Life is good....sometimes.

My 5th anniversary of having the stroke, was last Saturday the 17th of March, the day that time stood still for me, and I was a little bit afraid of the day and the date until it came to it, but I can tell you now, that the day came, was seen and was conquered!!


I celebrate the fact that I have lived through a stroke. Like a cancer sufferer, the consensus is that once you have passed the great number 5 in years and have survived, you can only look up.


The next day, the 18th of March, a girlfriend (Kristina, the wonderful girl who washed my hair in the rehabilitation hospital!) and I, walked the length of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and back just so I could defy the odds and spit in the eye of fate, and boy, did it feel good!


I have made a huge amount of recovery but there is still a really, long way to go. I think that is to be expected when my family was told, that I would most likely spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair with little or no speech and would probably be better off in a nursing home! Not only did I not go to a nursing home, I have almost lost the limp that I have, my arm is very good and my hand is 'functional'. Those are all pluses in my book!


The doctors and the nursing staff of a rehabilitation facility, have a tried and true way of dealing with the "client" and their families, by telling them the worst possibly outcome and then have those "clients" and families push to ensure that they would not be a statistic but would prove them wrong. This is me to a T!


This past week, I was asked by the head of the OT department, at the Royal Rehabilitation College, if I would be one of the 'patients' that were to be used for showing the electrical stimulation machines and what they could do on a real person. Of course I said 'yes' because they are wonderful to me and need all the help that we can offer them and for once, I could give something back.


I had also been asked to take another woman (who had her stroke 6months before me and who Dr Zeman has taken on), under my wing. I had to show her how to get the bus to Rehab as she has just got on to the pension and has to get to rehab the best way she can, like the rest of us! However, she is much worse in the physical aspects of her recovery than I am but I realise that more than half of her reasons for not being any better are soley because she has relied on other people for the whole time! 


I decided to do both things at once, go to Rehab to help with the Electrical Stim and to help this woman by asking my friends to use her as another helper in the ES. I had to meet her in city of Sydney and show her how to get the bus to rehab and then we had to walk up the hill to Weemala and go to the workshops there and then walk back down the hill again! I was totally bushed by the end of the day and now I know why she isn't any better than she is - she finds every thing too hard - I understand were she is coming from believe me, but it is hard enough for any of us to get around and I for one can't have someone else pulling me down, so, I have to tell it like it is so that the new people will realise that we are all in the same boat.


When I said to her, "you should come down to the swimming pool" (the council one at the leisure centre), and she said "why" and I said, "it will make your leg stronger as you have to push against gravity and in a couple of weeks, you won't know yourself" and she said, "I don't like getting wet"! I was gob smacked! She is like that with everything and I am not going to let her get away with trying to sabotage herself by living up to her image of "poor me"!


When she said "well, my stroke was bigger than yours because the Drs told my husband that I would be probably not get any better, and I might even be in a wheelchair as my walking was so bad", and I said, "Well my friend, I was in the same state as you when I was here at the Royal Rehabilitation Centre Sydney, Dr Zeman thought that I would end up in a nursing home and virtually washed his hands of me when I was discharged! Now look at me, when I come in here, Dr Z comes over to me, we shake hands and have a really good old chat (as you saw today!), he calls me his 'star pupil', and not for nothing! 


"I was as bad, if not worse than you when I had the stroke, because I couldn't talk and you could and can, you can use your right hand and a lot of us were predominantly right handed and we have had to learn to use our left hand, so stop measuring yourself against who is worse than you and who isn't and who has it harder than who. The first thing you will have to realise if you want for me to mentor you is that it is up to YOU not to become a statistic"!!


She was so upset with me that she didn't talk to me for most of the way home - then she must have thought it over because she emailed me the next morning, this is what she wrote - 'I felt I grew so much today by finding out how to get to Rehab by public transport and it was fabulous to meet so many new and lovely people. I had the best day ever..thanks to you…love *******…xxx'.


So, it just goes to show - you can't give up on people!

24.3.12

Dignitas or not Dignitas

It has been a few weeks since I wrote and more than a few weeks since I have wanted to write - I still mourn for Christina Symanski, and she is still in the news in the US even though she has gone from us. 


Firstly, I am appalled (I know what the English newspapers are capable of!!), at the Daily Mail on-line who has started all this rubbish again about whether Christina took her life because she had a broken heart and makes people question her motives etc, isn't it enough that the poor woman said in her own words she "was living an intolerable life"?


