A busy couple of days so not much time to post anything.
Lots of visitors on Friday and then over the weekend too, so thanks to everyone who came in — especially the lovely Julie who came equiped with lots of yummy treats and who managed to get Ash to play and talk to her! See – Miracles are possible!
A good day for Mike today, he’s still resting his weary shoulders and just trying to spend a bit more time each day in the chair. He has mastered the art of “what’s the time Mr Wolf” even though Ash thought it was a ‘leg game’.
Last Thursday Talbot received a FES bike for trial which we had been looking at for Mike anyway. They use electrical stimulation to trigger muscle groups in an order such that you can “pedal” the bike with your arms or legs. You sit in the wheelchair and roll up the machine, get hooked up and off you go. Mike managed 15 mins on his arms last week – video to follow shortly and 15 mins today with his legs — surely there is some muscle memory there and they will just start peddling on their own???
Suffice to say that Mike felt and looked much better after a spot of ‘exercise’. It must have been good for him – he ate for Australia that night. He has already been hassling the physio’s to get use of it each day. If not, we have to buy one for his room! On another good front, they are doing some tests that mean he might be a step closer to hydro – that damn super bug they gave him in hospital seems to be a bit of a stumbling block at the moment so fingers crossed all.
Most importantly … on to a HUGE list of thankyous: Danny for organising pickup and availability of some fantastic items for auction at the recent SKCC ball, SKCC committee for letting us auction said items at the ball, Spoken for donating a frame and jersey for auction, Giant for donating a bike, Matt Lloyd for signing and sending over a jersey for auction, Firinn (by Chloe Elizabeth) for some wonderful jewellery pieces, the fundraising committee for all their time to date, Jules, Lorian and Pete for whipping up some brochures at the last second, the Belgian Beer Cafe for buying the frame and giving it back for us to re-auction, Pro-Motion for buying the jersey and donating it to Mike — it is up on his wall at the Talbot and gives him a huge lift — youandiride.com for donating a pro-ride day which was a huge crowd pleaser, and Baden Cook for offering to come on the ride day with the highest bidder. Oh, and to the SKCC club champ (who shall remain nameless) who allowed himself to be auctioned off for a blind date! Also a massive thankyou to Inner Circle and ANZ for their amazing and humbling contributions. And of course a huge thankyou to all the people I have forgotten to include here. The usual suspects who just hang out and keep us company so that Talbot doesn’t seem so much like a hospital, to Harri, Chris and Scott for the fantastic work they are doing with Mike, and to those who keep cooking for us. And to all of you who keep posting messages of support – thanks!
Ash and I did our first ‘normal’ think since Mike’s accident yesterday when we took Charli to the park and for a play. She loved it so might have to make sure I do that a little bit more often over the coming weeks.
The OT’s are heading out here on Wednesday to check out what modifications we need to do to the house so better race off and de-clutter! Look out neighbours — stray pieces of furniture and some boxes might be landing at your place tomorrow in an attempt to make the house look wheelchair friendly!
And lastly a confession ….. I had trouble working out how to post messages on the site (to those of you I work with, this in fact will not be at all surprising) so the catchy, journalistic titles are all thanks to Sparky (Mark Mathews) and nothing to do with me. I am sorry to say that I will fail dismally but hopefully Sparky will come over the top and tidy up my poor attempts!
