Tag: stroke
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Corstorphine Hill
Autumn seems to have arrived while we were away. The plums on Jesus’s tree have been turned into jam, the brambles in the local hedgerows are all but gone, and the rosebay willowherb has blown spectacularly to seed. It seemed the right sort of time to ascend Corstorphine, which has, perhaps, the most woodland character…
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duathlon
Hello, everyone! You may remember, when Tom injured his hand rather badly a couple of years ago, that we went on holiday to Madeira – the prime destination of British convalescents for at least a century and a half. Tom’s Dad has dibs on an apartment over there, which, in its lovely coastal location, always…
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As I’m trying to record my experience of recovery honestly, it is worth pointing out that things aren’t great for me at the moment. Someone mentioned the other day that I appeared to be “moving on” from the stroke — unfortunately, there isn’t anywhere to actually move to – the stroke is with me every…
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The Braids
Hill four of the seven is Braid Hill, or in local parlance, The Braids. Rising from a wooded valley floor to an undulating hillside a couple of miles south of Edinburgh, The Braids are part managed parkland, part urban corridor. By day, a place for golf buddies and walkers; by night, the hideout of youths…
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Blackford Hill
Time for the third of the seven hills. Blackford sits to the South of Edinburgh and though the hill is not at all steep, the terrain is rough in places. On Calton or Castle Hill, one is definitely walking in the city – not so here. I thought I’d try using two walking poles today:…
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I got me . . .
. . . AN UMBRELLA! Happily, everything went very smoothly on Wednesday. But there were a few surprises: for example, I was not anticipating being fully awake during the procedure – I had thought they would dope me up with some of the loopy juice they gave me during the trans-esophageal examination – which left…
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sadnesses
I’ve been so saddened and appalled by the story that has been unfolding in your comments that I couldn’t sleep last night. Emma writes that “it is generally understood that you have to have two or three goes at the DLA to get what you are entitled to,” and indeed, from what you have all…
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limbo
Now, I don’t want to moan, but this space is somewhere where I like to be honest about my experience of recovery, so, to be frank, things are a bit rubbish at the moment. 1. We’d planned a short break this week on Barra and Harris, but one of Calmac’s ferries broke down; they cancelled…
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happy tortoise and hare day!
The tortoise and the hare is finished! I am pleased with it! I am not ashamed to admit that I had foolish ideas about an appropriate photo location, for which I blame a poster I saw a while ago advertising the LMS railway. The poster was from the 1920s, and like many of this era,…
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if you are interested. . .
. . .in what recovering from a brain injury is really like for someone of working age like me, go and read this excellent article by Tim Lusher in today’s Guardian. It provides a very telling account of the effects of vertigo and fatigue, attitudes toward visible and invisible disabilities in the workplace, and the…
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that’s what you think*
There is nothing that focuses the mind more on the realities of being disabled than filling in forms about it. I completed the worst of these on Tuesday — a hideous 59 page epic. There are whole sections in which which one must list the activities one used to do, and can no longer. Writing…
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correspondence
These are my pinboards at the Astley Ainsley Hospital, covered with the wonderful cards and messages you sent. Being in hospital is a difficult business. For me, the dissociating effect of being a patient in an institution was compounded by the fact that I was inhabiting a body which did not seem to be mine…