A lie-in today which was well received by both of us.

kp was up by about 11.15am and with the OT coming at 1pm, she skipped breakfast in anticipation of her self-made sandwich for lunch.

kp did REALLY well at making a sandwich.

• Getting everything from around the kitchen – NO PROBLEM
• Buttering the bread – I thought this would be the show stopper, but she has now developed enough movement in her left hand that she can use the left hand as a stopper to prevent the bread from coming off when it’s being buttered.

• Ham on to bread – NO PROBLEM
• Slicing a tomato – Karen used her left hand to steady the tomato, and then proceeded to cut the tomato with her right. Now, bear in mind, Karen has VERY little feeling in her arm/hand and isn’t really aware of where it is, by feel. By sight, she tends not to see things on the left. Combine these two things together and the result is a shriek from me and the OT as Karen began cutting into her left hand !!!!! THANKFULLY, she was using the blunt bread buttering knife and no blood was drawn. Karen laughed at herself when we shrieked.

Everything else proceeded without incident. She did very well. The only other thing she struggled with is cling filming the ham to put back in the fridge.

Typical Karen, not content with a ham/tomato sandwich, she popped it in the George Formby Grill to have it toasted.

Next week, she is making a stew !!!!!!!!!!!!!! The following week, she is being taken shopping in Sainsburys with no help from me ! I can sense ironing is coming up, one week in 2006. Oh joy !!

That’s pretty much it for today.

A cracking day today !

Cracking !

I let kp lie-in until 12pm after her day yesterday. We had a fry-up breakfast, before kp said “I’d like to take one of the dogs for a walk.”

This is her objective for the month and to do it so early in the month was marvellous. We carefully picked which dog and I took Elsa for the first 200 yards until she wasn’t as excited that she was going on a walk.

And then it was over to kp !!!

For those of you who want to see it (video style), click here

I told Karen where I thought she should walk to. She doubled it and some, ending up walking just under a quarter of a mile by my reckoning. I told her it was too far, but she wouldn’t listen – typical wife.

Who was right !!??

!SMUG GRIN!

Me !

By the time we got back, she could barely cross the road. Thankfully, we have traffic lights outside our house at the moment as they are renewing the water main, so all the traffic was stopped for Karen to cross.

She went straight to bed on her return, not so much to sleep, as to lie down, but she slept anyway !

We had Lasagne, Salad and New Potatoes for tea (courtesy of Marge and Tracy). It was lovely.

That’s it for today !

Happy Birthday Mum !!!! You got your bus pass yet ?

Karen was in quite a bit of pain last night and whilst still asleep was wincing when she tried to move.

Having had a really good day yesterday, I set out to get very merry. I ended up drunk and fell asleep in bed, mid conversation with Karen.

I got up at 6am to walk the dogs as our new washing machine was due to arrive between 7am and 1pm.

I had to have my sorry face on this morning when I woke Karen up. I deployed my soulful dog eyes look. It didn’t help too much.

We had no running water today and had to rely on a bath full of cold water (that I had prepared yesterday) to get Karen washed. A really good example of how Karen has changed (mentally) presented itself today…….

Karen had to clean her teeth, but there was no water from the tap. I had brought in a pan of cold water. She couldn’t work out how to clean her teeth without the running water. That might sound bizarre, but she just couldn’t. I had to explain that she should put the toothpaste on as normal and then dip it in the pan. Spit out into the loo…….etc etc…………

To be fair, I was a bit flummoxed. When it came to washing Karen’s hair in the sink, I had to boil the kettle a few times to get the water to the right temperature. I lost count of the number of times I took the kettle to the tap in the kitchen, when I should have took it to the bath where the water was.

The washing machine (of course) arrived at the most inopportune moment. I was in hairdresser mode with my hands full of waxy oily volumiser gunk. Grrrrrrrrr ! I left kp half done to receive the washing machine.

Shortly after this Jane arrived and we went to pick Ronnie up from Durham Station. I dropped the girls off in Durham so they could “lunch”. They had a good time and we are in for a good weekend

We had a good night with Jane and Ronnie. When the conversation turned to bladder control and which of the 3 “ladies” could stop their wee mid-flow, I had to leave the room and find other amusement.

I dared to return about an hour later, only to be hit by “vaginal pain due to trapped nerves”. I went to bed and was joined swiftly by kp who was knackered (1am). Jane and Ronnie started watching Miss Marple on DVD.

Bad night’s sleep for kp last night. kp was up at least 5 times in the night

Early(ish) start. I got back from walking the dogs at 9am to find kp had got herself up and was going to start the showering procedure.

The solicitor arrived just after 10am and was with us for about 2 hours.

Karen was falling asleep during his visit, but I don’t think he noticed. As soon as he left, we went back to bed until 4pm.

Tonight it’s Pizza, “Skating on Ice” and “Celebrity Big Brother” – what shallow people we are !

kp got up at 4pm, and had a cup of tea with the girls, but then was feeling grotty, so went back to bed until 7.30pm.

We then had a chinese and kp felt bad again and so turned in for bed early (9pm). She feels very VERY guilty that every time Ronnie and Jane come, she seems to spend more time in bed than with them.

Hopefully, she feels better tomorrow.

