rowenah1974

[rowenah1974]

[rowenah1974]

“M.E., Myself & I” is 3 years old today!!!!

[rowenah1974]

Lockdown with an Autistic Teen

I wish I could say that lockdown has been great and I’ve been able to spend so much more time with my son, but that’s just not how it works in our house.

Autistic kids don’t deal well with change as it is, but luckily my son, Aston, who’s 14, was ok with that and didn’t have anxiety attacks over the coronavirus pandemic (I avoided that by not explaining it in too much detail, just that we don’t want to get ill!) so that part was easy.  What’s not easy is trying to get him to do the school work that teachers are setting.

As far as Aston’s concerned, school is where you do work and home is where you relax.  He’s very much stuck in that mindset and will not budge from it.  So it’s really difficult for me to make him understand why he needs to do the work during lockdown.  It’s always been hard to get him to do homework, even when he was in primary school and when tasks literally take about 5 minutes to do.  All of it is because he sees home as his place to chill so the minute he comes in the front door, he’s not doing anything school related.  With that in mind, I’ve tried telling him he should go to Homework Club after school but he won’t do that either.  I’m amazed I still have all my hair at this stage!

I have managed to get him to do some things but he will literally get to a point where he’s had enough and then he won’t do any more.  It drives me crazy as he’s got 3 months of work to catch up on!  Even telling him that if he doesn’t do it and the school make him repeat a year while all his friends get to go ahead to Year 10 in September hasn’t made any difference to his thinking.  I know it doesn’t help that I’m struggling with having very little energy and/or pain and don’t know from one day to the next, sometimes one hour to the next, how I’m going to feel and that when I’m struggling, I don’t feel like having a massive argument trying to get him to do the work.  Sadly, the school doesn’t seem to remember that we have a unique set of circumstances so that doesn’t help either!

I am dreading when they do have to return to school because it’s going to be a nightmare trying to get Aston to go back in after spending 4 or 5 months at home.  I’m expecting meltdowns on a daily basis in the run up to September.  It’s going to be exhausting!

If there are any other parents of autistic teens out there, how are you coping during the lockdown and with the schools reopening?  How do you manage getting the home working done?  I’d welcome any tips you have!

[rowenah1974]

Most terrible blogger in history

Yes, its official.  I am THE WORST at blogging!

So.... what’s happened since I last deemed to post about my totally boring life here?  Let’s just make a bullet list shall we?

1. My Dad died.  On my son’s 14th birthday.  That sucked.  It was totally out of the blue and unexpected.  The coroner’s report said he had pulmonary emboli and deep vein thromboses - so multiple of both.  Apparently there’s not enough research being done into the link between blood clots and vascular dementia because if there had been, maybe the doctors would have known to look for them rather than think the breathlessness he’d had on and off for months was related to his heart!

2. I moved house.  We’re no longer live in a shoe box.  We now live in a normal sized house across the road from my Mum.  My brother moved in with her after Dad died so our old house (which belongs to my brother) is empty but still has a lot of our stuff in it because this house still has a lot of my brother’s stuff in it!  Dad’s stuff needs to be sorted so there’s room for my brother’s stuff so it’s a knock on thing.  Hopefully, I will have access to the two spare rooms in the house at some point though!

3. I had a pelvic x-ray last October which was ordered by the lady doctor at the GP practice (which has since been shut down by the Quality Care Commission and the head GP forced to retire!  We now have a new GP practice but in the same place.  Go figure!) and when I phoned for the results of it two weeks after it was done, I was told that the head GP said it was fine - no changes from the previous x-ray that I’d had years before.  It was only because I reminded the receptionist that the doctor had said she wanted to see me to follow up that I found out that it wasn’t actually fine at all!  She told me that there had been evidence of joint deterioration on the x-ray I’d had years before and that the new x-ray showed that this had progressed in both hips and that the right hip was worse than the left.  So, osteoarthritis.  Oh joy!  No news on my back pain though.  She referred me to a physiotherapist for treatment that turned out to be utterly useless.  He had NO knowledge of M.E. or how exercise affects the condition even though I told him in the initial consultation that I could not do exercise as it makes the condition worse.  In fact, the whole manipulation therapy he insisted on doing because ‘the muscles around your spine are in spasm’ (yeah, no shit Sherlock!) made everything worse & I managed to do one round of the exercises he gave me, just once, before ending up in agony and in bed for several days.  My mother, a retired physiotherapist, said she would have used some kind of electrotherapy to reduce the inflammation before doing anything because of the M.E. but it appears that the modern physio doesn’t bother with things like that.  Obviously not trendy enough.  I gave the physio some information about M.E. and my symptoms.  He promptly decided that physio was not helping and referred me back to my GP!  So that was a total waste of time! Last week, I spoke to someone from the clinical assessment service (whatever that is - basically another bloody physio!) who was supposed to sort out what’s going on in my back.  He asked about my pain, looked at the x-ray from last October and said ‘there’s deterioration in the joints of the lumbar spine’.  So, osteoarthritis there too.  More joy!  So I’m being referred to the pain management team.  Palmed off on someone else yet again!  And so we wait yet again to get an appointment to be seen.

