for some beauty treatment. Pretty much as soon as Marie arrived, she was whisked out to the beauty salon. kp wanted some facial feature tinting, something waxing and something plucking. I can’t remember which was which, but she came back fluttering her eyelashes and looking longingly at me (as a joke). She can be such a temptress !

The other day I was knitting on my scarf project (I have done about 1 inch of the scarf) and according to Tracy I was knitting too tight. Well, I didn’t see the problem with this until moments later, when one of Marie’s knitting needles splintered and shot itself all over our living room in many pieces.

I had called the “new needle” hotline (Marie) and she came up trumps today with new needles. METAL ONES !

Thanks Marie.

I am in the process of writing Days 2 to 12 of the blog which are very sparse. Marie and I sat down and collated our notes of the first 2 weeks and then it was time for her to leave on the bus to Middlesbrough.

Tonight is Lasagne and Chips. Last night was Lasagne, Salad and Garlic Bread…..GARLIC…………….BRREEAAADDD……………….. (Peter Kay fans will know what I mean).

Shaving Legs day today. Since kp has left hospital, we have got out of the routine we had whereby every Monday we would shave her legs and pits. She has been out 2+ weeks now, and we hadn’t shaved her legs in that time and although her legs weren’t quite as hairy as mine, they weren’t far off.

So, today, we shaved legs and pits. I offered a free Brazilian whilst I was on my hands and knees but she wasn’t the least bit interested.

Adele arrived about lunchtime to help us with the cleaning. I nipped out to the vet to pick up a prescription for Cleo who has arthritis. They wouldn’t give the prescription on the day Cleo got re-examined because he “didn’t have time to write it out”. I had took with me a pre-printed prescription that just needed signing and he wouldn’t even sign that. What a fart on. So I had to go back today. The vet effectively charged a fee for the prescription (which they are not supposed to do). I was there 10 minutes arguing my case, but he wouldn’t have it. Clearly they want to provide the drugs as well as the veterinary service to make more money.

When I got back to the house, the telephone engineer was there to try and fix a fault we have with our phone line. As soon as he had gone, I wrote a letter of complaint to to the practice owner. Fingers crossed they see sense.

kp went for a snooze about 2pm whilst I was writing the letter. I joined her about 3pm and we both snoozed until 5.30pm. Lovely snooze !

Eileen (next door neighbour) rang to say she had baked some pies (Corned Beef) and did we want one for tea. I was straight round !

In preparing the veg, I came across a potato in the shape of a loveheart

I showed kp………who didn’t seem too impressed.

She liked the pie though.

When i saw the potato shaped like a love heart, I did a bit of rearranging of veg to drop some hints to kp about nocturnal activities.

She wasn’t impressed. Here’s her “Get outta here look”………

The pie was lovely Eileen thanks !

CLICK HERE for December’s Chapter

I was wide awake at 4.30am listening to kp snoring her little head off. I got up at 6am to walk the dogs and have some brekky.

I took the opportunity of an early rise to review our finances. In examining bank statements I came across £37.50 going out every month since January. I had NO IDEA what it was. I managed to trace the company who was charging us this and got them on the phone to explain what it was. They would only speak to Mrs Pollard. It was 9am, kp was fast asleep, but I was keen to find out what it was.

dp:- Karen, can you speak to this lady ? It’s about some money that leaves our bank every month.
kp (in full earshot of the woman) :- Do I have to ?
dp:- Please

Well, it took a few sentences before kp woke up. But we tracked the item down to my relief at the cost of an irate kp.

The Occupational Therapist visited today with a student onlooker. It was just a discussion today to discuss what kp wants to achieve. First real session is next week.

That’s it for today.

For the first time today, the home help lady let herself in the house by way of the keysafe. I was washing the dogs down at the time.

As soon as breakfast was over, we were on the way to physio. We used the blue badge for the first time today. We had been using my improvised version uptil today.