Uneventful Day

I was up at 8am walking the dogs. Noone else was up until the afternoon. That makes Karen’s sleep 16 hours !!!!!! AND THE GOOD NEWS IS……..she only got up for the loo ONCE. I don’t think it’s possible to sleep 16 hours straight, so she must have been a little under the weather.

She was feeling a lot better today

Jane made her legendary cooked breakfast at about 1pm (brunch). It was bl++dy gorgeous ! Ronnie assisted as sous chef.

The girls talked all afternoon. I think they are trying to get Ronnie a fella. I am trying to persuade her into Lesbianism as I think she will have more luck.

That’s it for today.

Tonight, we are having different meats cooked at the table on hot slabs of marble. Should be fun.

We had a lovely evening.

We did the hot stove on the table meal and it was gorgeous. Chicken, Pork and Beef marinaded in different sauces, cooked at the table with salad and new potatoes. It was lovely….

Here is a photo of the meat cooking with Ronnie hiding from the camera…..

After watching “American Idol”, we all retired.

Uneventful Day.

kp slept in until 1.30pm, clocking up another 12 hour+ sleep. We said goodbye to Jane mid-afternoon and then Ronnie about 6pm. It was lovely having them and it gave me some time on my computer playing counterstrike with old workpals.

Jane and Ronnie were taking the mickey out of Karen for how much time she had been awake for their visit. Next time they visit, they are going to go straight to our bedroom and sit on the end of the bed for the weekend. They think they will get more time with her that way.

Not much to tell apart from that.

At 11am, the Neuropsychologist arrived to see Karen. Karen had put her visit in the diary for the right time, but for a different week, so she was still fast asleep, completely oblivious to her arrival.

The NP and I had a chat first about kp, before I went to wake the dead.

kp:- I need a shower before I see her and I need to do my hair.
dp:- You haven’t got time to have a shower first, it’s not fair on X

So, Karen entered the room looking like “Tintin” with bouffante to match.

It was a good visit, and Karen and I both got a lot from it. One of the things that came up was how Karen felt she wasn’t the person she used to be. She feels she is slower and not as much fun. Well, she is slower, but she is just as much fun as always. The NP suggested the stroke might have also changed Karen for the better. She wanted Karen to ask key people in her life what is better about her since the stroke.

I was first.

kp (looking at me) :- What is better about me since the stroke ?
dp : Erm……………………………………………….

I felt like a deer stunned by a car’s headlights. I emerged from the stupor before it got embarassing and then I couldn’t be shut up.

The love and I karen share has got so much more intense than pre-accident, and we would have said then, that it couldn’t GET any more intense.

When Marie arrived, no sooner had she got through the door than she got the question. Marie couldn’t have been more spontaneous and told Karen how much more affectionate she is now. Karen never liked to be cuddled by family pre-accident, but now she does.

So, it was a good visit.

With the NP gone, we had a nice chat with Marie about her trip to Prague before going to the doctors for drugs and a sicknote.

Karen then wanted to go shopping to get some food in. Another one of her challenges she has set herself. I carried the basket (no change there !!!) and she shopped. I kept offering to get things that were tricky to reach, but she insisted she got them. She did really well.

When we got home, she packed the stuff away while I knitted with Marie in the front room. It all went well, until we heard an ALMIGHTY CRASH from the kitchen. Marie was up out of her seat before the noise finished, while all I could do was shout “ARE YOU OK ?”. (I was mid-line in my knitting and counting stitches too, so there was no way I was moving).

kp had dropped the 2 Litre milk carton. It didn’t burst so we’re ok. OH…and Karen is ok also

That’s it for today.

kp had a great night’s sleep last night, only getting up once in the night.

Once again, we cocked up an appointment time. kp thought the Occupational Therapist (OT) was coming today at 1pm, when in fact, she was coming at 10.45am. I had asked kp the previous night the details of the appointment and was looking forward to a lie-in. As it happens, I was up walking the dogs early and just happened to check the diary to see that it was earlier than kp expected. Thankfully, we had enough time to get kp ready for their visit.

Today she was preparing a casserole. We had all the ingredients in and kp was not to be assisted AT ALL, so I made myself scarce. The good news is she prepared Lamb Shanks in a casserole dish, with onions, carrots and a nice sauce. The bad news is she absolutely hated it and found it VERY frustrating. It took her 1 hour 30 minutes to peel 4 carrots and 1 onion, and to seal the lamb and put it in the casserole dish. She nearly cut her fingers more times than I can count, and all I could hear from the room I was in, was the OT shouting “FINGERS !” every minute, to try and get kp to realise her left hand fingers were “under the knife”.

Here she is smiling for the camera (still with 8 fingers, 2 thumbs)……….

She was seething when the OT left, but managed to put on a brave face.

It was Abbie’s birthday today (9) so we went over to Middlesbrough for her birthday bash. Abbie was off school having just recovered from flu, Louisa (2) was starting to show symptoms and Abbie’s mam (Adele) was right in the worst part of it

But we still had a good time.

We then went to see some pups that Jane’s daughter’s bitch had had. They are nearly 4 weeks old and gorgeous with it. A cross between about 10 different breeds, the mother was a bit of a slapper I think (the dog, not Jane’s daughter or JANE !).

Jane pointed to one of the pups and said :-

Jane :- That’s your pup.

She was serious and has been kidding us for a while that one of them was ours. We told her “NO !”.

I had my eye on a chocolate brown one, and kp wanted the black one but we didn’t leave with a pup – a first for Karen and I !!

