Beautiful Day in May #tibiaplateauupdate

I am getting along well. Sad to wave goodbye to my wonderful community physio Stephanie Mullin. I miss her cheerful encouragement. I have now had an assessment at Victoria Infirmary and expect to be starting hydrotherapy treatment soon, which I really think will help me immensely.

We have had two breaks away recently and each one has challenged me. In March I used a borrowed wheelchair from the site we were staying in, for two trips out, but other trips I used my 4 wheeled walker. On the second holiday, I didn’t use a wheelchair at all and managed to walk, with a few sit downs on my walker seat, because my leg does become painful quite quickly when I’m walking. So it will be a case of building up my strength. The first holiday was in a wheelchair adapted one bedroom apartment with a small terrace, but in the second holiday we were in a two storey house, which had a downstairs loo. To get to the swimming pool I had to do 9 outside steps with a handrail and I managed them fine on my stick. The swimming at both holidays has helped me, though I can’t swim as well as I used to.

I am starting to get back to poetry a little more. On 21st June, I am doing my first reading since pre-covid, for Joy Winkler’s Poets and Pints night in Macclesfield. I may have to read sitting down, but we shall see. I also had a poem published in Poetry Scotland, which delighted me, because it is a big effort to send poems out at the moment, and I have had mostly rejections when I have managed it. I’m looking forward to leading some workshops this summer too.

I missed last spring and summer completely, being incarcerated in hospital and rehab, and then being afraid to go down the ramp at the back in the wheelchair, because it was quite steep, though I knew I was safe being taken down backwards, I hated the sensation of being tipped up. Now the wheelchair has been returned to the person who loaned it to us, and the ramp is dismantled. I can do all the steps out of the house with the help of handrails and grab bars. So the next big challenge is not only getting outside more, but to tackle some gardening. I will let you know how I get on with that and what cunning methods I adopt to support these tasks.

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