Physio today was good. kp explained to the physio that she had been suffering from a lot of pain this week and was especially stiff around the neck. The pain was because one of her patches was duff. The physio went to get some product from her native country (Anti-flamme) and started massaging it into kp’s neck for about 10 minutes. It is a bit like Deep Heat but smells of peppermint and has a cooling/heating effect apparently ?!

It did the trick and kp was feeling a lot better. The physio suggested that kp may benefit from some light massage sessions, so that is something we will try and sort out.

With kp’s neck a lot looser, kp laid down on the bench and the physio worked her left arm to see the range of movement.

kp could get it farther than I have seen her do it with me.

After doing a few exercises with her left arm, kp sat upright and the physio got a cup and got kp to practice bringing it to her mouth with her left hand and attempting to tilt it as if there was some drink in there. She did very well. If there were any liquid in there, it wouldn’t have made it to her mouth and would have adorned her t-shirt, but the fact she can get it so high is an improvement. She needs to work on the strength and the control somewhat, but it’s a start.

Physio over, we went home and kp snoozed from 1.30pm until 4.45pm.

We went for a meal tonight with Tommy & Eileen and my mum and dad. It was a lovely meal and even better it was Mum/Dad’s treat. The “free” meals always taste better to me. Even better, it was the “Pump House” in Durham and they do lovely food. I was too full as was kp.

Straight home to bed.

Thanks Mum and Dad – it was lovely. Thanks Tommy and Eileen for coming and providing the chauffeur service.

Well, let me start with something funny that happened yesterday. Karen is trying to use her left arm/hand as much as she can to try and encourage it to work more. For example, she will hold her toothbrush in her left hand, whilst putting paste on with the right. She will try and hold toilet roll in the left while breaking some off with the right.

So, she had been to the loo and I had come out of the loo before her. When I turned round I was greeted with a very funny sight. Karen was walking out of the loo trailing toilet paper from her left hand going all the way back to the toilet roll dispenser (JUST LIKE THE ANDREX PUP). She had forgot to release the toilet paper from her left hand and it was gripped by her thumb and forefinger. We both had a good laugh about it. It is very strange that she can’t feel that she is still holding toilet paper, but yet she can feel cold metals against her left hand as painful.

Today was a very rushed morning. After our lovely meal last night, we both lay in until 10:05am. I walked the dogs and got back just in time for the Tesco van arriving with the shopping, then Sue and Gary (kp’s workmate and partner/husband (strike as applicable)) arrived for a visit with some lovely flowers.

We had a nice chat with them. They left and Marie arrived very flustered about the previous evening’s events (complicated). I took both ladies to the hairdressers to be beautified. Surprisingly it only took 90 mins !

2 new hairstyles later, they emerged………..

They had both had a relaxing time.

That’s it for today. Tonight will be X Factor, Strictly Come Dancing and Pizza………

Another lie-in enjoyed by both of us. kp didn’t take a sleeping tablet and had an excellent night’s sleep. Even she said so !

Before I walked the dogs, I set away our slow cooker with 2 Lamb Shanks in (recipe provided by my sister, thanks Jane), plus shallots, onions, carrots + mushrooms. It smells nice.

Very uneventful day apart from that. kp got up at 10.30am and was back in bed (after breakfast) until 6pm, although she only slept for 3-4 hours.

That’s our Sunday !

dp

kp took a sleeping tablet last night. After sleeping so long yesterday, she felt she wouldn’t sleep at all. She woke up saying how badly she had slept despite the Tamazepam.

Physio today, and the Home Help lady was running late, so I showered kp, got her dressed and her hair dried and styled. I don’t like the new style – it requires too much “hairdressing”. kp kept assuring me how easy it was, and kept putting her hand in her hair and “whisking the hair” to try and get some at the back to stand up. It didn’t work. Time meant we couldn’t try again.

Physio today involved working kp’s left arm and doing some walking skills.

