20 April 2012

Not a brilliant night but not as bad as some. I’m looking forward to trying out these slow-release pain patches recommended by my MND team.

For some reason, which I had not been able to fathom, when I tried to boot up this morning, I had no success at all. I then unplugged everything knowing that I had last used the laptop at Addenbrookes waiting for my appointment when it was working perfectly well. This time it did boot up and a pop-up message told me that Dragon had become corrupted. (Heaven knows how, I know people say you can catch more than you bargained for when you go into hospital, but I certainly did not expect that to extend to my laptop!). Anyway, this clever laptop having told me I had a problem, offered to repair for me and after a few moments culminating with a message inviting me to restore to an earlier date when everything was working, I did so to the day before and all was well except correcting the corrupt Dragon file.

I got in touch with technical team at Dragon and they offered to send me e-mail instructions which would enable me to repair the corrupted user profile file. The e-mail from Dragon never arrived so I opened a new profile and trained it all in about 10 min and it worked perfectly well for yesterday’s blog.

When Dragon do get round to sending me the other e-mail instructions I can always delete this second profile. (In the event, their e-mail did arrive later in the morning and as Paul, ‘the computer’, was here, I got him to do it for me. It’s not that I couldn’t do it myself but only having one finger, and perhaps finding some instructions difficult to do by voice, there was no point in me exhausting myself when there was somebody more competent than myself available to do it for me. Anyway, we’re up again and running)

I gave my personal laptop to Richard, my mother’s husband. He is 93 and since I introduced him to a computer, it has opened up a whole new world for him. As he is rather tied to the house, with my mother in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, this is a real blessing for him. Up to now he has been working with an old computer and it has some sort of problem, so rather than waste money getting someone round to trying to repair it I had my personal laptop set up for him.

In many ways it’s better than the 17 inch Dell that I’m currently working on. It’s a little bit slower and only has a ¼. Gig of RAM it certainly will satisfy Richard’s requirements. Anyway, Paul kindly removed all the files personal data leaving essential programmes there, so all Richard has to do is to plug it in, and put his password in for his server and he should be up and running.

The Foreign Secretary, Terasa May, seems to have got herself into a muddle again over the expiry date for Abu Qatada to appeal against his deportation to Jordan, from the decision of the European Court of Human Rights. There Is a big row going on as to whether the expiry of the appeal period from the decision of the ECHR was midnight on the 16 April or the 17th. As a result the whole process seems to be in the melting pot again and that wretched man is threatening to sue the Foreign Secretary for false arrest and the judge who dealt with it previously says that she may have to release this man within two or three days. What a nonsense and at what cost to the taxpayer?

Some friends of my son Miles are doing, amazing sponsored climb in Snowdonia this coming August in memory of their good friend Andrew “Kanga” John, who died of MND. Nine of “Kanga’s” friends are attempting to climb 15 of the highest peaks in Snowdonia within a 24-hour period, next August. The proceeds of this activity are to be given to the MND Association. May I please appeal to my readers to support these lads who are very kindly going to great length to raise money for the Association, in memory of their friend who was obviously very popular.

Click on the following link to find out more about this appeal and then please get out your cheque-book all credit card out and make a donation. In doing so just imagine what it would be like if you, or one of your nearest and dearest, was struck down by this dreadful disease. In anticipation, I thank you all very much for your generosity

http://www.justgiving.com/wales3000climbforkanga=

  Here is  another thing  on which to exercise your imagination.  Imagine thrusting your hand and arm into the mouth of a boa constrictor in an attempt to capture it to provide food for you and your tribe. Click here to see this amazing video.

19 April 2012

Yet another hospital visit, this time for my quarterly assessment with the MND team at Addenbrookes. This time I had the boss himself Chris (Dr Chris Allen) and our lovely MND coordinator, Jo (Joanna Sassons). Quite honestly I felt this was the most useful session we have had yet. They really did go into a […]

18 April 2012

I was horrified to hear on the BBC World Service, during the night, that one of the most important archaeological sites in the world, Babylon, has been completely destroyed. Today apparently there is no sign at all of the main brick lined street and the Hanging Gardens. I only caught snippets of this as I […]

17 April 2012

Last night was the first trial of an 8.30 bed time, as I’ve said before I’m usually ready for bed at that time but was not over anxious and spend any longer in bed than necessary due to the pain in my joints that worsen as the night goes on. I think the experiment was […]

16 April 2012

Another bright and sunny Tuesday, ideal for a trip to the golf club for the geriatric golf, except that the temperature, at best is going to reach 13°C with the threat of rain, which apart from anything else would drop the temperature by around 5°C. Clearly, it is not the day for me to visit […]

15 April 2012

I had a relatively pain-free night, having gone to bed at 9.40. Maybe this is something to do with the slow-release painkiller (tramadol). There does not seem to be very much rhyme or reason why one night should be so much worse than the next. I will discuss this with my MND team next week […]

14 April 2012

The day of the Grand National. England’s most famous race over hurdles. It’s the one day of the year when millions of people, who would not normally have bet on a horse, will consider having a flutter. (‘My lovely’ too, it transpired after the race!) Apparently, through the medium of television, the race is watched […]

13 April 2012

Yesterday, I mentioned the standing hoist and as I get weaker my face gets dangerously close to the crossbar. As a result we have modified this by strapping a small pillow to this bar. We also found the front of the foot stand rather sharp and hard on the soles of one’s feet when the […]

12 April 2012

I received an e-mail, yesterday afternoon from Doctor Margaret Saunders, who runs the Arthur Rank hospice. She was the person who made the original consultation with the pain doctor, Mark Abrahams from Addenbrookes, so she had a vested interest in trying to find a solution. She has discussed this with Joanna Sassons, my MND coordinator […]

11 April 2012

I had another miserable night after the initial sleep, waking around midnight, with painful joints. First one and then the other until around 4 a.m it was quite severe but, although I clicked the alarm twice during the night, I did so only 10 min or so before ‘my lovely’ was due down to turn […]