I have read a few articles about this now, to try to make up my own mind how I feel on assisted suicide. I have read a lot about Dignitas in Switzerland and how they assist the suicide of people who want to die and I believe that a cause like Christina's could have been properly assisted with this aim instead of having to take TWO MONTHS to bring about her death, herself.


There are two books that I have read about the case for taking your own life, they are, "Whose Life Is It Anyway" by written by Brian Clark in 1972 and "You Before Me" a novel written by Jojo Moyes last year in 2011.  


I happened to see the movie of 'Whose Life Is It Anyway', in mid 1984 and I wanted to see it again, so, when this topic became crucial to me, I sent for the dvd and watched this fantastic movie, starring Richard Dreyfuss as a sculptor, who is left as a quadriplegic after an automobile accident. He came to the decision to end his life as did Christina, but he was in a hospital and had to get it legally contested in order to do as he wished. He, like Christina, had to not take any medication and basically starve to death, in his case, it was the 7-10 days of horror, he was fortunate to have a good lawyer and hey, this was a movie after all.


In the book, "You Before Me", the hero has decided that his life is intolerable and wants to die after 2 and a half years as a quadriplegic, but, his family asks him to 'give the six months to change his mind'. He agrees, as he wants them to accept that for him, his life 'before' compared to his life 'after', is not a life at all. 


In the book, "You Before Me", by telling us of his daily struggle just to breathe, just to try be comfortable, to sleep when he gets too hot and there is no one about to take of the top blanket, to have an itchy nose and not to be able to scratch, it go in their car to a Doctor's appointment where they have to be like a General in the Army to actually get there and be seen and not to mind too much when people (just curiosity!!) look at them as though they come from another planet! Christina when through that and more!!


In the book, he is still determined to go to Switzerland to have Dignitas help him out of this 'travesty of a life', but he has to wait the 6 months to make sure that his family will keep their end of the bargain. That is something that we can't even imagine happening to us. Can we????


Obviously, no ones family wants them to die because you love that person, but can't you just suspend your belief for just a moment to look at this person objectively? To just know that they aren't doing this for any other reason than life is just too hard, painful, and has no dignity at all.


I don't know what I want to or can do, but seeing this lovely, and intelligent young woman, who is torn by her diving into a pool one warm night 6 years ago and ending up in life as a quadriplegic, driven to death in a most horrible way, has so affected me, that there MUST be something that we as compassionate, human beings, can do about it.

Bad things happen....

Happy New Year! This is going to be a great year for me and I can't wait to bring you up to date with what has been happening out here at the Royal Rehabilitation Centre Sydney at North Ryde and I can't wait for Lisa (my absolutely fabulous Occupational Therapist or OT) and the SAEBO Flex to get the recognition that they so richly deserve!!


Firstly, the whole of the rehabilitation centre here at the Royal is..........GONE!!! The kitchens (which were a source of much amusement to the patients, I can tell you!) which were old and horrible (we are glad those have gone), the wards, the reading rooms, the dining rooms, the 'private rooms' and even the hydrotherapy pool, the speech therapy rooms, the neuropsychology rooms and heaps of others are all GONE!!! There are a lot of rooms that I have forgotten what they were used for, but it is so strange that almost all of gardens and the balconies and even the back verandahs - are gone as well!! 


It seemed as if it was going to be quite some time before it got to this stage, and I have to say, I got a huge surprise when I went out there today and saw what has been done. The only buildings left for the moment are the Gym and some of the Physio/OT rooms and on the left as you drive through the centre, there is what was, the Admissions and Reception Centre building that I go to now, which is called the 'outpatients' block.


The demolition team who have had to deal with the dreaded 'Asbestos' and the workers having to don huge outfits reminiscent of the Moon Walk (not Michael Jackson's the actual Moon!!!) but they have done a sterling job and it will not take too long until the new Royal Rehabilitation Centre Sydney, emerges from the mists. Everything that could be recycled has been such as bricks, concrete, steel, copper, windows, pipes, cables etc and now there are a whole lot of tractors, earthmoving equipment and workers busy beeing around the site getting it ready for the next stage!


It is hard to get your head around the fact that for 50-60 years the buildings which have seen so much suffering, tears, heartbreak and despair on the one hand and so much hope, rehabilitation and pride on the other, are, no more.


I will try to keep you all up to date with what is happening out there over the next few weeks, months and beyond, but of course, it will depend on how much time I have over the next couple of weeks as to how much I can write in my 'spare' time, that I haven't got a lot of!


