Love is.....

Washing the toes on your beloveds plastercast foot. Ian today – with only minimal amount of pleading on my behalf helped me wash the toes of my cast foot. After he fell over in a dead faint, he assured me that the region of my cast was reasonably whiff free. However, it is amazing how long he can hold his breath for.

I tried a new shower technique today. Up until now I have sat on the side of the bath and lent backwards to shower and wash my hair – it has been reasonably successful, but a bit perilous. I have also tried a bath – but this was quite labour intensive and not quite the luxurious bathtime experience that I would normally enjoy. Today’s experiment was trying to shower in two halves, left first and then right. However this unfortunately ended in me ‘setting’ into position in the bath and requiring rescuing.

I have backache today, I think it is partly to do with sitting with my leg up as it means I sort of ‘slump’ in the chair. I need more propping up with pillows, but this is all difficult to achieve – hopping on crutches with a couple of pillows is not easy! I do wish I could find more information about exercises etc, I do feel there is more that I could be doing to help myself. I am also conscious that lack of exercise is also likely to result in putting on weight. I’d prefer not to give myself even more weight to drag around on the crutches – it’s hard enough as it is!

We might go out tonight for a quick drink - I've said before about the problems of getting out, but that has really been about my lack of ability to get very far under my own steam. Another quite big issue about going out for an evening for me is getting on and off the toilet in a bar (sorry to be so basic) where they are unlikely to have a strategically placed chair in front to help with getting up and down, and I have a fear of getting stuck or falling over - or even worse pulling the sink off the wall which I use as leverage - a move unlikley to endear me to the bar owners! Most of the bars entail quite a big hop either in or out, and I worry about getting my aim wrong and making the wrong sort of entrance - so all in all it is easier to stay at home. I've never really thought about disabled access before - or at least I have, but not from a users perspective. I would definately be better placed in the uk with the access requirements meaning that buildings are accessable to all, in Spain it is a requirement in new public buildings, but not I believe in existing ones. As I had to navigate the two steep marble steps into the orthepedic shop I did muse as to when similar require would filter their way through to the remote rural areas like Extremadura. Hence the possibility, at the moment, of finding a bar with disabled access locally is almost zero.