I’m on my way ......

 Well where did those 5 months go? A long time since the last update and so much has happened since then but don’t worry, this isn’t a blow by blow account. I just wanted to revisit the blog and bring you up to speed with where we have been and where we are heading 🙂 You may remember in the last blog that I had hit a bit of a bump in the road. Being stuck in bed for months had knocked both my progress and confidence. My revisions were a worry. Well there was nothing else to do but to just get out and put them to the test! I spent from August to the end of the year doing just that. I fulfilled one of my aims of being able to dance one more time at a Coldplay concert in Wembley. I braved rail travel and the London Underground for the first time in a wheelchair. I carried on the dancing by attending Peter Kay’s Dance for Life in Liverpool and boogied away to ABBAs Voyage experience. My dancing was very conservative and short lived by my previous standards but I did it! I say I but of...

  I wasn’t sure it was worth doing an update this month as on the face of it, nothing has changed. I’m still mostly stuck in bed. The wounds to my revisions are healing well but this bloody skin graft is taking forever!. So as I say, nothing to report. Nothing extraordinary has happened. But wait a second…Didn’t we say that was the aim of this blog? To show the everyday, mundane and boring experiences of an amputee. There are many people with disabilities doing amazing things to raise awareness in the wider community, and I wish I was in a position to do the same. Hiking up a mountain. Jumping from a plane. Swimming across open water. ( Okay, maybe not the open water thing because (a) I can’t swim and (b) I never liked be in water deeper than being able to put my feet on the bottom. Now I have no feet, how’s that going to work  🤔 )…but you get my drift..But being stuck in bed, im not able to do much at all. Again, nothing Extraordinary has happened. Not being up and about, gi...

 Well where to start? I suppose by addressing the fact that it’s been 4 months since my last post would be a good enough place. The last 16 weeks or so have been some of the most emotionally challenging I’ve encountered since I finally came home back in March 21. The last month and a half has also been physically tough but I will explain as we go on. While none of this period has been particularly tragic, it has been difficult and trying to find a way to convey that in the blog without sounding negative or self pitying seemed just too big a task to take time out to tackle. That said, we always intended this blog to be an honest account and insight into the everyday challenges of an amputee so here we go. (Don’t worry, I promise it’s not a moan fest 😉) March and April brought some significant dates around on my calendar, being a year since I was finally discharged from hospital ..My Home-iversary..and 2 years since my first amputations..My Ampuversary. My initial thought was that I...

 Another month and more opportunities to stretch myself and keep edging outside of that comfort zone. You may remember that in October I had the chance to present my story to a regional group of professionals involved in Disability and care provision. Well I was asked to repeat that but this time to a national audience. Given the warm welcome and interest they showed me last time, accepting the invitation was a pleasure. Once again, the delegates listened patiently to my story and, more importantly, interacted with me throughout. Towards the end of the presentation I was asked what I thought was the biggest obstacle to me getting back into full time employment? I have to admit that it was a curve ball and all I could think of was my previous job and how the hell I would be able to cope with the pressures, both physical and mental, of that? Not to mention the logistical challenge of travel as a Quad amputee! After a couple of moments I said that confidence was my biggest obstacle. M...

  Welcome to 2022 and what I hope will prove to be brighter and more settled year for us all.  I’m certainly hoping it’s more settled for me than January proved to be. After a lovely Christmas with the three of our kids home and some interesting Christmas gift choices 😂……..  ….my New year started in such an emotionally unsettling way. Things were bobbling along quite nicely until one evening we were watching David Tennant on TV.  Now anyone who knows me and my fondness for the former Dr. Who ( hence the life size cut out who lives in our kitchen 🙄) would think that this can only be a happy story but unfortunately, not so.  He was playing the part of the adventurer Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 days and this in turn got us talking about the various places we had visited around the world.  What started as a lovely trip down memory lane, remembering the amazing places I’d visited and the wonderful people I had met quickly turned completely upside do...

 Another lengthy gap since my last update and again, another very busy couple of weeks. I realised that the posts were getting a little lengthy so I’ll concentrate on just a couple of key things. Lots going on with my rehabilitation and I continue to have problems with the healing of the skin graft site on my left leg. It’s taking a long time to heal and is constantly becoming infected. That said, little by little I am managing to wean myself off the high doses of painkillers. Hopefully this will help blow away some of the Brain fog I seem to have. I mentioned in my last post that I had been in touch with @openbionics. Well at the beginning of this month I had my first Face to face appointment. The Prosthetist, Kameron, was so informative and patient and the afternoon just flew by. By the end, initial scans of my arm had been taken and the muscle contact sites identified so that we could be sure that I had the ability to operate the Hero arm. Thankfully, I could 🙂 https://vm.tikto...

 Another full and interesting month that’s been spent talking with various people and groups. As time goes on I want to better understand what has happened so far, how that affects me now and how I move forward from here. I also want to help others gain some level of understanding of that as well and I can only do that by engaging with people. A far cry from my wanting to just hibernate in my own safe space and send out the occasional blog post 😂 I feel this is a positive thing and David  doesn’t need to persuade me quite as much as he used to.  With that in mind, I had the opportunity to present to a Disability network group of professionals who serve the Disabled community daily. I think my aim was to give an insight into the impact of a life changing event and just how fragile the certainty of our immediate future can be. Heavy stuff eh? Haha Well you would think so, but actually it wasn’t  The attendees were warm, welcoming and more importantly, interested. It f...