Since Christmas, I have been to Rehab three times and before Christmas I was going to Rehab at least once if not twice a week to tweak the SAEBO and get it working properly and once they did that.......it has been fabulous!!! Everyone is extremely happy with the whole thing a couple of other 'clients' or patients have are being fitted for a SAEBO as well! 


It is amazing that your mind truly WANTS TO WORK and I can see my fingers twitching and my thumb going up and down as Lisa asks me to do something! It is AWESOME! As you know, the human person only used 10% of the brain, imagine if it used 12% of 15% what we could achieve!


My shoulder has caused me grief lately and Lisa called my condition 'subluxion' or a dropped shoulder and that will be the next (I don't like to call it a problem, because I am so grateful that I have got any movement at all!!!) area where I would like to aim for rehabilitation, at least to a degree. Lisa told me about a "Givmohr" shoulder brace and I am keen to meet another patient of Lisa's who has one of these seemingly fantastic slings in coming weeks. I wear a splint every day, all day and a different one for night and it is heavy to say the least, I don't have much muscle any longer, with is why my shoulder has started (after almost 5 years), to drop. I hope by I will be able to carry my shoulder in a different or less unweildly fashion after looking at some of the slings that this patient or my own daughter have come up with, for the future.


Since I have started to used the SAEBO Flex, things have really moved along nicely and my hand is a little bit less tight and a bit more flexible and I am pleased with the overall routine. Lisa has gotten me to work harder and harder, as she says, "If you don't use it, your gonna lose it", so, I sit in my living room and work away as if I am going to space or being a contestant in the olympics! Some of the exercises are things like, lean on the table and bend my hand flat out and do it for about 5 mins, then sitting down at the table and squeeze my arm close to my side in and out several times, pull out my thumb several times a minute, then move my thumb in up and out several times a minute and so on as you can see, when I say sometimes I just want to give up because it all seems to hard, boring and pointless!!  


Then I remember how some of the people I have known either at the rehab centre or from reading their blogs - and I know that I can't give up, because sometimes a person that you happen to get to know through their blog, will have such a huge impact one you life, that you end up doing it for yourself and them.


One of those people was a young woman named Christina Symanski who at 24 in 2005, dived into a swimming pool at night, a pool that was only half filled and since then, she has been living with paralysis (C4/C5 complete injury) needing constant care, around the clock. She has been writing a blog since 2009 an unfortunately she has passed away - by choice.

["Symanski is a tough blend of realism and hope, bitterness and determination to live. She lives for the hope that, someday — before her muscles are atrophied — research will discover how to repair torn spinal cords. She is angry because of the religious objections to the stem cell research that might allow her to leave her chair."]  

It is a sad state of affairs that this young America woman thought that her life was so unbearable (her words), that she had no choice but to refuse all food and hydration until she died. It made her furious that in a country that is as wealthy as the USA can't find a cure for paraplegia!!!!


{{According to an April 2009 survey conducted by the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, there are 5.6 million Americans currently living with some form of paralysis. Paralysis is caused by various types of disease and injury, such as; Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Brachial plexus injury, Brain injury, Stroke, Cerebral Palsy, Friedrich’s Ataxia,Guillain-Barre Syndrome, Multiple Sclerosis, Muscular Dystrophy, Spina Bifida, Spinal Cord Injury, Syringomyelia/Tethered cord, Transverse Myelitis, Lou Gehrig's disease & Parkinson’s disease. This recent survey also indicated that 1.275 of people here in the USA were paralyzed due to spinal cord injury. An estimated 12,000 spinal cord injuries happen every year in our country. According to National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center 23% of all spinal cord injuries resulted in paraplegia, while 18% result in complete tetraplegia otherwise known as quadriplegia.[[During President Bush’s years in office our country spent less than $120 million a year on spinal cord injury research. In contrast, we spent $12 billion a year for care and support of people with spinal cord injuries (these figures do not account for the millions of other people receiving care and services related to other forms/causes of paralysis).] Where is the logic in that? [ Leading experts in the field believe that's an investment of less than $2 billion a year could provide a cure within the next decade. That is a small price to pay, especially given what a huge impact a cure would have on the lives of those people living with paralysis, not to mention the enormous savings it would produce over the long term.]] *****From Christina's Blog of  2.9.2009}}


Fortunately, President Obama has reinstated the stem cell research that was going on several years ago and a cure can't be that far away - in Chrissy's blog's she talks about WHEN not IF they find a cure - I hope it is not that long, but it is too long for Chrissy. I was shattered when I found out that she couldn't face life any longer.


