Monday 28 March 2011

SMELLY CAT PART 2

The nesting kitten doesn't so much fly, as plummet.

how to spend a Sunday afternoon. The peace was broken by Amy screaming that Millie who is only four months old, was 50ft up a tree behind the log cabin and actually in our neighbours garden. Amy called the RSPCA who didn't make any promises other than to tell the local branch. So we settled in to wait for Millie to come down. Ben and Amy had a picnic. Millie miouwed
in distress from up the tree and we all helplessly watched on. Julie called Simon, the golf course manager at the course behind our house. He came down and had a look but said the cat was too high and as it's a fir tree it would be dodgy to put a ladder up against it and he doesn't have one long enough.
Then, after an hour and a half an RSPCA man turned up. He looked in the various trees and then Amy pointed to where Millie was and he said " OH MY GOD "
We tried the Fire Service earlier but were told they would not attend a cat in a tree until it had been up there two days. Anyhow, the RSPCA man said he would call the Fire Service and see if he could get them to help. He did and five minutes later a shiny red fire engine was outside our house whilst Amy was in the cabin applying war paint and perfume, it seems she has a thing about firemen. Ben decided to splash on some after shave saying " might as well cover every evelntuality. The firemen brought in a ladder which was too short, so they called for a longer one. Meanwhile Millie was doing her bit by keeping up the distressed kitten noise. A second fire engine turned up with a bigger ladder. They went into our neighbours garden and a fireman with a yellow helmet climbed up. He was close to Millie and shaking the tree, whereupon Millie decided enough was enough and lept out of the tree and landed on her feet in our garden, watching and made straight for the cabin and her litter tray.
So four months old kitten took time from the course manager of Cuddington, an RSPCA man, two fire appliances, and entertained us /frightened us for five hours on Sunday afternoon, and that was her first time out of the house. action cat reverted back to Smelly Cat, but what will she do next time she is out?

IT IS A SMALL WORLD

My wife received a call from Ben who was at work, saying he could not believe it, but he had just received a call from Matt, a best friend of Colin, my brother-in-law, who currently lives and works in Boston USA
Colin introduced me to Matt at Highbury when Arsenal were playing Chelsea some years ago [ when Arsenal used to win trophies ]. Colin advised that Matt was an Arsenal season ticket holder, but he really is a Man United supporter. I remember taking the piss relentlessly about that and Matt, if you are reading this, please forgive me. I remember my point was that Man United were top, Arsenal were second, and Chelsea were third, I think. I asked Matt who he wanted to win in the match we were about to watch, and he said Arsenal. I said " but if you support united surely you should want Arsenal to lose. He said " Arsenal are my second team and I don't like Chelsea. "
He had a season ticket for Arsenal because Manchester is too far and he liked to go to Highbury with Colin.
It turns out Matt had been told about my mnd and my blog by Colin and he was reading my blog entry in which I described what Ben does in recruitment for banks in the City. Matt had Ben's name and number, as he has a good job with one of the banks, and he phoned Ben and asked if his surname is Goodfellow and his dad is Steve. Matt explained that Colin and he had played a few rounds of golf together including a Pro-Am at Cuddington. We always had a great laugh. I remember that Matt was best man at Colin's wedding to Sam. The closest I came to being a best man was when I attended a wedding at a nudist camp. I missed being best man by an inch.
I hope Ben gets on with Matt as well as I did and maybe they will even do some business together.

Saturday 26 March 2011

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT

well my daughter came home for four days and we did some things, like going to see Chalet Girl, a new film, at the cinema. It is a chic flic but I enjoyed it and I owed my wife and daughter one as I got them to watch Due Date a few months back. It wasn't that bad except for a scene involving a masturbating dog
Anyway it was lovely having her home and we all went out for a curry on Wednesday. That is Julie and I, Ben and Amy, Abi and TAF [ The Arsenal Fan ], otherwise called Tom.
we went for a walk in Nonsuch Park and Abi took control of my wheelchair and showed me a beautiful sunset.
Ben took me to see Chelsea play Man City and Chelsea won two nil, which I think puts them back in the race for the premiership.
So the kids are looking out for the old man.
I am constantly amazed at both of them. Since Abi has returned to her Alpine home she has thrown herself entirely into learning how to snowboard. And I looked out of my window yesterday and saw Ben and Amy on the lawn planting vegetables together with the cats playing around them. How things change. What next, will Abi join a heavy rock band? Will Ben become a scholar? Unlikely but who knows?