4.  The world has been hit by a coronavirus pandemic.  We’re on lockdown.  Suggested self isolation for at risk individuals started about 12 weeks ago and now our ‘leader’ Boris “Can’t brush my hair for the life of me” Johnson is loosening the lockdown he introduced on 20th March mainly because people can’t abide by the rules anyway.  There doesn’t seem to be the fear of a second wave of the virus from the government like most of us with an ounce of sense has.  So, do we wait til people start dying in large amounts every day again before BoJo tells all the selfish a*holes to stop breaking the rules and getting together with their mates for barbecues and so on?  Your guess is as good as mine.  And so the sensible among us continue to stay home and only go out for essentials, not socialise with friends and do our bit to help the health service cope with the influx of Covid-19 positive patients.  In the meantime, Amazon and the Royal Mail keep us all in touch with the outside world.  Thanks guys!

5. I’m going to dye my hair pink.  Mid life crisis in lockdown is a genuine thing people!

6. I have to give a shout out to Miranda Hart for highlighting the fact that lockdown for those of us with chronic illnesses like ME is basically normal life.  We don’t have the energy to go out other than for essentials.  We are mainly cut off from other people and yet we carry on like this for years on end.  It’s nice that someone out there cared enough to bring M.E. to people’s attention.  So cheers for that Miranda.  I would gallop in your honour but that would require spoons I don’t have currently.  I know you understand.

So that’s about it.  I am going to try harder to blog in future.  I’m going to try harder to do a lot of things more often in future.  Wish me luck!

[rowenah1974]

I'm really terrible at this!

I haven't posted on here for ages, I know - mainly cuz I forget I have it - so I shall try harder. Rather than flood Facebook with my moaning and groaning about my aches and pains, I shall try to do it here. Not that I'm always moaning about having ME/CFS, but it does get you down now and again as every chronic condition does.

Anyway, today's "gripe" is grocery shopping. It's always so exhausting! It's not so bad going round the store and putting stuff in the trolley - that's the easy part! What I find exhausting and pain inducing is taking it all back out at the till, packing it away and then the inevitable unpacking when you get it home. I tend to do a big shop every 2 weeks when I get my benefit so that I don't have to worry about affording it and budgeting etc. It just makes life easier that way. I also prefer to shop in ALDI because I can get a small trolley full of food for about a third of what it would cost me in Tesco or Morrisons (the only other major supermarket chains we have where I live. I admit that it doesn't help that I'm usually on my own when I go shopping so have to do all the lifting and carrying by myself, but the whole process is exhausting. Friends have said "Why don't you get it delivered?" and the simple answer is that I can't afford to shop in the stores that currently offer delivery - they're just too expensive when you're on benefits.

My "gripe" isn't having to do it or not being able to use the delivery option, I just wish it didn't take so much out of me and leave me in severe pain. That's the main issue. It's exhausting, it's painful and it really shouldn't have to be. Short of finding myself a helpful fella to do these things or help me do these things, I don't know what I can do but struggle on!

Anyway, that's today's moan. I'm now going to find somewhere I can sit without being in agony. Wish me luck!

[rowenah1974]

I am so useless at blogging!

It’s been so long since I posted! I’m so bad at this! I’ll never be famous at this rate! lol

So what has been happening since my last post?  Let’s see....