RIP - Christina Symanski.

Laughter is whatyoumacallit.....

I thought that it was about time to let you all know that I did have a few laughs while I was still in the Royal Rehabilitation Centre Sydney as an in-patient! I know that I let it all seem to be so sombre and unhappy, but that is generally how we feel because our lives have been completely disrupted - but, sometimes it is just too funny and we have to laugh!


Annie, one of my long-time and wonderful girlfriends often came to see me and brought her sons along when I was in Coorabel Adult Rehabilitation Service (CARS  or just Coorabel), and this particular afternoon she had been talking quietly to me when we heard something in the hallway. Annie was feeling mortified, when Dan, her 9 year old hopped into my wheel chair and took off! He was a good driver and of course, a wheel chair was something new, cool and fast!! Her oldest son, Mikey, got into the swing of things with Dan and they both zoomed up and down the corridors!!


I remember that was one of the first occasions that I felt like laughing and I did uproariously! Annie was chasing after Dan and trying to quietly chastise him and I just laughed more, it was so funny to watch someone trying to be a grown up and you could see that maybe, she wouldn't have minded having a zoom around herself! The boys are still, thankfully, in my life and they are so welcome because they take you as they find you, and that is very refreshing.


Which brings me back to the time when I was saying that my daughter didn't like people to say to ask me what happened or to say me, "Did you break your arm?" and definitely didn't like me to say "No, I have had a stroke and my arm is partially paralysed", because most people feel embarrassed, and so do my daughter's - why??? They didn't do anything and neither did I, so, everyone has to 'get over it'!!!


My right arm is still a problem, as it used to be the dominant arm, with the dominant fingers, so, the fact that I can't write properly with my left hand either (because until recently, I was sure that my right hand would come back in to use just as long as I did this, that or something else), is irritating and annoying, but I have seen other stroke survivors writing and it is and can be as beautiful as the original writing, you just have to practise, practise and practise again - which I don't have the time or patience to get it right!


I also don't understand why other people feel embarrassed by people with a disability? I didn't before I had the stroke (which now is being called a brain attack, like a heart attack) and I doubly don't understand now! However, I am ashamed of my reaction to people with a disability before, because I really didn't have one, which is worse that being a bigot!!! I didn't have a reaction, because I used to think of the 10% of people in Australia who have some kind of disability, as being 'not there'. Since my stroke or brain attack, I can understand why the disabled people and their carers have become so much more vocal and political as we need to make sure that all people are being heard, especially the disadvantaged, which disabled people are.


There was a fantastic show on television this week called "Scarlet Road: A Sex Worker's Journey, about a woman called Rachel Wotton, who specialises in disabled clients. What a documentary, what a woman! It is fantastic that disabled people needs are being recognised in this and so many other areas. However, these other areas; like lifts and how to go out to certain restaurants and shops, are still being looked at as causing a huge disadvantage to the owners, the managers and people in general because they COST A HUGE AMOUNT OF MONEY for the poor restaurants, shops, hotels etc - what about the disabled people!!! At last they are being given a voice and it rings out loudly.


Most days I can confidently walk for miles and not feel too disabled, but sometimes, especially when I am tired, I will find that my right leg drags a little and my limp becomes so much more pronounced. Other times I try to block out the tiredness and say to myself, I am so lucky that I can walk at all!


That is how I truly feel now. I am blessed that I can walk, talk and am not too disabled. I assume that it will get better with time, but you know what the psychologists say, "ass u me"!!!

Buzzzzzzzz

It was the Christmas holidays and I was alone and would be for several days, so, the problem that I had, would have to be solved by me! It was a bad mozzie bite and I know, you say "phtt", that's no problem - well isn't it!!!


I had quite a few bites that season and my body has changed since I had my stroke/brain attack, so, my reaction to various things has changed. I no longer have hay fever, am not prone to the effects of eating to much and don't need Nexium for heartburn, however, I do have a bad reaction to mosquitoes. I don't know why, but there you are!


I left the balcony doors open so that I could enjoy the cool breeze that was blowing that evening and that was asking for trouble, because the mozzies were out in full force. One of the little monsters had bitten me on the inner side of my  middle finger but at the joint of the finger and my palm. It started slowly, but as time wore on my finger got a big blister and more and more swollen and because of the strange position that the bite was in, it was very hard to itch it or scratch it and nothing I could do would help.  My finger was swollen to the extent that I truly thought that it was going to burst!!


