We had a rather quiet New Year at home, but still rather nice. In Spain it’s traditional to eat one grape for each “bong” of the clock. If you manage all twelve in the time it’s supposed to bring success and prosperity. This year we had small, seedless grapes and I scarfed them down in time. Then we drank champagne, watched the fireworks and went to bed. I’ve been rather…
I’m British, but I do like the nudge to be grateful.This year I’m desperately grateful to all the medical professionals who helped to cure my cancer:Both surgeons and the anaesthetist.The radiotherapy teamThe chemotherapy specialists.All the technicians who operate and maintain the assorted scanners and radiotherapy machinesAll the nurses. My goodness, I’m grateful to those nurses. All the scientists who found out which therapies worked best, and to the patients who…
I’ve been on holiday to visit family in the UK. I was quite nervous about it, since it was the first time that I’d travelled abroad since being disabled. I still remember the time I arrived at “wheelchair-friendly” accommodation on Tenerife, only to be faced with a flight of 16 steps. That got sorted out, but it made me a bit of a worrier. It all went astonishingly well. The…
I seem to have had a lot of needles stuck into me this week. On Monday I had a CAT scan, which meant turning up without any breakfast. The nurses had to fit a port for the contrast dye. I have rather narrow veins, but the student nurse got me sorted on the second attempt. I had to do few gentle stretches before I could get comfortable with my arms…
Well not yay on the disability itself, which is disagreeable no matter how I try to spin it. Yay that the Social Security tribunal have decided that I’m disabled without me having to jump through hoops to prove that my leg isn’t going to grow back. It’s not a big surprise. I clearly can’t do any job at the moment, I’ll never be able to do my old job of…
You may remember that two weeks ago we left our intrepid heroine (that would be me) stressing about the paperwork to get a disabled parking permit. I got the updated medical information in with some help from Social Services at the Town Hall. We went along with 60 pages of photocopies only to find that we’d left the letter with the case number behind and the social worker would have…