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11 July 2008
00:50:01 o'clock BST
Feeling Thoughtful
MeSsed around
well i went to see the MS nurse, at 3pm today. was with her over an hour, she was so helpful, wants me to try 2 new tabets,to help the pain and make my nights sleep better. i wake up after 3 hours,in a lot of pain legs very bad. also my ankle is playing hell. also is sending me to a speech therapist to help with my slurred speech i get sometimes and the swallowing problems. all in all, very helpful. i have also "volunterred" somehow lol to help a new chap she has just got. my age,just diagnosed and having trouble coming to terms with the idea. know that feeling. glad to help if i can. she is writing to my GP outlining these things, and to get him to change my tablets. unfortunately he is away for the next 2 weeks and i see her in 2 weeks time to see how i feel on them. so we will see there what happens.
as i have written before mum has a carer come in every day,tracey, to wash her and help her dress,30 minutes every morning,and a shower once a week. all has been well mum likes her,until this past 2 to 3 weeks,she has been getting to mine at 6.50 whips round and gone by 7.10. her firm is putting so much onto her she cant get round. so i have not been to happy. now,unfortunately mum mentioned this to my friend pam,when she rang mum last friday. even more unfortunate pam was being blunt drunk. she drinks,a lot. doesn't admit it mind. nooo not me mort, don't drink. now normally she wouldn't have taken any notice when mum said about Tracey. shame she wasnt normal. she rang traceys boss. her friend works for the firm tracey works for. and said were they aware tracey wasnt doing her job, etc. i had a phonecall from the boss,saying was this true? i said ok,she had been getting here early,and leaving before time,but mum liked her and it was the firms fault she had to rush round. anyway, because of pams interference mum now has only 15 minutes every morning,with 30 minutes on a thursday for shower. boss said as she was getting done in that time, that was all that was needed. i was furious. anyway,when tracey came monday i explained. then went over to pams. and told her in future to mind own business. i am writing to social worker, and complain about mum losing 15 minutes. it was social worker who decided on the 30 minutes, and they are now paying for 30 instead of 15. see what happens. i do wish pam stopped drinking.
lastly a few pictures. these show the baskets and tomatoes they have grown so much.


take your pick lol first should be ready by the weekend

take care all
Written by mortonlake
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06 July 2008
12:59:47 o'clock BST
Feeling Cheerful
spread the word
i have mentioned this journal before, but if you have not yet read her can i please ask you all to take a look at blog of a disaster prone woman! written by maudlin mawther. also known as karen. she deserves more of a following, and please leave her a comment. thanks all. just getting lunch ready,roast beef and yorkshires,roast potatoes,new potatoes,broad beans,peas carrots cauli and courgettes. orders now being taken lol. have a good sunday take care all. karen you owe me a pint next time i am in suffolk lol
Written by mortonlake
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04 July 2008
12:08:35 o'clock BST
Feeling Cheerful
for all my american friends
HAPPY JULY 4TH TO ALL MY AMERICAN READERS AND FRIENDS. IT IS A PLEASURE KNOWING YOU ALL,LUCY MY SECOND MOM,JUNE MY FELLOW DR.WHO FAN,PAM THAT CUP OF TEA IS WAITING,JACK YOU KILL ME LOL AND INDIGO WHOS JOURNAL INSPIRES A FRIEND TO ALL. THANK YOU ALL OF YOU. TAKE CARE MORT And hope everyone has a peaceful safe and happy day,wherever you all are take care mort
Written by mortonlake
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01 July 2008
00:21:30 o'clock BST
Feeling Thoughtful
getting there
well i rang MS nurse this morning. she said i was thinking about you other day, i been expecting you to ring. why asked. she said that many people take 6 months to come to terms with having it.appointment next thursday. also sorted out forms ready to take to disabilities rights ringing them tomorrow. so yeah. getting there slowly. feeling bit better that helps. and sun is shining. take care all
Written by mortonlake
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29 June 2008
01:25:37 o'clock BST
Feeling Sad
time to share
i told about my other private journal a few entries back. the one i keep for those days i can't cope,and need to get it off my chest. well, i realised there was something missing. my friends comments. so, this is to set the record straight. once and for all. my MS, and how bad it sometimes really is.if you want to leave now, i will understand ok? back to normal next time. this is just me explaining to my friends.
