Beautiful Sunny Friday.

 
Miguel Cubiles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Cubiles

Here it is Friday again, looking forward to the weekend and the rugby and football tomorrow afternoon.

Today has been a day of two halves the morning started well; we woke up at 09.00 when the phone rang, after awhile I did my arm exercises.

Then Richie did my leg exercises and massage after that he got me sitting up with the table and laptop.

Richie had a lovely long shower, which he enjoyed very much; afterwards he made himself a cup of coffee.

No sooner had Richie drunk it when I needed Richie to get me out of bed very urgently so I could go to the toilet.

My bowels were quicker than Richie could get me out of bed, luckily the sheet was protected so did not get messed up.

By the time the hoist lifted me out of my bed the room was filled with the smell of my shit.

These are not my favourite moments, sadly we have both have had to get used to them.

So used to it now, that I do not feel embarrassed anymore, we just get on with it, as we always do and once I had been to the toilet and had a shower I felt brilliant.

Some days are different than others.

Pictures of Amsterdam.


Had planned my day totally different to how it started, had meant to write a post for my blog not long after I had done my arm exercises and Richie had done the leg exercises and massage.

I had intended to write about my relationship with Richie and how I am so very happy that he is here with me, and I do not have to go through this shit alone.

Instead Richie discovered on lifting my left leg to do the first set of leg exercises that I had pooped in the bed, this really shook me up and I hope this is not the beginning of daily bowel incontinence.

Something that I have been dreading for ages, no wonder I woke up early this morning in such great discomfort.

I just thought I had my usual rather sudden waking up caused by a combination of a violent leg spasm and a rubbish container being cranked up and emptied into the waiting truck.

Now I realise that I got woken up by the urgent need to go to the toilet, these days I can not read the various signals my body tries to give me.

This is because I get so many signals most of which are about nothing as the myelin around my nerves becomes pretty non existent.

All day and night I have feelings of great pain travelling around my body, most of which are not relevant as there is no actual pain.

I took each pain very seriously until I noticed that a violently painful shoulder would be ok after 2 or 3 minutes but then my ankle would now be hurting.

Or my right wrist or it would start up in my back and travel right down my body and back up.

The other thing has happened because of lying in bed for so long is that I am both sensitive and insensitive.

Something’s I can not feel and other things like a tiny, almost unseen wrinkle in the sheet goes off like a ten gun salute and once woken up I will not be able to sleep unless Richie comes over and pulls the sheet until the wrinkle has gone.

Often I feel something that is not there which makes it difficult for Richie to resolve for me so I can get back to sleep and hopefully he can too.

Now that I have been in bed for so long the muscles in my back have not been used and have got very weak indeed.

Difficult for me to do too much to change the situation until I can sit in the wheelchair, as both in bed as well as in the shower chair I am reclining and not sitting.

Because of how severe the wound was I was not allowed to put any strain whatsoever on that area.

So have been reclining and in fact sort of sitting on my lower back, guess how the rich Romans used to eat reclining.

It is an uncomfortable way to sit and I have been doing my best to cope with it but will be even happier to be able to sit properly again soon.

Richie was brilliant as always this morning; he got me out of bed with the minimum of discomfort.

Then he proceeded with is usual tact,m to clean me up, showering me and dressing the tiny wound and then liberally oiling my legs with almond oil which is lovely feeling and a delightful fragrance.

He dressed me and after I finished I did my daily 30 minutes of leg exercises at the Motomed, had just finished when my lovely visitor our good friend Jeanet came to see us.

http://www.motomed.com/

A lovely visit and very pleasant way to recover from the rather stressful start to our day.

It could have been a lot more upsetting and stressful but luckily Richie is so very sensitive and caring that even this horrid situation gets dealt with so gently by him, that I did not get unduly upset.

It remains an unpleasant situation which I find really upsetting but no longer think that I will be treated differently now.

Not easy but I am determined to not just enjoy and make the best of things but to also keep valuing myself and appreciating myself and to realise other people do too.

Gareth's photos of his garden and countryside in Wales.

It is already Sunday 19 July, a sunny day with occasional clouds blocking the sun and a steady breeze which is standard for Amsterdam.

This morning, I guess at it was 8 am when I woke the first time, was suddenly aware again after a huge spasm seemed to pull me down the bed.

