28 June 2010

The beginning of a new week and  a good time to take stock. It is  around 10 days since I had the cast off my leg and the pain decreases daily although the leg and ankle are still slightly swollen. Although I find I can manage to walk a few steps without support my legs feel very weak and I’m not at all confident that I can get any distance without having the comfort of the gutter frame. Whether I will be able to dispense with it entirely or not is questionable. At least, for the time being, I am avoiding being in a wheelchair except for the odd occasion when it is the most sensible form of transport.

The MND Association, once more, have generously come to my  aid and agreed to pay for the ramps into my office which should strictly be only accessed by wheelchair. These will be installed tomorrow after which I can hopefully, for the first time since I broke my leg, return to my beloved office having made do these past several weeks working in my study in the house. With the MND Association having been so generous in a number of directions I’m very pleased to be able to report that the donations for The Great London Swim Event are slowly coming in  and will ultimately amount to run a handsome contribution to the Association, fortunately far in excess of what they have kindly given to me. Having mentioned this fundraising event, the details of which regular readers will be aware, are set out at the beginning of my blog, I urge any of you who are not done so to make a modest donation to this very worthy cause. As they say every little help.

Incidentally, I was informed today, by a lady at MND Connect, that I had been misinformed about my ultimate demise through MND, which I had documented earlier on this blog. I would not either drown in my own fluid or suffocate from lack of breath but more likely would just slip away quietly. She did admit, however. that all (or most?) sufferers will ultimately have a breathing problem which will involve some form of intervention, I do wish this dear lady had taken advantage of the opportunity to comment on the entry,at the time,  by clicking where indicated at the end of each entry, and thus put the record straight, as it may have alarmed other sufferers.

The good Dr Long arrived from Australia today for a brief visit before flying on to Sweden. He was to have left early tomorrow morning, making it an extremely brief visit but he then decided to change his flight to Thursday morning, as much as anything to get a number of his medical reports dictated in peace and quiet, instead of the chaos which he is likely to meet in Sweden, with his family arriving for the wedding of his daughter Penny.

We celebrated his arrival in what now has become a tradition, with a bottle of champagne enjoyed in the cooling of the afternoon sun before sitting down to a delicious supper at the picnic table prepared by ‘my lovely’ -why is it that food tastes so much better in the open air?