Football did not come home! (England failed dismally in the FIFA World Cup)

We had a really long heatwave that damn near killed me - my house is tiny and like an oven, I swear!  I lived with two fans permanently on in my bedroom for the whole time

I lost all sanity and agreed to take my son, his best friend and the dog to stay in a caravan in Norfolk for a week. OMG!  Try imagining being stuck in a big metal box when it’s hot with two hyperactive 12 year old boys and a mental 2 year old Staffordshire Bull Terrier cross and yes, it was as stressful as you think! Especially when I discovered that my son’s friend has encopresis! So I was basically a goddamn hero dealing with everyone else’s poop!

My son went back to school for 2 days at the end of August, then spent the next week at home with diarrhoea and a high temperature.  By the Wednesday afternoon, the school’s privately contracted attendance officer is on my doorstep talking to me like she just scraped me off her shoe. I think he was then back for one day I think before he started refusing to go in to school. He’s currently on his third week being signed off by the doctor with anxiety.

Been at my parents’ house now for 2 weeks looking after their dogs while they’re on holiday. They had to disembark the cruise in Belfast however, as my Mum’s been taken ill with an infected gallbladder, so I’m left holding the fort and being spoken to by my brother like something he scraped off his shoe, making digs at me for things that aren’t my fault or within my control.  He’s 42!  He needs to grow up!!

Anyway, that’s about it right now. I’m in a lot of pain thanks to the change in the weather lately and extremely tired but forced, as ever, to plod on when really I’d love just to curl up in bed and do nothing - but I’m not even in my own bed!! :_(

Must try harder to be better at this blogging lark though.

[rowenah1974]

More lovely makeup! Brand new & unused. A bargain on ebay!

[rowenah1974]

My lovely new Crayola Beauty makeup showed up today! I absolutely love it! It wasnt cheap (that little lot - mermaid eyeshadow palette, black mascara, highlighter crayon, lip/cheek crayons and makeup brushes and case - set me back £82! 😱) But I'm in love. I just have to have an experiment with it now. if you want any, the range is exclusive to ASOS

[rowenah1974]

When your child tells you they want to kill themselves, what do you do?

Seriously, as a parent, what are you supposed to do?

My son is 12 and was recently diagnosed with autism. He's struggled every day for the past 3 years and tonight told me he frequently has suicidal thoughts. Now, I've been where he is. I first suffered with depression in my early teens so the one thing I have been keen to point out to my son is that he is never, never alone. He will always have me fighting his corner, no matter what. I've also told him he can come to me at any time & I will do my best to help.

But as a parent, what's the next step? How do I get him on the road to recovery? We've completed forms for the paediatrician that are used to score my son's state of mind and decide if he has depression and/or anxiety in conjunction with the autism. We dont get to see the paediatrician til mid-August though so its frustrating and heartbreaking what is going on.

I truly don't know what to do. He doesn't want to see the GP because he wouldn't take any notice last time & called my son fat. Plus its hard for him to communicate how he feels. its a vicious circle. Someone needs to speak to the GP on his. behalf

Anyyone got any suggestions for how to proceed. I'd be glad of the help?

[rowenah1974]

A brief update

Having looked at my previous posts, there's a few things I need to update you all on.

1. I was awarded PIP - enhanced rate mobility (full 12 points for getting around) and standard rate care. This meant I could go ahead and order my new Motability car. So now I have a (not as) shiny, new, black Ford C-Max Zetec. Its not hugely different from my old one but I now have cruise control which is fantastic for driving on motorways when my legs get achy!

2. I was awarded a grant for £450 by Margaret's Fund - a charity that helps women with disabilities or long term illnesses. That allowed me to purchase a foldable mobility scooter. This has meant I can go out for longer with the dog and when I go to the supermarket or to an event (concert or convention), I can use my scooter instead of needing someone to push my wheelchair. Yay! And I can take it apart & store it in the boot of the car - I can even charge the battery without having to take the whole scooter indoors. The only thing with Margaret's Fund is that you need your GP or other health professional to apply for you. Full details can be found at www.margaretsfund.org

3. I started going to a local disability social group once a week a few months ago that a friend of a friend set up. We just meet for coffee and a natter really, but it gets us all out of the house. Thanks to one of the ladies in the group, I found out there is currently an extra element of benefit that individuals like myself who do not have an adult carer can get paid extra in lieu of that care. It's called the severe disability premium (or something similar) and its added in with your Employment and Support Allowance. It means more money to pay for transport, grocery deliveries etc. If you are on ESA and don't live with another adult or have a carer claiming carer's allowance for looking after you, its worth contacting the ESA helpline and finding out if you're eligible before the government decides to stop it!