i first got symptoms over 8 years ago, tingling in my hands,like when you are stung by nettles. at first i wasn't worried, then one day i tried to put a picture up,i couldnt hit the picture hook nail,kept missing. so i went to dr.M, at first he thought i had a trapped nerve, in the end i was sent to neurologist, and i have told what happened in earlier entries. so,last year,on december 21st i was diagnosed with MS. i have told you how my ankles swell, and the pain i get. well today was the worse i have EVER been in my life. pain in my legs nearly sent me mad. and spasticity is really bad in them. i cant keep them still. i'm still a carer though,so after mum had eaten breakfast i washed floors in kitchen and bathroom,and decided to clean lounge up a bit. not a lot. just tidy and dust. now my desk was full of junk, so i thought, nice easy job, sit on chair and clean up. and then i realised something.
i have had forms, and papers about different benefits i may be able to get. someone was supposed to be getting in touch with me to talk to me about helping me fill them in. i have never heard from them. but neither have i done anything about it. there were letters from the MS society. disability rights, council. loads of papers. and i realised something. i have been hiding them. in full view, but covered over with other stuff, under books. letter from linda my MS nurse. asking me to make an appointment. i never did. form for blue badge never filled in. and i got thinking. i came to the conclusion i have had a tiny, just a little, hardly noticeable breakdown. anything to do with the MS or being disabled has been ignored. oh, yes i talk about how my ankle is on here, how i got chest infection. but the important stuff, the forms, the appointments, those are swept under the carpet. and i think i know why. i dont want to be disabled. i hate being unable to cope. to not be able to walk over the marshes. so,if i ignore it maybe it will go away. except its not going to. and today i really have had to accept the truth, i have MS, and i cant pretend any more. i hate it. i hate waking every morning,in pain,knowing it will get worse as the day goes on. i hate not being active, even with my bad back i was able to walk ok, now every step hurts. and i cried. a lot. i think poor mum has been expecting it. anyway, after i had had a good wail, i sorted all the papers out. monday i am ringing linda,make an appointment to see her. perhaps i can keep on steroids, they did help. also going to ring up about help with filling in forms. think its about time.
so. if you was to ask me how i am right now? i would say,oh ok thanks, ankle bad,but doing ok. i always do. but i am not doing ok. not really. but i am still that carer. so i have to be ok.and who knows,maybe the next time you ask me maybe i really will feel a lot better. you think?? take care all
Written by mortonlake
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28 June 2008
01:15:01 o'clock BST
Feeling Sad
a friend in need

the above tag was done by connie of ANYWAY.......................... for her friends who had helped her in her recent trouble. i asked if i may snag it, she gave me her permission. so i want you all to do what she wants. pass it on to all your friends. please snag it and use as you will. if you read this you are my friend and deserve it.
many thanks for those who answered my entry on Call for Support a prayer for carrie. a good friend , jane,in my chatroom i use, her daughter carrie recently had lazer eye surgery. which seems to have gone tragically wrong. poor girl is in a lot of pain and distress. neither write journals. yet when i asked you replied. that is friendship. thankyou.
mums visitor came yesterday and stayed 2 hours,they have become good friends, and has given mum someone to talk to. i am grateful to her. I , like many carers don't have much free time. if i am going to be gone out for any length of time i have toorganise the Crossroads caring service, and they send someone to call in and make her a cup of tea etc. or a neibour will help. so, friends are important to me and to other carers. we need you. you keep us sane. to be able to talk.laugh, and to have someone you can moan to,when it gets bad that's friendship.