Wednesday 16 March 2011

PRODIGAL DAUGHTER RETURNS UNEXPECTEDLY

My daughter is doing a ski season in Meribel. The deal is November to the end of April with no leave to return home for any reason. In an email last week on my birthday I mentioned, perhaps insesitively, that it could be my last, and this upset her when she was at the hotel reception. Her boss queried it and decided she could have a break to come home for a few days. My wife was furious with me for the email but we are all pleased now that she is back. She arrived yesterday and flies back Saturday.

MY BIRTHDAY

It was my birthday on March 7th and we went to Brighton with my son and his Essex girl Squeeze, Ben and Amy. It was a nice sunny day and I enjoyed sitting in the sun facing the sea and the beach. Of course I couldn't join in with the eating and drinking but you have to make the most of what you have and I was able to enjoy the taste of my son's cider in small spoonfulls. Then we went on the Pier where Ben and Amy won toy dolphins on the games.

A WALK IN THE RAIN

I must say one thing about not being able to drink in sufficient quantity to satisfy my thirst effected me in a strange way recently. My wife and I have taken to walking from Kingston Bridge through Canberry Gardens alongside the river towards Ham. Two weeks ago we parked in Kingston centre and the heavens opened, it was raining persistantly. So we went for a coffee. After Julie asked me what I wanted to do and I said go for a walk. I felt I could do with the feeling of cool rain on my face. So I was wrapped up in rain gear and blankets and off we went. It was a long walk, for Julie, and we got soaked. With hindsight probably not a great idea for someone prone to chest infection but as Julie says,"Don't worry you are not dead yet. "

Tuesday 15 March 2011

MY MND EXPERIENCE

December 10th 2007:I and my son, Ben, went to the O2 to see Led Zeppelin perform their only concert in 16 years. It was outstanding and when they played Stairway To Heaven both Ben and I were in tears as it was to that song that Ben started learning the guitar. I often say apart from marrying my wife and the births of my son and daughter, Abi, I say that was one of the best days of my life.
December 10th 2008 :by far the worst day of my life. After seeing Dr Oliver Foster , consultant neurologist, for about three months he arranged for my wife, Julie, to see him at his office in Harley Street. Previously I had mainly seen him at Parkside Hospital Wimbledon. To begin with he told me I had hydrakephalis, basically water on the brain, operable by a shunt being inserted to carry water from the brain to the stomach. Dr Foster referred me to to an eminent neurosurgeon who examined me and said " I don't believe that is what you have and I am not prepared to do the operation. Back at Dr Foster's office in December 2008 : he sat my wife and I down and explained the surgeon's view and said he had concluded that my diagnosis was motor nerone disease. I said what does that mean and he said " it is incurable and you will get progressively weaker over 3-5 years. My wife began to cry.
We walked out of there in a daze and apart from arriving at Regents Park tube station round the corner from Harley Street, I have no recollection of the journey home.

