Thursday 14 August 2014

No.58. Every day stuff and nostalgia.

Well our radio interview was eventually broadcast. It sounded OK and we did what was asked of us and hopefully raised a little MND awareness at the same time. I think the Spotlight interview was lost in the edit, such is life. It would have been good to raise a bit more MND awareness though.

Thankfully our T.B test was clear. If we get another clear test in 60 days, restrictions will be lifted and then the test will be annually. Other wise it's back to tests every 60 days again.

Chris keeps forgetting to take his sticks out with him, though he does use a long piece of alcathene piping out in the yard which is something. I have to help him sometimes to put his overalls on. He finds getting them over his feet really tricky. He has a chair in the porch he can sit in while putting them on which helps a bit. They talk about women's hand bags carrying everything but the kitchen sink, but Chris's overalls weigh a ton with all the stuff he carries in them.

He asked me to help him out a bit in the yard this evening. I'm not much use as a 'farmer's ' wife, lack of height and physical strength, plus an abundance of fear, don't make for a good one. I've always joked that he should get his money back on me. I was able to help lifting, just about, some hay bales and feeding them to the cattle. I noticed that Chris's upper body strength is still pretty good. He is no where near as strong as he used to be, for a skinny bloke, he used to be really strong, but even now, compared to me, he still has more strength. Being a farmer certainly is a physical job. I think that is why he has been able to carry on working. He can still heave himself up into the farm handler and the Nuffield. It is mostly his legs and core muscles that seem to be the weakest at the moment as well as his throat and mouth and neck. I think when his upper chest and shoulder deterioration catches up with everything else he won't be able to work anymore, but thankfully for now, he can get by.

It' s funny, because you do kind of get used to this, but every now and then I will really miss something, even if it is very trivial. We have a very small orchard with three old trees and one new one. It has been very neglected and it is very over grown at the moment, Sleeping Beauty would have been proud. Normally at this time of Year, Chris, the kids and I would go out there and collect apples, it's such a simple thing, but it is a little difficult for Chris to get out there now and do that, so I hacked my way through and did it on my own and it made me a little nostalgic and sad for what used to be. You just know with this disease, that some things will never ever be the same, there will be no recovery for Chris and others with MND and no cure. We just have to sit and watch MND slowly take our loved ones from us, bit, by bit.

Inspite of how it all seems, Chris still smiles, cracks jokes and is relatively happy, guess I can' t ask for much more than that. I just hope he continues to feel that way for as long as possible.

( Here is the link to our radio interview, we are on about 4 minutes in.)
 https://soundcloud.com/lesley-roberts-1/radio-cornwall-interview