i have said some of this before. but i realised just lately just how important my "online" friends are. i don't have that many friends outside the web, pam is my best friend,and i do go over to see her every week, but i also have/ had a good friend kev, we been mates over 37 years. i am 5 years older than him, i saved him from being bullied one day, just after my dad died. the aspiring village bully was doing his best to make kevs life a misery when i walked past. now,bear in mind, i was bullied a lot, and i mean a LOT at school.i was quiet, preferred reading to sports, a loner. ( stop saying awwww pam lol) when i left school i joined an electricians for 6 months before deciding i preferred shop work,and was bullied by one electrician there. dear douggy lol he made my life hell. until one day something snapped. he threw a hammer at me and called me ****ing useless tosser. i broke his nose. hardest punch i ever threw in my life. lol after that,and a lot of pain lol he treated me with respect. which is when i realised. bullies are cowards. so, kev being bullied,me going past, and 1 very sorry bully in a hawthorn hedge, because i picked him up and dumped him in it lol. shook kevs hand, and we were mates. and were until last year. he would ring me every week, usually a friday, he got free calls so we would talk for ages. he lives in london, his wife died several years ago. before he moved away we would go everywhere together. happy days kev. i was due to go into hospital last year for a tonsil removed, i didnt know if it was cancerous, i now know that it was my MS causing many of the problems i was getting,but it was a worrying time for me. kevin was supposed to ring the tuesday night after i got home. i sent him txt to say i was out and op had gone ok, and he has never rung me since. why? i have no idea. he told mum i was always on here,pc, and he never knew when to phone. now that is true, but the last time we talked,the week before the op we were chatting for over an hour. i have sent txts, he replied to1 saying would ring the next week, never did. and i just drifted. gave up. no christmas card from him, his sister and mum sent us 1 none from kev. no birthday card. so i gave up. and then yesterday i opened our local paper and in the funeral notices,giving thanks was a notice. his mother,Betty was dead and buried. said after short illness at home, donations given to macmillan nurses so assume she died from cancer, and neither he, nor his sister sue,even let me know betty was dead. i used to stay every weekend,they kept a pub and i would go over on my motorbike another story maybe? and stay. betty was like a second mother to me. i would have liked to have paid my last respects at her funeral.
so, apart from pam,i really don't have many people (any really) i call close friends.apart from you all. my jland friends,and my chatroom friends. and i thank you. for being there when it gets bad and say come on mort another day tomorrow. thankyou. you all deserve that award. every one of you. take care all
Written by mortonlake
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22 June 2008
23:43:52 o'clock BST
Feeling Thoughtful
garden woes
having just spent 15 minutes trying to add a pic, i have given up. so i will sort that out another time. i havent posted lately, not felt very well. my ankle appears to be trying to grow to be a football. lol took mum out on wednesday and had hairs done, i am more of a polish these days lol. apart from that, not a lot of interest has happened. today,we have had the worse winds i can ever remember having in june, played havoc with my hanging baskets, a lot of the petunias and fuschias have snapped off. all part of the joys of gardening.
