Not ever needing to go to one but this thread sounds like an AA section. ?
Hi all, my name is Chris and I’m an alcoholic, no sorry I mean disabled. ?
My story of disability started just over a 11 years ago after 57 years of perfectly healthy life with rarely getting a cold.
It was a Sunday morning and just finished breakfast and thought to myself that the inner oven safety glass on our 6 month old cooker starting to look like it needed a clean so I go upstairs to get a screw driver and coming down the stairs three steps down my legs started to give out from under me. I stopped, tuned around and went back to the top landing thinking its long way to fall down to the bottom of the stairs should I collapse.
After gather myself for half a minute I now make my way to the bottom of the stairs, down the hallway, through the kitchen where my wife was at that time, into the living room and I sit down on the sofa thinking I’ve caught some sort of high speed flu or as my legs were like jelly.
The wife seen me pass her in the kitchen and came into the room behind me saying my face was dropping so she got straight onto 999 and they asked her to ask me if I could raise my arms and still at this time I was thinking there’s nothing wrong with that an Aspirin would not sort. Imagine my horror when I could not raise my arm, it was just in-believable with my mind telling my arm to raise and nothing happening.
Within the hour I’m in hospital and an hour later on a ward where I spent the next 8 weeks.
So I’ve had a stroke that’s left me with no use of my left arm or hand and my left leg might just as well be made out of wood but with the use of gravity playing on the leg I’m able to use it to go very short distances.
My other problem and one I just don’t understand and is what got me into trouble with the DWP when trying to explain why I can’t walk and that problem is fatigue and frustration where if I try to exert any effort into walking or just a simple thing like trying to get a sock on using just one hand the frustration and worst, the fatigue just grinds me to a halt and I feel like I’ve done two marathons in two hours.
Reading some of the stories here and remembering some of the other patients in the stroke hospital I feel l had a lucky escape because I’ve still got a reasonable life and able to get about in my Motability car plus scooter but it comes back to haunt me every now and again when just last week down on Freshwater beach in Dorset when one of my grandsons wanted someone to play tennis with him and no one had the time and I’m sat there like a Lemon. I just have to blank my mind.
Car wise I started my disabled driving in a Golf then Leon then another Golf and now an MPV and those 4 cars have all been learning curves up to where I am today and the MPV is almost perfect and who knows maybe my next one will be manufactured in the garden of Eden. ?