Tuesday, January 27, 2009

I just spoke with my daughter who mentioned her blog and it reminded me that I had not written in mine during the last few days which can be attributed to the fact that things at the moment are probably not going that bad so there's really nothing to write about mind you I will make an effort to add something every day even if it's just a few lines.

If there's one thing I miss the most from having this disease it's the isolation. There are certainly a number of groups I could join however my experience has shown that you basically get to listen to other people's problems while this can be therapeutic at least initially to show you that you are not alone I do not believe they help that much in the long run. After you have gone through grief and have come to grips or acceptance with the disease the groups to me did not appear that beneficial.

However once my wife leaves the house for work in the morning I can spend the day watching television, reading a book or even attempt some artwork at least until my fingers give out and I can hold the paint brush any longer at which point the artwork usually turns into some type of abstract painting as I inevitably drop the paintbrush on the canvas. It's similar to dropping a slice of buttered toast inevitably it will fall butter side down likewise the brush will always fall on the painting.

Every afternoon almost like clock work I need to rest for an hour or so, in the past I would either go to bed or have a seat in my lazy boy electric recliner yet with the number of falls I've taken recently I'm paranoid at getting out of my chair at least until the bruises heal and the muscles don't hurt then like everything you tend to forget. For now and the foreseeable future I stay in my electric chair which luckily has a tilt feature allowing me to lean back quite a bit I use it to rest.

Though we have the Van I am afraid to use it alone it in the winter. A few days ago I drove it to the dealership in order to have the battery replaced while there wasn't that much snow I got stuck, the ramp on the Van was down but there was enough snow that it would not make contact with the ground a 2 to 3 inch gap between the ramp and the ground. I tried to ram the ramp thinking my front wheels would force the ramp downwards which they did yet I somehow ended up sideways on the ramp with one of my front wheels off of the ramp itself.

Seems like I was there for a long time but it was probably less than 30 minutes of rocking my wheelchair back and forth until people came out of the building saw that I needed assistance. It took three of them to be able to put me back on track so that I could access the Van.

Once inside the only thing I wanted to do was get the van started and the heat going so I could warm up a bit. Unless we are down to bare asphalt which should occur sometime in April there will no longer be any attempts to take the Van alone that is for certain.