The physio lady started working kp’s left arm. She is trying to get kp to extend her left arm without pushing her elbow in the air, which is her tendency at the moment. So, she got a beanbag on a table and kp had to move the beanbag up and down the table, without it going out of alignment. To aid this, she put a walking stick on the left hand side and kp wasn’t allowed to move the walking stick. It took quite a while for kp to crack this, and although she could do it by the end, it still required ALL her attention. One of the weirdest things (as an onlooker) as how totally focussed kp’s eyes are on the beanbag and her hand. She obviously doesn’t feel where her left arm/hand is going and so has to employ lots of eye/hand coordination to get it to work.

After she had done this successfully a couple of times, it was time for some walking skills. Before this, the physio tested the strength of kp’s hips. She got her to lie on her side and see how far she could raise each knee.

From this, the physio could tell kp’s left hip was substantially weakened from the stroke, but the right hip was worse, no doubt from the hip breakages/issues.

She went on to explain the importance of the hip muscles for walking. Weak hips basically mean that, every step, your hip can’t support itself and falls on the leg, meaning the next step is harder. This is how kp walks all the time and probably part of the reason for her being a slow walker.

In order for kp to walk more normally, the physio advised she is really going to have to do some hip exercises.

This over, she wanted to see how strong kp’s left (stroke side) knee was at standing between steps. So, she rolled kp’s trousers up past her knees and got kp to walk up the room. I would have loved to grab a photo of that, but the pair of them are basically ganging up against the photographer and stopping it happening

She looked like Andy Cap on the beach paddling.

Physio over, we were both longing to go to bed. Me, ‘cos I am feeling a bit “under the weather” at the moment (Sore Throat, arrrrrrrrrrrrr) and kp ‘cos of the bad sleep. So, with not wanting to waste any time on cooking, we got a chip butty on the way home, and then went to sleep for 3-4 horus. It was lovely. I was well gone, and woke up to find my mouth was open and that I had been dribbling all over the pillow. How lovely !

Time to get kp up now……….That’s it for today.

Cracking Day today.

Last night we enjoyed the last “I am a Celebrity”, before both of us benefitted from a really good sleep ! She only had to nudge me once for snoring which means either I didn’t snore much (unlikely) or she had a really good sleep (much more likely).

Today was “Massage” day. Diana Baker, a friend of ours, is a qualified masseuse and she came round to give Karen, Marie and I a massage.

We had a ball. Marie was first and opted for a back and neck massage. She came out feeling fantastic.

I was next. I remember thinking (last time Diane gave me a massage), let her tell me what I need. Diane had been reading the blog and before I even had time to tell her my ailments she suggested a “full body” massage. Spot on. It REALLLLLY did the trick. I came out feeling as light as a feather and really good in myself. I also wanted to have the Hopi Ear Candles, because last time they had got loads of wax out of my ears. They are very relaxing. She basically sticks a special candle in each ear (NOT AT THE SAME TIME), and as it burns it sucks out all the gunge. It sounds very relaxing (like you’re by a log fire). Highly recommended !

Then it was Karen’s turn. Karen had instructions that it shouldn’t be a deep tissue massage, but she didn’t need to tell Diane as she had done her homework on the website and already had in mind what she was going to do.

She gave Karen a back, neck, head and hand massage to die for. Diane had me read out a relaxing passage from a book. I managed to keep a straight face and not spoil kp’s pamper time. Karen really enjoyed it. We all had such a lovely afternoon. Karen definately deserved it, as did Marie (come to think of it). Actually so did I. Yeah !

Here’s a picture of Diane and Karen :-

Karen’s hair is a mess because of the massage btw. If it’s not a mess, then ignore this comment.

If you want a piece of heaven, you can call Diane Baker on 07884021677. Click on her name to see her website which details more of the kind of things she can do.

No snoozes today, apart from being VERY relaxed during the massage. So, we should both sleep tonight.

That’s it for today.

Wow, what a sleep. Both of us were fast asleep by 10.30am and neither of woke up until 10am !! Just spoken to Marie, and for the first time in a long time, she had a cracking sleep. We are putting it down to the massage yesterday. Diane did say something about it ridding our body of toxins.

