By the way, I forgot to tell you that, although my right hand is still numb and I still cannot use it except as a hook, after Alan fetched me a crochet hook [mine not found since the move] I began crocheting again. I cannot use a really small hook to do work with crochet cotton but can do knitting yarn for about ½ hour. = PROGRESS!
Now I must apologise for the long silence, the laptop keyboard gave up on me, it would have been too expensive to buy a new complete keyboard so I had to wait for Peter to finish transferring everything from this so I could buy it off him. The only hitch is that this is a Mac so there are some ways of doing things I have had to get used to and some different software I have to purchase and learn.
I did feel so much better and more positive until the housing department decided to do the bathroom upgrade a month earlier than they had told me. Wonderful I thought and got really excited but, I should have known better! First came the step, all went well although I haven't yet tried for a month, I just did not feel safe using the old electric wheelchair, and now workmen were here every morning, I say morning because they have finished each day just after lunchtime.
I knew there would be no shower during the process but what they never told me that there would be no washing facilities at all! When I rang to complain I was told as I had no family that would let me use their shower on a daily basis [it was easier to say I had no family than to explain that showers over baths and upstairs couldn't be used by me] I would have to use the kitchen sink. Am I to sit on the draining board as I used to as a child? Apart from the fact we have not yet found curtains or blinds to fit, how will sitting at the kitchen sink on my perching stool [I cannot stand without holding on with both hands] keep any infection at bay?
Worse was to come though, when the floor was levelled and the bathroom that now only contained a toilet was out of bounds until the floor had dried! So no washing facilities and now no toilet either, the floor person told us it would take about 4 hours to dry. [Yes it might only take 4 hours if the heating was left on, but turning the radiator off mister floorer stretches 4 hours to infinity]. When we realised it was off and rectified the problem it did only take 4 hours but from midnight not midday as it would have been if the radiator had been left on.
When the inspector visited I mentioned the washbasin situation to be told that they had to remove the washbasin to lay the floor beneath it but anyone with eyesight could have seen the old one was wall hung and so was about 2.1/2 feet above the floor!
Well that was then and now I have a complete new bathroom but the curtain runners are too stiff for me to pull, it isn't a problem though because the shower has its own corner so only needs ½ of 1 curtain to keep the hand towel and ring dry. What has been and is ongoing is the toilet blocking approximately once a week [that have been with their plungers at least 19 times in the 6 months we have lived here] eventually after 5 months they sent contractors with a drains camera who confirmed what we had been saying all along, that the large tree in the front garden had broken the drain, but they weren't allowed to dig near the tree because it is on housing authority land. No-one has yet turned up to start digging, so watch this space.
What was a problem though, was the workmen's boots, so I went on a 'dirty' protest and refused to clean the floor until the drain was fixed but I had to give in when I realised that I was walking in mud after leaving the shower.
Right, now back to the present and the bathroom latest – the shower drain has started to block again and has, through covering all floor in water, shown the faults on the floor. I am not reporting it today [Friday] because they only work Monday to Friday, the puddles will dry up at some and definitely will by Monday, so I will ring when the puddles are fresh and won't have time to dry.
I went for my final 'cycle' of chemotherapy yesterday so have lots of bruises on my arms where the vampire darts team tried to get blood out of me. Thank goodness I don't have to endure that again but have to remember that if it has not worked the other remedy involves daily infusions for a full week every few weeks, so fingers crossed. I am very tired today because I was up very early the day before yesterday for the arranged appointment and guess what? The ambulance went to the old address AGAIN I wouldn't mind but in the 6 months we have lived here I have had 3 patient transport collections here before they messed up 3 months ago. Logic? There is none. Intelligence? Was lonely and ran away.
I did go in my new wheelchair yesterday so kept disappearing from the ward, in fact I can't be kept in the bungalow now. I have discovered that the paths here are numerous and many have got steps but there are some without. Luckily the paths to the doctors, supermarket, tram-stop and mother's care home are without. But now as I go out virtually every other day and spend the next day recuperating, so I seem to have accepted having MS [although I do get problems].
I think not being able to leave the house for over a year was causing me not to accept my illness, and now I can and do go out when I feel like it, it has helped acceptance because I feel like a person again not just a list of symptoms.