Bloody awful photo, but in this shot, there are 3 pups………

That’s it for today.

Forgot to mention that Karen also got frustrated yesterday about her inability to take in information. She can only seem to digest one bit of information at a time. She has a new mobile phone which she is really struggling to get to grips with. She also received some other bits of information in various guises and she just couldn’t grasp it all.

So, over the course of the day, I had to refeed her with key points. By the end of the day, she seemed to have got the gist of the main things, and no doubt today, I will get more questions which I have to recap the answers to.

I think her new mobile phone will take her weeks, if not months, to grasp.

Uneventful Day !

kp was very tired today and kept saying she wanted longer in bed each time I tried to wake her up.

She ended up getting up at 12.30pm.

It was bathtime today as her legs needed shaving. She gets lowered in on this electric seat. It goes about 1cm every second (IT’S VERY SLOW !). I told Karen today, that I had managed to fix it so it got her in the bath in 5 seconds, instead of 1 minute. She looked vaguely excited and scared, until I pushed the button and it went the same speed as always. It got a giggle.

So, by 1.15pm, it was time for breakfast. By 3pm, I was getting her back in her nighty as she wanted a snooze.

I went with her and we got up about 6pm.

We are having the Lamb Shank casserole for tea and it tastes lovely.

That’s our Thursday !!!

A very tired kp again today after an AWFUL night’s sleep. She got up at 2.30pm after the plumber had been to try and fix our boiler. After breakfast we changed her patch and knocked it down to 75ug of Fentanyl. Hopefully, she won’t be as tired on that.

At 3.30pm, she went back to bed until Marie arrived at 6pm.

That’s about it.

kp recalled a funny incident from last night. I had been drinking a lot last night, and she said I woke up in the middle of the night, sat bolt upright and said “Have we had tea yet ?”. kp said “no”, and apparently I went straight back to sleep. I have absolutely no recollection of getting to bed or the alleged incident

Tonight is the final of Celebrity Big Brother which I am sure we will be watching.

kp up at 12pm. Doesn’t seem to have been any more in pain for wearing a 75ug Fentanyl Patch overnight. She woke up with her usual aches and pains.

Marie arrived at 12pm and we had breakfast together, before I took them both to get their hair done (AGAIN ! They only had it done last month). PLUS usual pampering, face packs, manicures etc etc.

I am sure it’s worth every bit of £52 (That’s just for kp !)

That’s it for today ! Ice Skating 2nite (not us, the programme).

Strange day today. When I got back from walking the dogs (approx 8.30am), Karen was in the bathroom cleaning her teeth ! Very strange, because she is never up so early, and she normally doesn’t get up until coaxed. I think the 75ug patch must be better for her (sleepwise) than the 100ug version.

I was a bit under the weather today (with the cough that’s doing the rounds), so wanted to go back to bed, so kp joined me and we slept until 1pm.

Our solicitor had asked us to record some footage of Karen doing everyday tasks, so that this can be compared along her recovery to show her improvement. I wanted to get her having a shower, getting dressed and peeling veg. All she would allow was “peeling veg”.

She had a shower herself fine. She is generally fine unless the shampoo falls on the shower floor and then it’s “David !!!!”.

Getting dressed she finds VERY frustrating. But I was strict with myself today and tried to not help. Bras and socks she simply can’t do and I have to help her with those. Everything else she can do, but it takes her for EVER. Knickers have to be thrown like a fishing hook being cast by a fishing rod, to see if she can loop a foot. Invariably, she ends up with 2 feet in the same leg hole

Trousers aren’t much easier. The whole “getting dressed” thing (with me helping for only bra and socks) takes about 15 minutes Now……….if I help, it’s dead easy and there is very little frustration. If I don’t help, she doesn’t get any better/faster at it. It’s a fine line.

With that over, we had breakfast.

Later in the afternoon, I filmed kp trying to cut veg. She didn’t do bad. Carrots, Potatoes and Onions.

Carrots – Gave up frustrated after 2 minutes having 1/4 peeled them. She knocked one of the carrots on the floor (with her left hand) and had no idea she had done that She left the carrots, muttering “That’s bloody it, we are buying pre-cut baton carrots now”

Potatoes – Couldn’t peel them at all with our peeler. She tried doing it with a knife, but again, got frustrated and left it for me.

Onions – I wanted quartered onions for the Roast Pork. She couldn’t peel them at all, and got the knife stuck in, and couldn’t get it out. She gave up.

“Gave Up” is the wrong words. She had HAD ENOUGH and I don’t blame her at all.

I stopped the filming and she broke into tears.

Heartbreaking.

We had the roast. It was nothing special and too much work for too little enjoyment. I am feeling fed up tonight. kp knows it. Probably need to go to bed sooner rather than later.

Both had a bloody awful night’s sleep. It was so cold in the bedroom (with the bedroom window open). I was coughing and spluttering. kp got up at 1am and didn’t come back until 4.30am.

I walked the dogs at 8am and went back to bed as soon as I got back. I was frozen to the core and kp makes a VERY good water bottle.

The big event of the day was kp’s shopping trip. Two of the OT’s came to collect her at 1.30pm. She was well prepared, having spent most of yesterday doing a menu for each day of the week and the resultant shopping list was quite long.