I wondered how I could 'pop' the blister because that was the only way that I could imagine that I was going to get on top of this problem. At first, I thought, "I will use a straight pin to pop it", but after a few goes at 'popping' the bite, I became worried in case I swallowed the pin, so, that was no good. Then I thought about a safety pin and I trawled though the house looking for the very thing, but when I got the pin, I couldn't open it because you need one good hand to open the pin (which is very small) I had, but then you have to hold that pin in your hand to prick the blister and I didn't have that!


I sat and thought some more, and then I realised that the pin was too small and a bigger pin, like a baby's nappy pin would work and I had one of those, but it took me the next hour to find that pin which was in our 'Memories' box, high up in the cupboard. It took me another hour to get the box down from the cupboard and you have to remember, I have to do it in a way that won't 'brain' me when I pull the box down! Eventually, I did manage to slide the box forward enough to get it over the edge of the shelf in the cupboard and catch it in my one good hand! Yaaaayyyyyy!


When I got the box open, I then started to look at all the lovely memories that the box held, and for a while, I forgot the blister on my hand, but not for long. I then went into the bathroom and was standing at the sink in front of the mirror (with the plug in the basin!!) and tried to 'pop' the blister while I held the safety pin in my mouth. I tried and tried, but it is so difficult to do something in reverse! By that I mean trying to do something that comes naturally but when you look at your self trying to do that thing in the mirror, you can't do it!!!


After a half and hour trying to 'pop' the blister, would you believe it - it popped!!!!! I was laughing like a loon and hopping, dancing around knowing that I had done something that no one told me do or helped me and I was soooo happy that I was laughing and not crying like I would have done not so long ago.

Dress-ups

After I came back to Sydney, I realise that I was over being a disc jockey and needed to do something else, but it had to be a creative role and I didn't know what I was looking for.


My youngest sister, Melissa, was working as a house model for Grace Bros. at Parramatta, one day I went to see her working and met her boss Lainie and thought, 'Hmmm - that's the kind of work that I would like to do', and would you believe it - a position came up at Grace Bros, Chatswood (which is my local neighbourhood store!)so, I applied for the position, which was advertised as a 'causal Fashion Co-ordinator' not really thinking that I would get the position (but really, really wanting it) but after going for 4 long interviews, I actually got the job!


I started at the Grace Bros Chatswood, as a casual, working only the days that the parades were on, but after a short while the job became much more than a 'job' and I loved it!


Someone once asked me 'what would be your favourite kind of job' and I said, 'playing dress-ups with real people', this was that kind of job! I really had to 'play dress-up's' with real people!!!


The job consisted of putting on fashion parades in the store and working in the particular area that the garments came from. Sometimes they were little parades about 'Big is Beautiful' or 'Moderate Price Dresses', or 'Lingerie', especially if it was Mother's Day or something like that. Of course, every Spring we had the fabulous High Fashion Range which we truly looked forward to! However and unfortunately, High Fashion looks good and keeps us in work, but that doesn't keep the fires burning for most of us, so, anything that the store thought would bring in the customers, that was what we tried our best to sell.


I was excited about shoes one time and thought that we should make the shoes the main point and not the clothes, so, I got the models to wear leotards and we decided that the models would just show shoes so, they did!! It was sensational! The girls were on a stage and the curtain cut them off at the knees and they danced and high kicked and went on like a chorus in a big show and they high kicked to New York, New York and it was brilliant and boy, the whole thing was so much fun! 


Another day, we were doing menswear in the store and I wanted the boys to be different, so, I had them dressed in long grey trench coats and made sure the music was appropriate for each segment. They started off with 'one day your'e gonna get caught, one day your'e gonna get caught with your pants down', that was another parade that was soooo much fun! We had a segment where the male models had to dance to 'Putting on the Ritz', and dance with the older ladies in the crowd! Grace Bros was pretty much a tight ship' to be working for, but they had a sense of humour and we made fabulous parades!!!


There were six part-time 'house' models who would be complemented by six professional models from the major model agencies in Sydney. We had Tina, Michelle, Kate, Rebecca, Janelle and Brooke. The 'House' models were gorgeous girls who were learning their trade by being part-timers while they learnt all the tricks of their trade from us their employers and the professional models and it was a fantastic way for the newer models to learn their trade. Some of the House models are still friends of mine today after almost thirty years, especially Janelle or Miss Johnny as we used to call her (Miss J is pictured starring in a parade) and Tina who I have known for over half of her life!