So a 10am start meant I had lied in and not gotten the dogs out of the house before the OT arrived with her student aide. So their knocking woke us all up when the dogs went berserk.

The idea of the OT coming today was to help kp learn techniques to get showered, dried, dressed etc…. with the use of only one arm.

Unfortunately, today of all days, we had no water pressure (due to mains works in the street), so the training session had to be limited to getting dressed.

Rescheduled for next Tuesday.

After I got back from dogwalking, we had a breakfast, but both of us felt tired still, so we went back to sleep. kp is still there now (3.30pm).

First of all, a funny couple of incidents from yesterday.

During the OT visit, kp had learned a few moves to assist her in trying to get clothes on herself. When she was putting her nighty on, she insisted I didn’t say a word while she put her nighty top on.

So, she started putting her nighty on, but I could see straight away that she had got it positioned back to front, before even trying to get it on………..

dp:- Can I just………..
kp:- Don’t say ANYTHING, just watch
dp:- but………..
kp:- You can say things afterwards.
dp:- k……..

So, i watched…………..

It was a bit like watching an escapology act in reverse. She did manage to get both arms in and the thing pulled down which was definately a new trick.

kp:- Now, you can speak
dp:- It’s back to front.

We both had a good laugh.

So, she started again.

This time we made sure it was the right way round. Normally, I put the weak arm in first (as it is harder to get in afterwards), but kp did it the other way. I didn’t say anything, thinking she knew a trick the OT had told her about.

Well, she did her escapology thing, and did a nice maneuvre which VERY nearly got her left arm in the armhole of the nighty. Karen obviously thought she HAD got it in, and carried on. A few seconds later…………..

kp:- There !

She had her nighty on 90% perfectly, except her left arm was inside the nighty with her hand hanging out of the bottom of the nighty (not through the arm hole at all).

I couldn’t help but laugh, and as I did so, I showed her where her left arm/hand was. She was in stitches.

Things like this could be so sad, but we have really learned to laugh about them. It works for us.

Last night was awful for both of us. Karen had slept so much during the day, she couldn’t sleep. I am a bit under the weather still (achy/painy/chesty coughy/nose drippy), and so was very unsettled. We tossed and turned for ages. According to Karen, as soon as I got settled and fell asleep, I was snoring, and she would wake me up. When kp fell asleep, I would be tossing and turning and would wake her up.

I just remember a night of being woken up by Karen every hour (for snoring). So, by 6am, we had had enough and I went to sleep in a different room, leaving her a phone in case she had problems. I was gone until 10am when HHL#1 came. SO was kp !

Today, we had a visit from a lady who has installed a Mobile Warden System. Basically, kp wears a pendant round her neck and if she falls (and I am not here), she pushes the pendant and she can speak to the Warden who will come round. One of our worries, is when I eventually go back to work, and kp falls without a phone on her, she will be well and truly buggered, so this way, she can push the button. It costs 4GBP a week, but is money well spent for the peace of mind in our opinion.

Once the warden lady left, I took kp to the doctors. She has been having quite a bit of pain during the night and wanted more pain medication. He has upped the Fentanyl dosage to 100mg. She was originally on 100mg. We’ll see how that goes.

I got up at the crack of dawn to walk the dogs. It was that nice feeling of “I’ve had my sleep”.

As soon as HHL#1 arrived, I went to Costco to get the Christmas shopping in. We were both going to go if kp woke up earlier, but she slept in, so we wouldn’t have had time to Costco shop at Karen’s pace with Deborah visiting us in the afternoon.

Whilst I was away, Karen received some flowers from an old friend of mine (Adam Brockbank) and his family. I had COMPLETELY forgot to let him know about kp’s accident. Sorry Adam + co !

Thanks for the flowers – they were lovely.