I wasn’t allowed to go !!! Which was weird. The reason was totally legit – I would have a tendency to do most of the shopping hard work, but they were going to make kp do the shopping. kp came back about 4pm and came straight to bed. I was in bed already (feeling rough, aaaaarrrr . We didn’t get up for a further hour or so, but then I caught up on the big event.

She didn’t enjoy it at all. Her legs nearly gave way a couple of times. I estimated she walked further than she did when she walked Elsa the other week.

kp:- It wasn’t just the walking. I had to think at the same time, and I can’t do that anymore.

This made me laugh out loud when she said that. But she really means it ! I know what she means, she finds it hard to walk around a shop layout which she hasn’t experienced for a while, and at the same time, read something, and work out where the items are and then go to that location etc etc etc………..Maybe it will come with time…..

Tonight’s menu is Lasagne (thanks Tracy/Marge), Salad and New Potatoes (and Garlic Bread).

Last night, at the very point I was about to fall asleep, kp said something really lovely to me. It was something like………

kp:- David……

dp (barely awake) :- Mmmmm
kp:- I just want to say that I really love you.

dp :- Thanks love. Can we talk about this in the morning?

Uneventful Day today.

kp was up about 12pm. She was full of aches and pains after yesterday’s shopping trip, but when I offered to put a higher pain relief patch on, she said she wanted to stay on a 75ug Fentanyl Patch.

Marie came this afternoon. She is staying overnight. kp went for a lie-down around 4pm as she was flagging. Need to get her up soon.

We had a nice evening with Marie with Shepherd’s Pie for tea (or should that be Sherpherd’s Pie (regular bloggers will understand)).

Marie started coming down with the dreaded “cold!!!”, and both Marie and I found ourselves going round different rooms of the house saying :-

dp :- Oooo, it’s cold in this room…..
Marie :- Nah, it’s hot in here.

and vice versa.

I still suspect the boiler, but Marie assures me our body thermostats have gone with our “cold!!!”.

Karen wanted to phone Ronnie to wish her the best for her return to work, but forgot and was cursing herself when she remembered real late last night.

We had some real good news last night. I had contacted a load of old buddies (via Friends Reunited) and one of them replied last night (Hi Neil !). We are meeting up with him when we go down to London next week.

Just before we went to bed, Karen and I were in stitches laughing in the bathroom. This won’t be funny when it is recalled in a blog, but I have to record it, because we found it so funny, and kp will appreciate this when she reads it back in a year’s time.

Karen was discussing exercises she had to do.

kp:- I’ll tell you what I haven’t done, the exercise where you go……….

And then she showed me the exercise, which is….with her left arm/hand, moving it out and “polishing a table” and then “wiping a window”, but as she did the actions, she went “Ow !!!!” and then “Ow !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”.

So, what was funny, was what I heard which was ………….

kp:- I’ll tell you what I haven’t done, the exercise where you go “Ow !!!!” and then “Ow !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”. We laughed for about a minute about that. Marie must have thought we were potty.

Today, we had the OT visit to help kp make some soup. She brought with her a board that holds veg in place. Here she is getting a lesson on it.

She made the soup. It was lovely, but a bit more Leek than “Leek and Potato”, not that I am a fussy bugger. No, it was lovely We all had some with Marie’s bread buns, before Marie returned home.

After the soup, Karen mentioned her “swallowing” problem again. Normally, stroke patients have problems swallowing solids (from our experience on the ward), but with Karen, it seems to be the opposite. Apparently, she had complained to Marie the previous night that she nearly choked on some tea. She struggled with the soup and the way she describes it is “It gets to the back of my throat, and I don’t know which way it is going to go down.” – Sounds awful !

Snooze in the afternoon and that’s it for today…

Bl++dy awful night last night. Excessive snoozing during the day led to us getting up at some ungodly hour and having a cup of tea around 2/3am ish. We tried to go back to sleep, but I was coughing and sniffing every 30 seconds, keeping kp awake. Eventually, I went into another bedroom and we both managed to get some sleep.

Uneventful Day today.

Still feeling full of cold, I went to bed at 12pm until 5pm, kp went sometime between those times and isn’t up yet.

What exciting lives we lead !

After tea last night, I got kp ready for bed and had a hot bath. kp’s bath lowering seat is in our main bathroom, so for the first time, I had a bath in bathroom 2. Unfortunately, certain 4-legged animals can more easily open the door to bathroom 2, and a nice quiet soak on my own became a spectator sport for dogs. Not so much a spectator sport actually, as no sooner would I lift my knee out of the bath, it would be dried off by frantic dog licking.

Before I go and do something where I am “out of commission” (from Karen’s perspective), I always try and remember to put her “emergency button” on. It’s a red button on the end of a necklace. Unlike Weebles, Karen does wobble and she might fall down, so it is always best to have it on just in case. Well, she put it on herself last night and just before I went for my bath, I went to check she wasn’t wanting for anything.

She had put the necklace on “ok”, but was completely oblivious to the fact that it had caught on her left ear.

I was banished from the marital bedroom last night in anticipation of coughing fits and loud “sighs”. I think we both retired about 11pm. I was up at 2am, and played some tunes in the study, which woke kp up. We had a cup of tea and a natter from 3am to 4am. Basically, we both had a sh1te night’s sleep.

Adele (Marie’s daughter) came today to help us get on top of the house cleaning. Thanks Adele. Been a very uneventful day really.