4. My 12 year old son has been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. I now have to take him to and from school because he finds the bus too stressful and noisy. It's costing me a fortune in petrol and exhausting me but at least he actually goes in to school. His attendance is way down & I freely admit that sometimes when he begs not to have to go to school, I am too bloody tired to argue with him!

5. I decided to dye my hair a 'normal' colour for my Nan's 90th birthday party on 22nd April. I bought some dark brown, demi-permanent dye and did a skin test which didn't react violently or anything, so I went ahead and dyed my hair. It was fine for 48 hours but by Saturday (I dyed it on the Thursday), my face had begun to swell. By the end of Saturday, I looked like Sloth from The Goonies! I couldn't wear any makeup to my Nan's party on the Sunday cuz the right side of my face was so swollen but I managed to get through it, even with the heat making my scalp itch more. I even managed to make it through watching Ed Byrne's stand up show in Canterbury that evening but by 4am, my scalp was so itchy, I woke my friend and got her to cut all my hair off. The relief was almost instant! So my lovely hair that had grown to halfway down my back is all gone! I now look like a grey haired version of Servalan from Blake's 7 (if you can remember that show)!

Anyway - I think that's about it! Consider yourself updated! I'll try to be better at this blogging lark in future!

[rowenah1974]

Sorry - I'm sooooo behind!

Really sorry I haven't posted for ages. I need to look back at my last posts and then do an update post. Hopefully, I can get that done over the weekend.

Thanks for your patience!

[rowenah1974]

Sometimes, just sometimes, things go right.

Last time I posted, I was moaning about the DWP, but sometimes they do actually do the right thing by us crips - not perfectly, but enough to semi-redeem themselves.

Back in February, I had my face to face assessment for my Personal Independence Payment application. My Mum came with me & I used my wheelchair & took my sticks. The assessor I had seemed pretty on the ball and seemed to know about ME/CFS. My Mum announced before the assessment started that she was a retired physiotherapist & used to be head of therapies in the local NHS trust & the assessor said she recognised her! Maybe that meant I got a fair assessment when a lot of PIP applicants are receiving assessment reports full of lies (like saying an applicant could walk their dog daily when they didn't even own a dog!). Anyway, the assessment seemed to go ok. Brain fog hit when she asked me the 'simple' questions and I couldn't work out what 93 minus 7 was for about 30 seconds or so and, because my back has been buggered since before Christmas when I pulled something putting on a pair of leggings, I couldn't manage all of the physical moves either. So I left there hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.

I get my car through the Motability scheme and my current lease was due to end on 17th March so I was hoping for a quick decision. I rang the DWP last week and was told there had been no decision made as yet and it might be a couple more weeks. So I phoned Motability and got my lease extended by a couple of months to allow time for the decision to come through. As my back has been getting worse rather than better, I thought I better let them know in case it made a difference to their decision so I rang them again yesterday. The chap I spoke to told me that a decision had been made on 9th March & I had been awarded the standard rate for living & the enhanced rate for mobility.

YEEHAW! For once something has gone my way! In order to remain eligible for the Motability scheme, I needed to get enough points to get the enhanced rate and I got the maximum of 12 points (why they've made it like a bloody game show where you have to score points, I'll never know!). So today I've been and ordered my new car. I still haven't had the paperwork from the DWP (see - they have to balls some part of it up) so I had to ring them again to find out when the award expires (2022). The local council seems to know what I've been awarded cuz they've written to me with all the changes to my income but I still don't have anything confirming it all in writing! It better come tomorrow or I shan't be happy!

Anyway, at least they have done the right thing and I have the award I needed. I may have to hire my Mum out to other applicants though because she's two for two now having accompanied our friend to her assessment as well!

[rowenah1974]

Things that bug me - Part 3

The Department For Work & Pensions aka The DWP.

That's the government department that makes decisions on what benefits you are entitled to if you are unemployed, on a low income, long term sick, injured or disabled if you happen to be reading this from outside the UK.

