The Summer of Yes - and yes, I know it's practically Autumn!

As discussed with my Counsellor, this is the start of our new blog. Disabled access has become more important to us over the course of the last year.

Stripes has officially become Carer, although to be honest she's been doing that job for far longer than the records say. And Wheelz has accepted that following a TIA incident last March and a diagnosis of osteoarthritis in both knees that 'disabled' is a label that fits.

So, how friendly is the world to a disabled person who needs a wheelchair for 'long' distances, and a Carer trying to make life as normal as possible? Add to which, Stripes is quite a slender young lady and Wheelz is - well, ahem, politely put, Wheelz is morbidly obese and outweighs Stripes by quite a margin!  So pushing the wheelchair in itself becomes a feat of endurance, strength and trying to ignore the nice people who think she needs a hand!

Sleep apnea was diagnosed last November, which means a CPAP machine - not great when sometimes claustrophobia is a problem. But me and the machine are getting on a bit better now. It helps when I can't catch my breath, or when hayfever makes me a sneeze machine.

To top it all off, we also have the challenge of a new teenager who has spent the last eight years acting out. Like, seriously acting out. We're talking violence, tantrums, wetting incidents - family support, CAMHS, TAF meetings at school - yeah, just loads.

So over the course of the summer, lots of things changed.

We moved from a second floor high rise flat to a ground floor, low rise flat in a different area. Major change for us - being stuck on the second floor when the lifts aren't working can lead to mega feelings of isolation, adds to depression plus the noise made it very easy to fall into a space where I just didn't want to exist. Fortunately, the house move has made a difference already - now if I could just sleep!


And finally, I decided to give the keto diet another try. I did Atkins years ago (didn't everyone?!) but it fell by the wayside for reasons I can't recollect now. But I haven't found myself able to stick to 5:2, despite finding some very handy products from Asda, and I NEED to do something about my weight.

Saturday 16th September is the start date. And we had fun with the following slicer that Stripes bought making a salad for lunch so as soon as I'm hungry it's ready.

Onions and mushrooms sliced and diced almost instantly made it fun and quick, so even if Stripes is out and about, I can do myself something to eat. I do have a dining chair in the kitchen that I sit on to do this stuff - I can't stand up for long periods of time without feeling dizzy and in pain. Am going to try to do this clean i.e. no fake-bake to start with, just keeping it simple by keeping my carb intake below 25grams per day. We shall see.

So it's taken months to actually get as far as doing a first post for here. We have also finally used a photo of one of our cats for the header - personalisation is the plan  but it might take time. Here goes nothing!