Tonight, we are going for dinner with Tommy and Eileen, so that should be a nice change.

Well, we had a lovely meal with Tommy and Eileen. Karen had offered me some advice as to how she had once cured a lingering cold when she was a lot younger.

kp:- Yeah, I went out and got as drunk as a skunk, and the following morning it was completely gone.

I took a bit of that advice and aimed for that cure, but sadly could only consume 3 pints of the black stuff. It hasn’t cured the cold, but stopped me whinging about it so much

Karen had “Fish and Chips” last night, as did Tommy and I. The portions were huge !!

Tommy and I followed the meal up with some games of Pool. It was a good evening.

Karen felt as rough as a dog this morning, not through alcohol I hasten to add. The days of having more than a pint of lager shandy on a nighttime seem to be over.

She got out of bed, headed for the shower, got all her clothes off, and then felt so bad, she had to go back to bed for an hour

kp:- If I could have just had the shower, I would have felt a lot better.

We have deduced that the 75ug Fentanyl patch isn’t enough. So, she was going back on the 100ug patch for the London Trip next week anyway, so hopefully tomorrow she will feel a bit more mobile. Without the right pain meds, she gets really stiff really quickly

Very quiet day today. It was lovely outside, so I did some gardening while kp watched on, normally it’s the other way round. Karen rang a very old friend today (the one we are going to see next week) and it brought SUCH a smile to her face. It was lovely to see. I got so much pleasure from seeing the depth of the joy in her face. She gave this friend the usual Karen “20 questions” treatment. The poor chap thought he was going for an interview.

That’s it for today. Ice skating tonight.

Well, we watched the ice skating last night and enjoyed that. kp was really in a bad way (painwise) so we decided to put the 100ug Fentanyl Patch on last night instead of waiting until Sunday lunchtime.

I was allowed back in the marital bedroom on the promise that I didn’t sniff or cough and we both had a great night’s sleep.

Putting the higher dosage patch on early turned out to be a cracking move as kp felt “top of the world” this morning. She got out of bed while I was out walking the dogs. Everything just went right this morning. I did her hair and for the first time, I did it right in the new style. kp looked full of life and had a real sparkle in her eye ! She couldn’t stop saying how well she felt. It was great to hear.

Mum and Dad arrived in a flat bed truck (thanks Bill) with our Xmas Present (new house sign in Yorkshire stone, with a tonne of yorkshire stone to build up into a wall). Dad and I moved this tonne of stone piece by piece in our best clothes from the truck to the garage. As Dad said, “Merry Christmas!”

We had a lovely Sunday lunch at the Pump House in Durham. We have finally found a place that does a good Sunday lunch without overcooking the meats !

Lunch over, we went over to see Margaret, Tracey, Mark and Megan and had a really good afternoon with them.

Here’s the Maffey/Baggots…..

And here’s kp, me and Megan….

Her T-shirt says “I am not big, but I am clever!”

That’s it for today. kp is flagging a bit, and is a bit stiff, probably all the sitting down.

Lovely day !

kp was up a LOT during the night going to the commode. This meant she had a late lie-in. She woke up not feeling as good as yesterday. “Bit stiff” were her words.

The OT arrived at 11.30am to do physio with kp in the absence of kp’s main physio. She brought with her a special chopping board to help kp chop veg. And she also brought a big wood box with some dexterity testing tools in. kp said she didn’t do very well at them. No pictures as I was asleep when she came. sorry.

When she had gone, we went in to Durham to pick Marie up and get some clothes for kp for our London trip tomorrow. Marie is kindly staying at ours, watching the dogs. We are going to London until Thursday night to see Billy Elliot and Mary Poppins – really looking forward to it ! Unlikely I will be able to blog until Thursday.

That’s it for tonight and probably until then.

Day 285 – Tuesday 7th February 2006

Well, we were up at the crack of dawn (in Karen’s time), about 8am in real world time to get ready for the off. We had a cup of tea with Marie and finished packing and we were at the station by 9.15am. Papers bought, we were heading to London Kings Cross by 9.30am.

Karen slept quite a bit of the way there.

CLICK HERE to see kp asleep and then wake up

Ronnie was at the station to greet us and help us to the taxi. One of the sad things about kp’s condition is that we have to reduce walking to a minimum, so things like tube rides are out of the question. I love going deep underground into the tube and really missed it, but we HAD to travel by taxi for kp’s sake. Neil met us at the hotel. It was fabulous to see him after nearly 20 years. That was such a fun time in our lives (when we knew Neil) and we hit it off as if we had only seen him yesterday. He showed us to our room, or should I say ROOMS !!!! He had VERY kindly put us in the admiral suite, which was a 4-roomed apartment (living room, kitchenette, bedroom and a bathroom). WOW !!!!

Actually, it was quite inconsiderate of Neil as it took about 1 minute for Karen to get from the suite door to the bathroom. Some people are just thoughtless !

No, we loved it. Fresh fruit and fresh flowers, it was all lovely !

Here are some pictures of the suite…..

Living Area

Corridor (running the length of the suite)

The View

CLICK HERE for some footage of the suite.