I wish that girls today, had something like our girls did at Grace Bros in the 80's and 90's. A way to feel like they are amongst the hype but have a 'den mother' to look out for them and keep them safe.

Count my Blessings

I have just come back from Royal Rehab where I finally got my cast off! I am so grateful to Lisa, because it is not always a fulfilling job, to be an OT. The 'clients' or as I will always call us, the 'patients' are a funny lot, not funny haha, but funny weird! Sometimes, I can't understand why the people who work at RRCS, actually work there. I look around and think it is such a difficult part of anyone's life, why would someone choose to work here? Especially working with the patients and how angry they are!! I couldn't understand why anyone could get anything good out of working at a rehabilitation hospital. But I am so glad that they do and you know what? I met a young man there today, someone I have been trying to meet for about 6 months and I feel thankful that the beautiful staff who work at Royal Rehabilitation Centre Sydney actually work there, because no one else would be so patient with us broken people!


Blessing, is from Zimbabwe and he came to Australia last year to visit two of his sisters and two days before he was to return to his homeland, he had a stroke - he is 30 years old. A young man in the prime of his life! I at least had had a full and wonderful life before, but this man is just a boy. Someone who could probably not live in his hometown since he is what we call 'disabled', and people like us find it very difficult to live in our society, here in Australia, imagine how much more difficult it will be to live in a male dominated country where if you can't work no-one want's to know you.


Blessing of course, was where I was not so very long ago (hating the world and everyone in it), and not trying to make the most of it. Angry that the world kept on turning while I was in so much pain! Well, I think Blessing has begun to realise that he is still alive and that he is NOT going to wake up and find that this is a nightmare. The poor young man has got to face facts, and let me tell you, it is a harrowing thought.


I told the girls of my stroke, where I was at the time, how long I was in hospital, how I couldn't walk, couldn't talk, couldn't even sit up, eat, swallow or go to the toilet. We became a little teary, I told the sisters of my long and thankless rehabilitation that my whole family lived, breathed and helped me through. I told them how I wanted to die for a long time, but I couldn't think of how to do it being so disabled for such a long while.


I told them that I imagined filling the bath and falling into it from my wheel chair, but I was so frail I couldn't put the plug into the bath; throwing myself of the roof of my apartment, but again, I couldn't get my wheel chair into the lift and out onto the roof; I tried saving my medication and taking the whole lot in one go, but swallowing was impossible for a long time and I just ended up with medication all down my front !! I screamed(in my mind) and raved and ranted at GOD for 'doing this to me', but eventually I, like Blessing, had to realise that I was going to live regardless and how I lived was up to me.


I met Blessing's sisters' through a lovely friend named Richard, who thought that I might be able to help them because I had had a stroke myself and knew exactly what he was going through. Anita and Debra were going through the pain of having someone close to them survive a stroke but knowing that he needed specialist rehabilitation, were feeling like they were banging their heads on a brick wall trying to deal with their brothers negativity and depression when he would not do come to Royal Rehab and do the exercises or the speech therapy or what ever it was that he needed to be doing but just lay around at home most of the time.


Anyway, Blessing had no desire to help himself for a long while, as he was in emotional turmoil, but with the patience of the staff quietly urging him along, he has slowly come to realise (as we all do!) that the only person to benefit or not from all that the rehabilitation on offer - is YOU. I was at Rehab (it seems that I spend half of my life there!) last Wednesday and when I went into the outpatients reception room, and Lisa (my beautiful OT) said to me, "Oh Wendy, you wanted to meet Blessing didn't you, well here he is", and I was so surprised to meet him after 6 months of planning all I could do was hug him and smile like a cheshire cat!!! We are going to meet in the city with his sister's, and Richard and take it from there.


I was watching a program on TV and the story about Simon S was on, he has been diagnosed as having Motor Neurone Disease (MND), a disease that robs you of everything except your mind and then when you can't breathe anymore, hopefully, you die! It was so sad, that I can't understand how these people can go on with their lives, but they DO. Sometimes I get so angry at GOD and can't understand how people like Blessings sisters' still have so much faith.


Sometimes, you just have to shake your head in disbelief at how horrible fate can be, but as a Aunty of mine wrote to me, "life doesn't always take us where we want to go, but the path we walk is the path that we are meant to be on..whether good or bad...love, live and learn", and just hope that it all turns out in the end.