More than just a bag lady

I had a busy weekend. As well as shopping for a new Motability car Hubby and I went out on Saturday night. This is the first time we’ve been Out Out together since before the pandemic started and I was super excited. We were going to see one of our favourite bands,  The Magic Numbers   at the Rescue Rooms in Nottingham.  I was a little bit nervous as I’m still not 100% and wasn’t sure if I would be well enough to last the entire night. We had seen them at Rescue Rooms a few years back and so I knew it was standing only and that it gets very crowded. I had thought about taking the wheelchair so I would have somewhere to sit down but I didn’t want to spend the night staring at everyone’s legs- I wanted to be able to see the band on stage. But after about 30/40 minutes I was really struggling and got to the point where I felt like I was going to collapse. Just standing for that amount of time completely exhausted me so I ended up moving to the side and sitting on the st...

I’m lucky enough (or unlucky enough depending on how you look at things) to qualify for a Motability car. The way the  Motability scheme  works is you give up some or all your motability allowance that you get as part of ESA (Employment & Support Allowance) which is what used to be called Incapacity Benefit. You get to choose the car and it can be adapted to meet the needs of your disability. You lease the vehicle for 3 years and at the end of the 3 years you get to choose a new car and that’s what I did last weekend. At the moment I have a lovely Honda Jazz but I’ve had it for nearly 4 years. When the 3 year lease was almost up I was in hospital and too unwell to even think about looking for a new car so I got in touch with Motability and they gave me a 6 month lease extension. When those 6 months were almost up I was, yes you guessed it, in hospital again and so I got another 6 month extension. I’m 4 months into that extension and now I’m out of hospital I’ve decide...

On Tuesday I went to my first ever yoga class. I did Pilates about 17 years ago and have done some of the  Yoga with Adriene  videos at home but I’ve never actually done a yoga class. I had seen the class advertised on a local Facebook group and got in touch with the teacher. I wasn’t sure if I would be well enough to do it as my body has become so deconditioned over the last couple of years. I explained about my illness and the teacher said that she would be able to adapt the exercises for me and that if at any point it I was tired or in pain I could just sit or lie on the mat. But having been out of hospital for less than a week I really didn’t know if I could do it and didn’t want to go alone. Luckily one of my friends agreed to go with me and that gave me confidence that if at any point it all got too much there was someone there to look after me.    When we got there the church hall was dimly lit and she had 4 giant salt lamps which gave the room a lovely glow. ...

Do you remember when I got discharged from hospital at the beginning of August I tried to place an order for my Tena pads only to be told I had been discharged from the continence clinic as I hadn’t ordered in 6 months, 4 of which I was an inpatient for? (If not read the blog post  here ). Well when I was discharged from hospital last Thursday I had an appointment with the continence nurse at the local health centre. I found it incredibly frustrating that instead of being able to just reinstate me on the system I had to attend a face to face appointment with the continence nurse; none of my details had changed so it really was a bureaucratic, paper ticking exercise.  On that particular day I was absolutely exhausted and barely able to walk more than a few steps but I knew that if I cancelled the appointment it would be weeks or months before I got another one so I dragged my sorry ass down there. The nurse was very apologetic that I had had to attend the appointment but she ha...

My first week in Cornwall was amazing. Me, Hubby and the kids spent the week near Porthleven along with all Hubby’s family in a big house with its own pool and hot tub. The kids had a great time with their cousins, we celebrated Big Girl’s birthday, went to the beach, ate together, played games in the evening and just generally had a wonderful time. It was the holiday I had dared to dream about while I was in hospital amd I couldn’t believe I was well enough to enjoy it. No, I wasn’t able to eat and drink but that was a small price to pay to be making memories with my loved ones. At the end of the week we packed up the car and drove to St Ives where we had booked a fisherman’s cottage one minute from the beach with my parents. My sister and her husband would be staying nearby and Big Girl’s boyfriend and his family were also staying in St Ives at the same time. I’m good friends with his Mum so I was really looking forward to having a great second week with even more of my favourite peo...