We dropped our bags, let Neil get back to work and went for lunch with Ronnie in the hotel restaurant (to save Karen from excess walking). We aimed for the brasserie, but found ourself in the posh restaurant. We had a beautiful meal in there. Here are kp and vdfromboro in the “blue” restaurant. We had a 2-course meal, which turned out to be 5-course, because there was a pre-starter and a pre-dessert. I had a heart attack when the bill came, but the bottle of chablis Ronnie and I shared had loosened my wallet padlock somewhat.

Ronnie left us about 5pm and kp and I had a short snooze before going to see Billy Elliot at the Victoria Palace Theatre. It was awesome !!! Thoroughly thoroughly enjoyable and very funny to boot.

We had a couple of drinks at the bar when we got back and went straight to bed.

Day 286 – Wednesday 8th February 2006

We had agreed to meet with Neil for breakfast. It ended up being a 2hour+ breakfast and it was so great to reminisce and find out what Neil has been doing for 20 years and vice versa. We do hope he keeps in touch !

We went for a snooze after that and then we went into the swimming pool. Neil had said to bring our “costumes” and kp was keen to try the pool, given that she couldn’t get any hydrotherapy treatment because she was a stroke patient.

The problem we faced were the old vertical steps into the pool. There would be no problem for kp getting in the pool, worse scenario was I could push her in ! But getting her out could be VERY tricky. We got her in, by me going a step in front of her acting as a support for her back as she went down step by step. I encouraged her left hand to hold the left railing and although it didn’t take the weight, it did aid her balance.

Karen was quite frightened once in the water. She tried a few swimming motions, but it didn’t keep her afloat, so she spent the whole time holding my hands walking round the shallow end of the pool. She enjoyed the sensation, but was a little upset that she could no longer swim ! Her fear took a while to subside, and then she got enough confidence for me to go a little deeper and for her to be weightless holding my hands while I pulled her round the pool.

I took her back to the shallow end, attached her to the steps while I got a long beer can width float that went under her arms. This kept her head from sinking and she tried kicking to swim, but didn’t get very far. She hasn’t been in a position (since the accident) where her head has been in front of her feet and she has effectively been on her stomach and she found this quite painful, but persevered.

At this point, a 60 year old woman got in the pool and watched us for a while before saying :-

Old Woman :- Do you know, I only just started to learn to swim 2 years ago, so keep trying !

Well, I could tell kp was incensed by this, but we didn’t want to get into a “SHE CAN SWIM, BUT SHE HAS HAD A STROKE” kind of conversation. So, we nodded politely.

Anyway, we had the last laugh, because this woman then proceeded to “swim” (in inverted commas). Well every time she kicked with her feet, she sent a plume of water 20 feet in the air ! We were in stitches. It took her about 2 minutes to swim the length of the pool (18 metres).

Getting out of the pool was like getting in but in reverse. I acted as a “can’t fall backwards” stopper and it worked.

Swimming over, we went for a snooze before heading out to see Mary Poppins

Here is kp outside the Prince Edward Theatre….

Mary Poppins was great, and her final exit was very impressive, flying from the stage above everyone’s heads into the Gods.

Exiting the theatre, kp started to complain of bad aches and pains. Worse than usual. We put it down to the earlier swimming, when she had been in brand new body positions.

Taxi back to the hotel and then drinks in the bar again, before retiring.

Before I retired, I checked the train times to make sure we were up in time. 3.30pm in the afternoon. A bit strange !!! I normally wouldn’t book tickets that late, but there you go.

Day 287 – Thursday 9th February 2006

We got up late today (about 11am). Karen checked the tickets to make sure I had the right time.

We worked out the timings and I booked a taxi to take us to the train station for 2.30pm so we could have lunch before the train. We went to the “Duke of York” (at Kings Cross) for lunch. An absolute dive !! Dirty smutty place ! But it was somewhere for kp to sit down as we waited for our train.

I checked the screens regularly for the platform of the train. I thought it a bit strange how our ticket said 3.31pm but the screen said 3.30pm ?!?!??! So, I checked the ticket !!!!!!!!!!

JESUS CHRIST !!!!!!! The train arrives in Durham at 3.31pm and SETS OFF at 12.30pm !!! We’d missed our bl++dy train !!!!

I went to the ticket office, but there was nothing they could do !!! I knew Karen could not be hanging around a station for hours, so I booked us on the 3.30pm to Durham at a cost of (WAIT FOR IT) £210 !!!!!!!!!!!

A VERY EXPENSIVE MISTAKE !!!!!!

PLUS NOW, we had NO seat reservation, so kp may have to stand. We waited in front of the big board and as soon as the platform appeared we headed for the train and so did EVERYONE else looking at the board. Of course, Karen walks at 1mph now, whereas everyone else was running to the train.

We ended up being the only people walking to the train, with everyone else on. We walked past first class, past second class and found a first class carriage at the end of the train ?!?!?! The station chappy was blowing his whistle and closing the door, so we just jumped on (figuratively speaking). I told Karen to sit in the first class and we would deal with the ramifications.

Anyway, as it turns out, they had run out of second class carriages so the first class carriage we were in was actually second class ! PHEW ! We kept telling each other on the journey home “let’s not think of the money we have lost”, and then one of us would say something, and then the other would say “let’s not think of the money we have lost”

We got home at 7pm. Boy, was it good to be home !!!

Marie had left the house spotless – THANKS SO MUCH MARIE !!!

We pretty much went straight to bed !