Always strange that my body which does not feel so much these days and can’t move but is so moveable and so sensitive too.

When I am sitting up in bed Richie has to check my posture every couple of hours and each time I have moved quite considerably.

He has to adjust both my upper body which usually moves to the right and my pelvis has usually corkscrewed round to the left.

All these movements have caused my tee shirt to have folds of material behind me which cause a lot of discomfort as every little fold feels like I am lying on a knife edge.

The other effect of all this shifting around is that my right sleeve is always very tightly wrapped round my arm and the armpit gets a fair amount of pressure.

My tee shirt ends up being wrapped tightly around the arm and a wedge effect is created in the armpit which is painful.

These adjustments have to happen every two hours otherwise I am hanging there in bed in considerable discomfort.

Shifting around and leaning to the right causes a lot of stress to the left side of my body as that has to try to compensate and somehow maintain my position.

This can result in a hell of a lot of tension in my neck as it tries to hold me up and in my left upper arm.

Usually I do not even notice that I have slipped and my left side is compensating and there is huge stress.

Often Richie will walk in saying why didn’t you call me and it is only then that I become aware that I am not sitting ok at all.

The longer that I am in bed the more that things like that will happen as my muscles get used less so there will be more adjustments being made more often during the day.

The other big adjustment that I have had to make is about going to the toilet, every third day I have a very large bowel movement.

Have become aware of this after several times not getting out of bed at the right moment and have done it in my leggings and while still in bed or while being hoisted out of bed.

Not surprising it often happens as the hoist straps are being placed around me, as there is a fair amount of moving around and sitting up and lying down so that the straps are properly wrapped around me.

If we have misjudged the time, then this is the moment that my body can’t contain the shit any longer and it all starts to happen.

Mortifying when this happens, I really hate it, but now it has happened several times although it still upsets me enormously it does not get me quite as bad as the first time did.

Then I thought it was the most dreadful thing ever, which of course it is not, there are worse things.

But just you try to convince yourself of this fact when it has just happened for the first time.

This sort of thing is not good for your confidence; no it really is not good, made me feel literally like an old shit bag.

Seemed to me that I had descended into my own personal hell and did not know how to get back out.

Richie was wonderful, he put the extractor fan on in the bathroom and spread out the absorbent paper towels on the floor under the shower chair and proceeded to clean me up.

All the way through he kept talking to me in a relaxed and sweet way which soothed me considerably.

In no time everything was under control and Richie had got me over the toilet to complete the bowel movement and after that Richie placed me under the shower and cleaned me and dried me and dressed the pressure wound and before I knew it I was dressed in clean tee shirt and leggings.

Next I my feet were placed in the Motomed and my legs were firmly strapped in and I could start my 30 minutes leg exercises.

Richie brought me some THC to complete the relaxation and he got the TV all set up so I could watch while the Motomed was exercising my legs.

After such wonderful treatment I was once again reassured that I was ok and Richie did still love me and the dogs did still want to be my doggies in short nothing had changed.

Despite the accident I was still very much ok, really needed to be reassured as this was a seismic shift for me.

Had known that this could happen but really hoped that I would be spared or it would not happen for quite awhile.

Found it really shocking when it happened as it really calls up some fundamental questions, am I still me or does this change who I am and the way everyone sees me?

Does double incontinence mean more than a bodily function that has become disrupted by lack of muscle power?

Does this detract from who I am?

The first time I really thought that would be the case, that incontinence of body meant my mind would soon follow suit.

And no one would treat me the same way as before I pooped in my leggings.

Of course realised quickly that this was not going to happen and all that happened is that we were made aware that we have to be more responsive.

Richie being so calm and matter of fact about it all really did reassure me that all was going to be alright.

My darling really showed me his love and care that night and he made it all good again, his loving care helps me to cope with this whole situation.

Right now he is preparing a late brunch for me, he went up to the Moroccan bakers on the Kinkerstraat and bought some of their delicious bread rolls.

He is making anchovy/hard boiled egg dressed with olive oil, mustard, salt and black pepper and a dash of pepper sauce and mixed together served on strips of easy to pick up brown and white bread rolls.

And to follow he got me Danish pastries.

Think that I am ready to sample the feast right now!