|
|
|
This started off as a version of a notice which I put over my bed at hillcrest. It was intended to tell people about me and save time. It has been updated for Palethorpe House, Ryland View nursing home where I live for now until I am a bit more “user-friendly”. I was knocked off my bike by a Merc. Van carrying quails eggs to the Earl of Bradford. I have driven to one of those gourmet dinners with my wife, so the irony is not lost on me. I was doing a cycling time-trial race at the time, but cannot remember the accident or anything apart from what friends tell me. This seems very strange to me, but I’m told it is normal. A great team of supporters keeps me going. First of all my wife and two daughters and my sister and two brothers. They come as often as they can, and must have travelled thousands of miles since my accident in June’99. my cycling mates have also been consistent visitors and some of them have even come on their bikes at times! Maybe I made them feel guilty as I used to ride everywhere to keep up my mileage. Now they have built me a trike as I cannot balance properly. I was airlifted to Selly Oak hospital and lay in a coma for about 2 weeks, then moved to a recovery ward. At first I communicated by pressing a buzzer- once for yes, twice for no – as you can imagine this was pretty slow and primitive, but people still had to tell me to slow down when I progresses to spelling out words, a letter at a time, by pointing at an alphabet chart. The next quantum leap was to use a computer again. Although I could do all these things before, much better, faster and with less effort, there is some satisfaction to be gained from slow progress. My abilities and disabilities are – poor vision, no balance and poor speech and swallow because of bad co-ordination, weak and uneven muscles, among other things, but this is just a “snapshot” of how I am now and is changing slowly with a lot of effort. I come to Moor Green three times a week at the moment and find it a big help. Physio and Speech Therapy give me plenty to achieve, and I like to meet other people to find out how they cope with their problems. I don’t want to just adapt to my disabilities, but overcome them if I can. My positive thoughts are – I can do anything I want, but I may have to do it differently. Think about it……
|
|