Day 288 – Friday 10th February 2006

It’s great to be home. I got up early as there was lots to do, but Karen didn’t get up until 2pm. When she got up she was in a LOT of pain and discomfort. Her mood had changed for the worse and I could tell she was not a happy bunny.

kp:- “I am sick of feeling like this.”

She was referring to (what seems to her as) an endless life of pain/discomfort.

Today was the date for the driver (who caused the accident) to enter his plea. I rang up at 4.30pm to find out what had happened. He has pleaded “Guilty” to “Dangerous Driving”. March 8th is when his sentence will be decided. The magistrates court can only give 6 months in prison (plus loss of licence (guaranteed) and points etc….), but they can refer it up to Crown Court if they feel a bigger sentence is necessary (max 1 year in prison plus loss of licence etc).

I asked Karen how she felt about it.

kp:- It doesn’t matter does it. It’s not going to make my life any better.

I thought she would be pleased that he had come forward, admitted his guilt, but it really didn’t matter to her.

30 minutes later, Karen was inconsolable. In her words, she has had a “reality check”. This accident has happened and there is nothing that is going to fix things for her. It is so saddening to see her so upset, and me so powerless to help her or put things right.

kp (in tears):- The only thing that will help me is if we could put the clocks back and I’d be ok again.

I am crying as I type this.

So sad !!!

She had a good cry, and said she just wanted to “get out of here”. She meant go to sleep and forget about it.

I went to bed with her and comforted her until she fell asleep. It’s 7.35pm now and I have tea on the go. I will wake her up at 8pm and fingers crossed, she will feel better. I feel soooooooo sorry for her. Sooo sorry !

To end on a high note, we had a great London trip. Thanks Neil for everything you have done, we REALLY appreciate it !

Life goes on in the Pollard household……

Strange Day.

We both got up at 2.30am for a cup of tea and a chat. We put the 100ug Fentanyl Patch on at this time in the hope it would alleviate some of kp’s physical aches and pains when she woke up in the morning.

At about 3.30am we went back to bed. kp couldn’t sleep and got up for an hour. We had a bit of a lie-in.

When kp woke up, she was feeling a bit better physically, about the same mentally, but was complaining that her eyesight wasn’t too good today (“a bit blurry”). She gets days like that ?!

We went over to see Marge, Mark, Tracy and Megan before they returned to Southampton. And then we nipped to see Marie, before coming home.

That’s it.

We both had a cracking night’s sleep, sleeping from 10pm to 9.30am. 11am in kp’s case.

Generally Uneventful Day.

After breakfast, kp had her homework (for the week) to do, namely to attempt a construction that the OT had left.

It is supposed to look like this when constructed ………..

and involves LOTS of bolts, screws and various levels of dexterity, from moving heavy metal plates, to putting screws into sockets at certain angles, to turning screws. I was in charge of instructions and told kp how to do it.

Suffice to say, she really struggled with it. I pretty much had to help her at every stage, and what should have taken about 2 minutes to construct, took about 20-25 minutes.

Click here for a bit of footage of her trying to get one of the screws in. It has to go a certain way. The hexagonal head fits into a hexagonal hole (this isn’t obvious from the video).

She finds it sooooooooooooo frustrating. She completes one thing only for her left arm to knock it out of the way, so she has to start again. She has little or no feeling in her left arm/hand so is unaware she has even destroyed her work. At one point, she swore blind she had completed the left nearside screw (which she had), but didn’t realise it was now on the floor

Also, the metal plates (and screws to a lesser extent) feel painful to the touch to Karen because they are cold.

Anyway, with help, she cracked it in the end.

We had a nice leisurely afternoon watching “The Pianist” and kp is phoning friends and family as I type this.

Early rise for kp at 9.30am.

Today she was going to Lydia’s for a day with the girls (Lydia and Debs (from work)). Debs picked Karen up at 10.30am and I “had the day off”

The girls had a great time apparently, catching up on work and life gossip.

Here are some photos from the day………

Blynn……..

Lydia (cheffing it)……..

Lydia, kp and Debs ……..

That’s it for today.

Well, after a lovely day yesterday at Lydia’s, kp was concerned that her 2 climbs to the top of Lydia’s stairs to get to the loo may cost her last night/today in pain. She was right. She was moaning loads of times during the night when she turned and I was surprised to hear her say (this morning) that she had had a good night’s sleep.

But, today she felt worse for the 2 flights of steps.

We picked Marie up at lunchtime in Durham to go shopping at Tesco. We had a nice lunch on our return.

In the mail, we had received a nice letter from my Aunty Sue including this photo taken on Boxing Day, while kp and I were down at my parents. It’s a great photo.

Left to Right –> Bill, Dad, Aunty Sue, Catherine, kp, dp, Uncle John, Mum, Justine and Rosie.

kp went to bed after lunch, while Marie kindly did the ironing and other jobs

That’s it for today. Tomorrow, we have a visit from the OT. kp has to think of things she wants to be able to do on her own (that she currently needs my help with). One of the main things kp used to do was to drive over to Middlesbrough to visit friends/relatives. Physically, she can’t drive at the moment (because she couldn’t change gear), but if we got an automatic car, she still feels scared at the thought of driving. She doesn’t trust herself because she doesn’t see things on the left. So we need to think of some more things tonight.

We also have the neuropsychologist coming round, so a bit of a busier day.

Well, a bit of an exciting night last night for me, which has a bit of a bearing on kp, so I will relay the gist of it.