I took a photo of the flowers for the blog, but a photo of flowers on their own doesn’t seem that interesting, so I asked Karen to stand next to them for the second shot.

After the shop, I went for a snooze and completely missed Deborah’s visit, which I was well miffed at, as I had been looking forward to it for days

kp and Deborah had a nice chinwag apparently.

Soon after Deborah left, Marie and Abbie arrived. They are stopping the night. We have been making Christmas Calendars. My first thoughts were “oh, bugger, I have to make Xmas Calendars”, but then once you start, you just want to make another one ! Here is Abby with the finished products.

Marie (the swot) did 2 !! Hers are on the right. Abbie did 1 (top left) and I did 1 (bottom left). Karen advised whilst practising her arm extension exercises.

Abbie and Marie were up early. Abbie amused herself drawing whilst Marie did some housework (thanks Marie !).

Marie did a fryup for us all, which was lovely. She even cut the fat off the bacon – a real cook !! Once Marie and Abbie had left, kp and I went for a new toaster (our old one kept blowing the house circuit, leaving us powerless). We didn’t take the wheelchair (FOR THE FIRST TIME !). It was just, me, kp + stick, and although she was very slow, she did the whole thing without the wheelchair.

It’s quite good having someone disabled with you actually, ‘cos I can whip out the disabled badge and park right next to the shop. And if anyone’s in the way, you can just shout “Excuse me, Disabled person coming through”.

Well, you can shout “Excuse me” and let them see kp’s slow walk and they get the drift.

We got our toaster and because of Marie’s big mouth, we had to get a George Foreman Grill. Although the man in the shop looked a bit confused when I asked him where his “George Formby” grills were. kp laughed.

Once home, we both had a snooze until the evening’s entertainment commenced. We thoroughly enjoyed our Saturday night.

kp had her new 100mg Fentanol Patch on yesterday lunchtime and her Saturday night sleep was excellent. She can definately feel the benefit. So, I think she will be staying on the 100mg Patches.

Uneventful day

kp had a snooze in the afternoon and we had braising steak for tea. Going to watch the Royal Variety Show tonight.

kp’s patch is working well and she feels a lot less pain, at the expense of tiredness !

I got a bit tipsy last night (ahem !). I started drinking red wine whilst flying a plane full of people from Plymouth to Gatwick in Microsoft’s Flight Simulator. It’s a 75 minute flight and I kept drinking glass after glass of red wine. Suffice to say, I got through 2 bottles by the time I got to Glasgow, and I have no recollection of landing the plane at all, but do remember it breaking up in midair because I was descending too fast. So, a lovely night for me, but I have 50 passengers who are well miffed they are dead.

There is another person who wasn’t too keen on me last night. You can guess who ! Apparently, I get very rough when I am tipsy/drunk. So, no doubt when I was getting her nighty on, I would have whipped things off her very harshly, although to me, it would have felt like a dainty touch !

So, this morning, when I woke up, I felt a bit like I may be in for a slap or 2 from kp. But, despite worrying that I was going to get it, kp was ok with my “carrying on”.

Physio was at 11.30am this morning. kp had done her homework religiously, and the physio could tell her hip muscle strength had increased which was good

She got kp to do her “raise the walking stick” exercise on the bed. Note the paper towel under her left hand, without which she feels the stick is burning her (with cold).

She did very well, and got it further than on her first attempts.

She also got her to practice moving a beanbag on a table without hooking her left arm in to her chest as she tends to do. Again, with a few tweaks, she did very well !

So, overall a very good physio session. We then went to Adele’s for a cup of tea and a MacDonalds.

And then went on to Marie’s to set her new computer up so she can access t’internet.

Marie has got all her Xmas decorations up and kp couldn’t resist putting on a xmas party hat.

No snooze for kp today. And she made a toilet trip at both Adele and Marie’s so she was knackered and I have no doubt tomorrow, she will pay for a very full day today.

