Out and About

I got to have a day out on Sunday for a change.  We drove over to Sherburn in Elmet to see my mother, who is 93 years and lives on her own.  She always wants to make lunch for us – cottage pie this time which was delicious. We do her shopping for her and help with financial and administrative matters.  The only problem is that mum is deaf and uses digital hearing aids.  As a result of MSA I speak much more softly nowadays so we have entertaining conversations where mum pretends she has heard what I have said.  The giveaways are when she laughs at the wrong time.  Nevertheless she is a remarkable woman and is all set to live longer than me as by all accounts I have a maximum of about eight years left.

We left mum in the early afternoon to travel to Harrogate to participate in our grandson Adam’s fifth birthday party.  I must say that I like being chauffeur driven nowadays with no worries about speed traps or parking.  The party was for 18 children, but more turned up, plus parents who wanted to stay and was held in the Methodist church’s recently converted meeting room that is very near to James and Eve’s home.  It was a lovely space with a friendly atmosphere to it.  It was a well organised party [I expect nothing less from my elder daughter] with games to release energy, dinosaur hat making and simple food.  Jamie Oliver approved food which seemed to all get eaten.  It was noisy of course but everybody seemed to enjoy themselves including Adam and Daniel.  Liz got into the swing of it straight away whilst I was parked on a chair that I could get out of to go to the inevitable toilet.  I was an observer not a participant and an object to stare at by some children I think because of my eyes [I’ve had a lazy eye since I was 3 years old] as much as anything else.  When the party started to break up one of James and Eve’s male NCT friends came up to me, introduced himself and asked what I was suffering from, so I wasn't invisible which is usually the case.  He then talked about his father in a caring and concerned way.  He has motor neuron disease, which is far worse than MSA in my opinion.  He said his father was normally grumpy but now he had good reason to be.  His auctioneer friends have set up a rota of visits.  This is another example of the goodness in people.

Monday, found us travelling to the University of Lancaster where I am an external examiner for the postgraduate workbased learning programmes.  The team there know of my condition but they don't treat me any differently than they ever have, they have even extended my contract.   It is so refreshing being treated normally and respected for your knowledge and experience not what your body looks like!

So it has not been a bad week and I have only had one fall but I am still fighting a saliva war!