A few years back, the government decided that one of their austerity measures would be to overhaul the benefits system and part of that was changing the system for paying benefits to those people with a disability from the existing Disability Living Allowance (which I have been receiving for the past 7 years) to a new benefit called Personal Independence Payment. Now, you had to jump through hoops and fill in forms and produce reports from medical professionals etc just to prove you were sick to get DLA which had 2 components - care and mobility, but when they started changing it all over to PIP, people who'd been getting DLA for years and years were suddenly told they were not entitled to anything at all. And we're talking about people with terminal cancer, amputees and wheelchair users here. There is a scheme for disabled people in receipt of the highest rate for mobility called Motability and they provide cars, specially adapted if need be, and the cost of the lease is covered by the monthly mobility part of the DLA award which the DWP pays to Motability directly. now, because the new PIP benefit has a very different set of qualifying criteria, people were losing their cars. I currently get my car through the scheme.

Anyway, my last DLA award was for 3 years and it ends in March 2018 so I had a letter from the DWP telling me I had to apply for PIP by 1st December. So I phoned up their application line a few days before the deadline and they said they would send me out the 2nd part of the application to me in the post within the next 2 weeks and so they did. Now this form isn't an easy form to complete. It has 15 questions, each with at least 3 parts to them, and asks for details of health professionals that you see and the medications you take. Its a long ass form that takes some thinking to complete fully as you have to explain exactly how your illness/disability affects your ability to do things like cooking, washing yourself and getting around. Of course, theres a deadline for these to be returned by. The date I was given? 28th December - 2 days after the Christmas holiday.

So I've been working my butt off getting the form completed so I could send it back before this weekend but my back had other ideas (see previous post on chronic pain). I managed to get it done today but as I was taking photocopies of it, my printer ran out of black ink. Sod's Law! So I had to go into town to get more ink & by the time I got home and finished copying it, it was too late to get it in today's post. When I got the pre-paid envelope they'd sent with the form, I found it was only a second class one, meaning it would take approximately two days to arrive. That basically means I'm screwed for sending the form back in time unless I pay for Special Delivery that guarantees to get it there on 27th December by 9am and it's tracked and has to be signed for so I have proof it's been received. And that won't be cheap.

So now I'm pissed off that I have to PAY to send back this damn form! To top it off, I'm wondering if I've been sold short by the DWP because they haven't taken into account that 25th and 26th December are bank holidays so there's no post collected or delivered on those days. If they haven't counted those two days when calculating when I should have the form back by then I've had 2 days LESS too complete the forms in than everyone else! If that IS the case, I'm going to give them hell cuz I've been stressed out all bloody year about filling in this bloody application and the possibility I may lose my car.

Anyway, if I didn't hate the DWP already (which I did), I would most definitely would now. They are ripping off some of the most vulnerable people in the country, some of whom have actually killed themselves because they've had their benefits taken away. It's got to be stopped!

I'm going to stop ranting now cuz I could write about my disgust over this for hours! Here's my final word to the Department For Work & Pensions....

[rowenah1974]

They say pain let's you know you're alive....

Well, I'm alive as f***!!!

I woke up on Sunday with the usual nagging ache but when I got dressed, something caused a spasm in my lower back muscles & I yelled out in pain. There wasn't anyone else in the house to hear me or to help so I had to cope & I was getting dressed to go out.

I drove to my friend's house in extreme pain & struggled in & out of the car on my own. I'd stupidly left my walking sticks at home. I'd taken them indoors the week before when my hips were bad. They wouldn't have helped with my back anyway. I'd put some arnica cream on my back but forgotten to take any painkillers so the pain just got worse as the afternoon went on.

Thankfully at the ceremony (Winter Solstice. Yup, I'm a witch) I went to with my friend - she drove, saving me the panic of trying to get there under my own steam - I had a chair to sit on, though the slightest movement meant a sharp pain. When I got to my parents' house to pick up my son, my Mum who's an ex-physiotherapist said she could see my back muscles were pulling me toward my right side. Thankfully, I could go home & take some pain meds that eased things somewhat. Still took me ages to get to sleep.

I'm still in severe pain three days later. Bloody back's still in spasm but pulling to the left now. Hopefully, it will have resolved before Christmas. But knowing how slowly things tend to heal when you have ME, it might not. Today I kept sneezing and OMG did it kill every time!

Chronic pain is a bastard to deal with and I hate having to take painkillers that do nothing but take the edge off and make me drowsy. That's no way to live. It's also rather humiliating to have to ask you're eleven year old son to help you get dressed or undressed.

I know so many people who are also suffering and are having to take painkillers on and off just to muddle through. Yet so many people think we enjoy lounging around, watching TV and scrounging off the state. They don't know what it's like to live with daily pain & exhaustion. If only we could swap our lives with these people, even just for a week or two, maybe they'd realise we're not scroungers. I wouldn't wish chronic pain on anyone.