Good Day though !

kp paid the price for 2 flights of stairs yesterday and was in a lot of pain last night and today. It started as soon as she got out of the car yesterday

She got up just before the Occupational Therapist arrived. She gave her a few tips on getting changed and drying hair etc… Seemed to go ok. I was out walking the dogs at the time.

kp did loads of Xmas cards today, whilst I took the vets saga to the next level, writing to Trading Standards, Local Paper, BBC Watchdog and the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. What a fart on that was. My next plan of attack if I don’t get any joy is to visit their waiting room and hand out leaflets to all their customers showing them how they can get veterinary medication for cheaper than the vets do it.

Just as we had finished all our letters, Ronnie arrived from London, and Jane had just arrived as I type this blog, so we should have a fun night tonight.

Busy day today, but very enjoyable.

Before I forget, I presented Karen with her Xmas present yesterday, a little early, but we are away for Xmas at my mum and dad’s, so wouldn’t get time for a present exchange. She said she liked it, but I have since found out she was being polite. My thoughts were along the lines of “What do you get someone who has problems putting on their own shoes ?”. A shoehorn, but it’s for Xmas, it has to be a good shoehorn. How about a brass shoehorn ?

Well, I was thrilled with it, and thought kp would be, but as soon as Ronnie and Jane arrived yesterday they started taking the Michael out of my present.

The girls have reeducated me on buying lady’s Xmas presents and I have done some last minute shopping along their suggestions, so fingers crossed.

This morning, we had a visit from the Mobile Care Warden who came to check kp was ok. We totally misunderstood who she was, as we were expecting the Social Worker and someone from the Care department. Pretty much as soon as she left, the 2 people we were expecting arrived and discussed kp’s care options.

Getting her in a Care Home isn’t one of them – I live in hope !

With them gone, we had a lovely fryup courtesy of Jane and Ronnie.

To thank Ronnie and Jane for their support during Karen’s last 8 months, we had arranged for our friend Diane Baker (Masseuse extraordinaire) to come and do her stuff. Even Adele popped up for a massage. It was wonderful as ever.

We treat Jane and Ronnie to half an hour each. Jane was in there nearly 90 minutes !!!!

Karen wanted to have a much deeper massage this week. We had practiced (on our bed) seeing if Karen could get on her front. It took a great deal of maneuvering but we managed it, so the plan was for kp to get on her front on Diane’s massage table. Well, I knew I would be needed so hung around, but we just couldn’t even get kp on the massage table. She couldn’t lift her hips/bum to get her bum on. So I had to get the step ladders so she could use the first step to get her bum on the table. Eventually, we managed it.

kp loved her massage and we think she fell asleep half way through. No surprise, given she was up until 1am with Jane and Ronnie.

We all had a thoroughly enjoyable session with Diane. She even had a cup of tea with us and asked us “who snored ?”. There was a mass pointing of fingers at each other. She then proceeded to tell us a way of stopping snoring, massaging a certain part of the foot.

She massaged this area on all the snorers. I am too much of a gentleman to name the snorers. Actually, bugger that, in order of volume, Jane, Karen, David and Ronnie. So, we’ll know tomorrow how well it’s worked. Watch this space.

Diane explained how her massage (on all of us) will expel all the toxins, and that tonight we should be very wary of drinking alcohol (as that is a form of toxin). So, we have all been sat down thinking about this, and we have decided that eating fruit should be ok. And wine is only fermented fruit. I can drink my cider because it’s only fermented apples. Jane has brought some Advocaat to make Snowballs and get us in the festive spirit. Advocaat is mostly eggs and milk (according to the label). (Well, 17.1% alcohol as well, but that was in smaller ink, so can’t be as important). So, Diane if you are reading this, we are sure you’ll agree that our planned fruit night should go ahead !

Karen has been asleep since her massage. Ronnie has cooked us Spag Bol and it smells lovely, so it’s time to wake the beast, I mean, the wife.

