ME AND MY STAIRS - AN ENDLESS SAGA

I am having my last monthly dose of chemotherapy next week (if it happens) after that one, the third, it goes to 3 monthly until March 2011.
My GP has prescribed Gabapentin for the leg pains which seem to be working [well, up to now]. That makes a total of up to 18 tablets a day To be honest the leg bag causes more problems than the MS. Mind you the MS destroying the pelvic muscles doesn't help with the bladder spasms.
The Physiotherapist came at the beginning of this week and showed me some balance exercises, the Assistant Physiotherapist is coming next week to help me. Exercises are a good idea and badly needed but having the energy to do them is another matter. Maybe I'll have more energy when I don't have stairs to worry [well not stairs, more the gong up and coming down].
On that note things are progressing but not at the speed I need or would like, the woman who is doing the assessment wanted to come initially next week but it was the day of hospital and I think the treatment is more important. I rang to say I wouldn't be in that day so could they re-arrange the appointment, apparently they only due this area on Wednesdays so the appointment has been put back a week and re-arranged for Wednesday the week after next. It's all well and good for someone who can get out, but not for me [the attendant controlled electric wheelchair hasn't arrived yet] so Alan will have to go on his own if we are asked to view as I still can't go and look at any bungalows we bid for. There has been a vacant bungalow this week which would be ideal, it is near a shopping mall and my daughter, has 2 bedrooms, and has been adapted internally for a wheelchair, so we put a bid in for it, even though we know we won't be even considered without the assessment.
We keep consoling ourselves saying that there probably wouldn't be anywhere for the dog because most bungalows seem to have been built with a communal garden area with maybe a bench. Why do the able-bodied people who design these bungalows seem to presume that the disabled and/or elderly do not need or want a garden or any private area? My problem, as with most disabled people, is stairs and steps, not the garden or paved area.
I am now at the stage where whenever I go upstairs, apart from to bed, knowing I have to go down again terrifies me. In the past few weeks I have been glad of the two handrails to stop me falling b0th when going upstairs and especially coming back down. I will be so glad when I don't have stairs any-more.
So the state of play now is that next week I begin my exercises and go to see the vampire darts team and the week after I have my assessment done.
We will see if any of this happens when I expect it to.
Watch this space! That's all I can say!