IT IS NOT FAIR!!! (SOMETIMES)

 I am not always accepting and stoic with regard to my disease as I am sure the intelligent amongst real will have realised. I am just not a moaner, at least not always!

 In truth I spend a lot of time battling against my disease and not accepting its limitations. It is not always easy to know when it is right to push myself and when it is not pushing myself but lack of acceptance.

I swim. I love to swim. In the water I am free. I am not completely pain free but I am very mobile, I swim very well, and I just love it. I force myself to swim even when I do not feel like it. This is the good kind of tenacity because swimming is good for my body and my disease. It keeps me mobile, keeps my weight down, list my mood, and probably delays the progression of my disease.

 There are other times when my battle is pointless. It is me refusing to accept that I cannot do something and thus causing myself more grief in the process.

Today I was meant to be going to a breed club open show. I was all packed and ready to go. The two dogs I was taking were bathed. 

However, I was still awake 1 o'clock. I was awake at 3 o'clock. My gut was not good and twice I had to go to the bathroom. By the time the alarm went off at 6 AM, which was really 5 AM as far as my body was concerned as our clocks went forward last night, I had just under three hours sleep and that was fitful and not deep. I still insisted that I would attend the show. I left. Common sense ruled and I turned round and came back home and went back to bed feeling very sorry for myself.

I am very disappointed that I was unable to attend. I am particularly upset because I really wanted to support the young man whose first breed club appointment this was. I believe this man has talent for judging as is evidenced by the fact that so many of his winners at open shows have gone on to be placed in the puppy and adult groups at the same shows.

It is times like this when I know that the only sensible thing for me to do is accept  that my disease will not allow me to do something. 

Had today just been an ordinary show I don't think I would've got into such a tiz about it but I had agreed to support the judge and I felt really bad for not fulfilling that. I have to say that at the time I made the agreement I did not know that the show was three hours away from me and even when I did find out I pretended it would not matter. It would not have mattered had I had my sleeping drugs.

It still amazes me that there are people that consider me able bodied just because I am not paralysed!  Never mind what I have described above in the way of preparing to just go to a bloody dog show that I have left out the difficulty in getting dressed and the inordinate amount of time it takes! No, no able-bodied person goes through this just to appear normal! (I was about to say how many people do you know who put an overcoat on over their pyjamas to go to the supermarket because they cannot get dressed that day and then I remembered all those photographs I get sent via email about Walmart shoppers!)

Only yesterday I was talking with a friend about driving to Poland  because I would like to visit Warsaw.  I was talking as if I was perfectly able to do this. The days of me being able to drive long distances like that are over. Yet every year I still make plans to drive to cities over 1000 miles away only to  petulantly accept that I am unable to drive that far.  Oh, I can drive that far but in three days not overnight like I used to.  So it would take me three days to drive there,  I would need at least five days there the first two of which would be recovery days, and then I would need another three days at least to drive back. This is unreasonable and although I am not happy I accept that this is unreasonable and so I do not do it.

The most obvious thing that people say to me is well why don't you fly. The simple reason being I have to take far too much stuff with me including my electric wheelchair that flying is completely impractical.

Normally I take sleeping pills the night before the show.  the sleeping pills are not kept in the house, John keeps them in London. No not because he is afraid I will overdose on them. I asked him to keep them for me because it would be too easy for me to take them when I'm having difficult nights which are frequent. My dog shows are extremely important to me and without sleeping pills I would not be able to go to them. To me therefore it is imperative that I only use them for that purpose. It is too tempting to have them at my fingertips. they used to sit in my drugs draw And I only ever used them for dog shows. However, as my disease has progressed and painful disturbed nights have become much more frequent, I found I went to my drawer and got my pills even when I had no dog show the following day. I knew then that I had to not have my drugs at home.