There has been one advantage to being in this my pain. I'm in the process of completing my PIP application so at least I have a clear example to refer to when completing it.

[rowenah1974]

This is the face of invisible illness & chronic pain. I don’t like like I’m in pain, do I? But I’m actually in a considerable amount of pain - pain that conventional painkillers only dull rather than remove. Like many in my position, I’m good at hiding my pain. When people say ‘You look well!’, that’s because they don’t see me on the days when I’m in agony or so exhausted I can’t keep my eyes open. It’s easy to judge us by how we look on ‘good’ days (even if we’re sat in a wheelchair). Just remember that if you do see us on our good days, we’ve chosen to use some of our limited energy to spend time with YOU!

[rowenah1974]

The joys of Post Exertional Malaise (Or Things That Bug Me Part 2)

Have been asleep most of today thanks to the dreaded PEM. Going shopping for groceries, defrosting the freezer and putting up some Christmas lights has reduced me to a zombie today. Having fallen asleep with the TV on last night, I slept til 1pm when I was woken by the phone and had to get dressed and drive to my son's school to pick him up after he fell over and got covered in mud (he missed a whole afternoon of school because of being muddy - where's the logic in that?). When we got home, it wasn't long before I was back in bed. i vaguely remember seeing the clock read five minutes to four but the next thing I knew, I was waking up and it was a few minutes shy of 7pm.

This is what PEM does - it robs you of time. It makes you lose where and when you are. Its kind of like having a body that's a time machine but a faulty one! You just suddenly wake up, not remembering when you fell asleep and suddenly you've lost hours of your life. Not exactly fun. You don't know when it will strike either. Could be 24 hours after you dare to do something remotely energetic, could be 48 hours later. Either way, you will lose hours, maybe even entire days of your life.

Now I have to hope I can get some sleep tonight so I can go out to lunch tomorrow. Got family down over the weekend so I need to be reasonably with it. Right now I don't feel compos mentis at all and I'm surprised I managed to write this post!

[rowenah1974]

An interesting day

Today didn't start off very well really. I haven't been feeling great for weeks & when I woke up, I really didn't feel like facing the day at all and I knew I had a telephone appointment with Dr Paul Worthley from The ME Trust and an appointment with my GP to contend with.

I get up at 6.30am ish with my son to get him ready for school and after he's left to catch his bus, I usually go back to bed. I knew I'd have to get up and get dressed before Dr Paul rang so I would be ready to go to the doctors. I set my alarm and went to bed for a coup?e of hours, still wishing I didn't have to do what I had to do.

Anyway, you don't need to know all that crap! When Dr Paul rang, it was actually a relief to speak to someone who understands the effects of ME, has treated patients with the disease for years and didn't think I was making it up or that I actually have something else. He asked me how I believed the ME started, what my typical day is li!e, what symptoms I have and the medications I take. Interestingly, he said that the pain associated with ME doesn't respond well to conventional painkillers. That would explain why the tramadol only dulls the pain rather than relieve it. He also suggested that I could try changing from sertraline to another antidepressant - duloxetine - that fibromyalgia patients have reported helps with pain. He also suggested doing a mini-trial of increasing my dosage of gabapentin and seeing if it has any effect (I'm hoping that this may help with the strange, almost numb sensation I have in the skin on my forearms).

So I was able to trot off to the GP armed with his new information and came away with a prescription for the duloxetine and an agreement that I will gradually increase my gabapentin dose. The doctor didn't even question me. I wish I'd known about Dr Paul a long time ago! I finally feel like someone is going to support me. He's also going to support my PIP application which will help me immensely.

I certainly recommend any fellow ME sufferers frustrated with their current medical care to check out The ME Trust and get an initial consult with Dr Paul (the first half hour call is free thanks to the Trust's charitable funding) to find out if he can be of any help. Check the Trust's website: http://www.metrust.org.uk

On a side note, my application for a grant from Margaret's Fund to buy a mobility scooter has been sent off by the GP practice manager & now we just have to wait & see what happens. I'm not expecting much to be honest. I don't have much luck with these things but it pays to be optimistic, right?

So that's been my day pretty much! I baked cupcakes too but have ended up paying for having stood up to do it - lots of pain in my hips & lower back.

It's now 2.43am so I need to sleep.

Night whoever's out there! 👋