The mystery symptoms began several months earlier than December 2008. In July my daughter asked my wife " Mum, is Dad an alcoholic? "
Julie answered " No, why do you ask that? "
" Because this morning his voice was slurred. "
I was unaware of that then but I had experienced some odd things that bothered me. For example at a golf club event on the terrace I was talking with Paddy and Mary O'Sullivan and I tried to climb over the back of a bench seat to sit beside Mary. As I climbed over my arm gave way and I fell into Mary which was a bit embarassing, although she is a good friend. In July I had a golf lesson with Mark Warner and I told him I couldn't hit the ball far enough. In September I went on two golf tours.
The first was to Bournemouth. Over the week I felt ok but Chris Oliver told me I didn't look myself, and on the last golf course to be played in the Bournemouth area, at the second green I inexplicably fell over. I was playing with Peter Hibbert and Keith Smith and I remember Peter looking concerned and coming over to help, and hearing Smiffy's voice saying " Pete, get that c*#* off my line I'm trying to putt. "
My next trip in September was to Le Touquet with Graham Young, Paddy O'Sullivan and Barry Grundy. Now I was unlikely to shine in the golfing stakes in comparison with those three but it was clear to me something more than golf prowess was affecting me. I was finding it hard to walk.
I played my last game of golf on 4th October 2008 as Captain of the English in the annual Celts v English match. That was before my diagnosis and I had no idea that would be my last game.
I had several visits to Oliver Foster before he diagnosed mnd and I was experiencing more and more alarming symptoms until the diagnosis in December 2008.
My ability to walk was becoming increasingly difficult and I was slurring more. Also my right arm was getting weaker. I continued to go to work after the December diagnosis. By March 2009 I needed a walking stick.
Shortly after that, by June, I needed a wheeled walking frame to move around and by October the same year I sold my car as I could no longer drive and became wheelchair bound. About the same time I was increasingly unable to speak coherently. And I was finding eating harder as the reason I couldn't speak was because my tongue muscles had become weak and that also affected my ability to manipulate food in my mouth. If that wasn't bad enough I was told I had other things to look forward to. Such as my swallow would go, meaning my muscles controlling swallow would weaken causing food to go down the windpipe and onto the lungs risking chest infection which is the primary killer of mnd patients.
Over the first few months of 2009 I was able to walk and talk reasonably well but from May that year I needed, at first a stick, then a three wheeled walking frame and by July a four wheeled walking frame. By Christmas I was needing the wheelchair all the time. During this period I was seeing speech and language specialists and doing twice daily exercise routines for my tongue and lips.
Over 2009 I fell over sixteen times, sometimes in the night when on my way to the toilet. Or in the shower.
I could drive my automated wheelchair until July 2010 following which I lost strength in both arms and since then my wife, son or daughter have to operate it for me. About September 2010 I gave up eating food and I take all nutrition through a tube which is inserted in my stomach known as a PEG.
Recently, March 2011, I have struggled with drinking because whatever I drink my swallow muscles have difficulty deciding whether to direct it to my lungs or stomach causing me to choke and cough followed by a serious chesty cough for a few days. Other things that occur with mnd are constipation from spending the entire time sitting down, having people constantly patronise you as you cannot talk and you are in a wheelchair, I have lost count of the number of times I have been patted on the head, or kissed on the head by well meaning male friends. But one of the worst things is not being able to communicate normally. my voice has nearly gone completely now and even my family can't understand me. Unless I use my talking eyegaze control computer that is. I am sure my friends at the golf club would say they don't agree, as I can still tell my jokes. It has made a lot of difference to me, and mnd is a crap ilness to have and the computer won't change that, but at least I can communicate with friends and family by email and I have a voice I can use, in fact three times in the past year I have made speeches to one hundred or more people.
It's hard to say what the worst thing about having mnd is, not being able to go for a walk in the garden, not being able to have a cup of tea and hold the cup yourself or,drink without choking and then getting a chest ratleing cough, not being able to make a phone call, at one time I would have said not being able to drive my car, now I would settle for having enough power in my right arm to enable me to drive my power wheelchair.Not being able to move in bed is uncomfortable and having to wait for my wife to get me up is very frustrating as I often wake up around two or three hours before her. Understandably as she gets exhausted taking care of me.
We are sociable people and often go out to eat , now that involves me sitting and watching whilst others eat and drink.
I am criticised by people who think my blog should be positive and I agree to an extent as people won't want to read negative stuff, but there is a need for greater awareness about what the disease does to people and only those with it can really say. I will post positive or amusing blogs but it is important that I and others like me share details of what it's like so we can start increasing fund raising for research to find a cure for this awful ilness which will kill me and my friends with it, and we know not enough people know about it.