I went to bed about midnight amd Karen (the dirty stopout) rolled in to bed at 3am !!!! Ronnie and Jane are definately bad influences.

kp felt like it was the middle of the night when HHL#1 came to get her up at 10.30am. I got a neat little tablet box (off Ebay) for kp and it takes a week’s worth medication, but today was fill-up day. So, I filled this up as the girls gossipped. Here is a picture of kp’s medication for a week (bar the patches)……..

Jane did us a lovely fryup (again), Ronnie assisted, I washed up.

Getting up was the highlight of the day really, as no sooner had Jane gone back to work, kp and I were snoozing in bed, Ronnie was jobbing on. Ronnie got on the 6.22pm train back to London and kp is watching “Deal or No Deal”.

Bad day today. kp’s fentanol patch was due to be changed today, and she really could tell – she was in a lot of pain. I gave her the patch early, but it was a duff patch, and wouldn’t stick properly, so I had to get another one, as she didn’t want there to be ANY risk of the pain relief not working.

Everything was an effort. We had an invite to Abbie’s Nativity Play over in Middlesbrough and I knew she was only going because she didn’t want to let Abbie down.

She knew she would need to go to the loo at some point whilst at Adele’s (before the play) and was worrying in the car about the steps to the loo at Adele’s. This led her on to worry about the steps at my parent’s (for our Xmas trip). She really doesn’t like steps. Thank God for bungalows !!

The nativity play was a hoot, and really took kp’s mind off things. Both kp and I got the giggles during the entertainment, and we were both struggling not to burst out laughing. I’ll set the scene. Year 4 students came on from the music class to perform 2 songs on the recorder. Well, these students knew ONLY 2 notes. And they used one note in one song, and the other in the other song. How is this possible, I sense you are asking. They had a backing track, and in one song, they tooted along to the track with one note, and in the other they changed their grip to too along with another note.

It was funny at the time.

Abbie was an angel in the Nativity, pictured here (tallest angel)……….

(Click on the photo to see it blown up, sorry about the blur)

The nativity over, we had some mince pies and coffee, provided by the school

We took everyone back to Adele’s where we stayed for a cup of tea, but I could tell Karen wasn’t 100%. On the way home, she returned a call from the National Blood Service Personnel department, and I could tell she was getting frustrated. She really struggles to take things in since the accident. She hadn’t grasped the meaning of the conversation and I had to ring a work colleague (who had had the same conversation with Personnel) to find out what it was all about

We had a few tears when we got home. Things are getting on top of her – the pain, the confusion in conversations etc… We had a good talk, and we are going to talk more tomorrow. She is using distraction (Deal or No Deal) to pass the time until tea is ready. (Tracy and Marge’s Shepherds Pie).

So, overall, a bad day, with some fun in the middle

kp was feeling a little better (both mentally and physically) when she woke up this morning. I think she appreciated a day with no plans. At the same time, I am wary of these days as they can be the worst days (as she has time to think about her situation) , but today she needed a day off.

She had breakfast and then her aches and pains were telling her to stop moving, so she went to bed from 12pm until 3pm. I got her up for a cup of tea, and then we both went for a snooze until 5.30pm.

It’s the big night tonight ———– Strictly Come Dancing (Finale) and X Factor (Finale). Should be good !

kp had a better night last night and felt a bit less achy/painy today (to start off with).

We had breakfast and then Eileen came round with her grandkids who were full of energy and wanted to play whichever computer game the other one was playing. When they had left, we packed all the presents up for family members. We didn’t do wrapping this year, so don’t expect wrapped presents.

By this time, kp had been up and down a bit and was feeling like she didn’t want to move for the rest of the day, so went to bed from 3pm until 6pm. She probably slept half of that.

Roast Chicken tonight, Cabbage, Parsnips, Carrots, Leeks and Broccoli, Sage and Onion Stuffing with sausagemeat, Roast Potatoes, Yorkshire Puddings and a Partridge in a Pear Tree. 2.6kg Chicken should just be enough for the 2 of us. I know 3 animals who will be keen to help us out.

Uneventful Day really.