A while ago, I bought a PC off a company who sells them on Ebay. I have had nothing but problems with the pc, and after having the phone put down on me twice by the company’s representative, I left damning (but honest) negative feedback.

The chap phoned up last night demanding I withdraw the feedback and threatened me with ……..

Reporting me to the tax office for my Ebay Sales
Reporting me to Ebay and getting my account deleted
Threatened me with legal action for “defamation” and
Threatened me with legal action to recover lost sales (due to my feedback)

I was on the phone with him for a long time, but during the phone call, my tea became ready to eat and Karen was very aware that it was getting cold. Instinctively, she took the phone off me………..

kp (to the chap on the phone) :- Will you stop shouting ?! My husband is trying to have his tea, he has asked you if its ok to phone you back……….

The chap then blabbed on to Karen. Now……..normally, kp could handle this kind of person and defuse the situation no problems, and to be fair, she did brilliantly (given her situation), but I ended up taking the phone back off her.

After the call, we reflected on this, and she expressed her concern how she couldn’t handle that situation as well as she normally could. Looking from an outsider’s perspective, I didn’t notice much difference, but she assured me she would have had more staying power with that kind of situation.

After a further one hour call (with me), the chap started threatening me with physical violence and said he was coming up to “sort me out” at which point I hung up. He then continued ringing the mobile phone and our home phone constantly. I ended up unplugging our phone line.

So…….watch this space………

With that over, I needed a fag (not a homosexual, for US readers) and a brandy. I ended up having 2 fags and 2 brandies and didn’t sleep very well at all.

Gobshite that he obviously is, he didn’t turn up. kp wasn’t too phased by the whole thing, but at the same time, part of me was thinking “Just withdraw the feedback for an easy life, it’s better for Karen etc…”, but I don’t like being threatened, and had to hold my ground

Anyway, kp slept ok ish, my night was a bit more interrupted. I was glad we had 3 German Shepherds last night.

Today the OT came to work on kp’s loss of left vision (perception).

She did loads of tests with kp where kp had to fill in grids with patterns and the end result was that Karen has a loss of 1/8th of her left field of vision. It’s not an eye problem, but a result of the stroke. There was a name for it, but I am damned if I can spell it or even say it again !!

As it stands at the moment, Karen would not be allowed to drive a car She went on to discuss kp’s lost right eye sight and her left eye perception problem and the impact on everyday life. We already know that kp used to only see the right side of a plate of food and would think she had had a small portion until the plate was rotated 180′ .

But this has improved and the OT went on to say, that with retraining, the perception problem could be further improved !

To me, this was nothing new, and I think deep down, to Karen, this was nothing new, but kp takes “hearing this” kind of thing from a professional quite badly. It makes it real, and got a bit upset

So, she was a bit fed up this afternoon and spent most of it in bed. The Neuropsychologist is now coming tomorrow.

That’s it for today.

We had to get up early today as the NeuroPsychologist was visiting at 10am.

Her visits are always very valuable to us, and today was particularly so. kp had written down about 5 issues to discuss with her. It included things like….

• Her feeling so full of aches and pains all the time was getting her down
• Her hearing of news (which deep down she already knows) gets her upset when she hears it officially
• She has recently had things arranged by work and by the Job Centre which she feels are intended to get her back to work. She wants to get back to work, but she is nowhere near ready, and she spoke to the NP about the fact she got confused by the discrepancy between , her current state and their recent calls for talks.
• She discussed with her how she got upset at hearing of the driver’s Guilty (to Dangerous Driving) plea

The NP really helps explain things in a way which eases kp’s view on things. Right at the end of the session, kp said to the NP :-

“And, now I am going to discuss something that David doesn’t know I was going to discuss…..”

Namely, me and how I got down a few weeks ago. I had completely forgot. Anyway, we had 5 minutes about me, which actually did help me. My favourite bit was when the NP said……..

“And you’re a very intelligent person David….”

I burst out laughing, but of course she is so right !

Within 30 minutes of the NP leaving, we were joined by Abbie and Adele. It was freezing cold outside (it had been snowing earlier) and Abbie (in her summer wear, short skirt + T-Shirt) was blue !

We had some lunch and then Abbie and I went on to the computer, flying aeroplanes, driving trains (which didn’t last long), before we went to Paper Doll Heaven (on the internet) and spent (what seemed like hours) dressing up dolls at Paper Doll Heaven. Oh, what fun !

That’s it for today. kp and I had a snooze in the afternoon and I am making an early tea as we speak, before we are all going to the X Factor concert in Newcastle. Abbie is looking forward to seeing Chenai and Shayne.

Well, tonight was X Factor Live at the Metro Radio Arena. We allowed an hour to get to Newcastle, but it took us 90 mins, 60 of those minutes were the last 1/2 mile, because of road restrictions and a broken down car. So, we missed the first 30 minutes of the concert. It was Chico Time that we missed, so no big loss !

Abbie was not feeling very well during the first half and had to leave her seat a couple of times to be sick. But after she threw her guts up, she felt fine and wanted to stay for the second half.

It was a good concert actually, and all the performances were tip top. Journey South and Shayne particularly shone !!

On the way home, another long journey (60 mins), we stopped for a chip butty and then we all went to bed.

Here is Abby’s blog version of events……

CLICK ON IT TO ENLARGE IT