i grow a lot of soft fruit, raspberries,redcurrants,blackcurrants,gooseberries, plums,pears, and an old apple tree that last year produced more apples than was good for it, still got several bags of frozen apple slices in freezer. i usually fill one freezer with fruit, i also have a few strawberry plants in a trough,used to have a huge strawberry patch but i dug them up, had got old. so soon be busy picking them hey?? wrongggggg firstly, gooseberries. although i did spray against it,they have all got mildew bad. so bad there won't be any worth picking, also bloody gooseberry sawfly have eaten most of the leaves. rather think i shall be cutting the bushes back hard very soon. need a good prune. redcurrants. one large bush and was full of fruit. WAS. we have a lot of woodpigeons around here and this year for the first time ever they have stripped the redcurrants green not even fit yet the lot gone. and i put a net over the bush. that is bad enough but all 3 blackcurrant bushes have suffered the same fate, stripped bare. why the pigeons are attacking them this year i have no idea. plum tree is bare, very few fruit set and those that did have also been eaten, i got 7 pears on 2 trees, lol and the apple tree didnt hardly set any apples at all. the only fruit i have got coming are raspberries, and i have netted them over. thrush still gets under for a few lol. but i dont mind that. so my freezer empty luckily a friend has bought us a load of strawberries and i have frozen them for jam. yes i do make my own lol and have found that i prefer using frozen fruit, i just pop a bag in the pan and leave to thaw out naturally. the fruit is starting to already break down, and no water is needed result is 3 nice jars of homemade strawberry jam on thursday. with a lot more to come.
so,just in case anyone thought i never get problems in my garden, and that everything is always so perfect, this puts things in perspective lol. yes,my flowers are doing well, shame about the rest of it.
just add that i asked mums visitor not to come this past thursday, she was very tired after having hair done, and i had an upset stomach. which i didn't want her to catch. mum really has had awful pain again with toe and arthritis in knees maybe if we get some decent weather she will feel better. as we all will. take care all
Written by mortonlake
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15 June 2008
23:21:13 o'clock BST
Feeling Sad
fathers day thoughts
i hope those of you lucky enough to still have your fathers have remembered them today,Fathers day. my dad died when i was 18 he was just 53, died from a heart attack. in those days we (like the majority of working class families in those days did'nt have a telephone, so when at around 3.30 in the morning i was woken by mum shouting that dad was in terrible pain, pains in chest and down arms, i had to peddle nearly a mile down the road to the public telephone box. i rang our family doctor, Dr.Meanly he was 70 then i'd guess, rather blunt to say the least, but a good dr. i said,dads in terrible pain,chest,arms.etc. he said,well tell him to take 2 aspirin and i will look in in morning. okkkk don't argue with dr he knows best. so i got on bike and pedalled back home, just as i was telling mum what he had said,a car pulled up and the dr knocked on door. after he put phone down he thought pains in chest?? arms?? oh hell and jumped into car. bearing in mind he lived at foulsham the next village,2 and half miles away he mustve drove like a madman lol. he examined dad and said he has had a heart attack, not a very serious one,but a heart attack nevertheless, he gave dad an injection which sent him to sleep and said would call in in morning. off back to his bed he went. me and mum sat talking and drinking tea, until my bloody alarm clock suddenly went off, it was 6.30 on the saturday before august bank holiday 1971 i was working at an ironmongers,( previous entry somewhere,) and had set my alarm. i ran to my bedroom and stopped it, but dad woke. we looked in, he said the pain had eased and dozed back off. mum and i went back to the lounge, and we had hardly sat down when we heard an awful noise. dad had had a massive heart attack, and died at 6.42 the noise was the "death rattle" and i would rather never hear it again. although i knew he had gone,i ran up to our friends house 100 yards has never seemed so far dr. mathers a lovely old gentleman of the old school, very polite,well spoken. a retired anaesthatist i knocked on his door,he came still in pyjamas, listened to my frantic dads dea..........and was off like lightening. he was getting on for 70 but he beat me back easily. he tried giving CPR and kiss of life, to no avail. my dad was dead. later i ramg the doctor and told him dad is dead and got a rather abrupt,how the hell do you know? are you a doctor? im on my way. i explained dr mather had said he was gone, which rather shut him up lol my dad.Geoffrey Cecil Lake aged 53 rest in peace dad.
i cant pretend i was that close to my father i was always a "mummys boy"lol but he worked bloody hard and although we were'nt well off he did his best to provide for mum and me. a good man, not very demonstrative but i know he loved me. sad thing though and one i bitterly regret the night before he died we had had a blazing row. i wanted to buy a motor bike and he did'nt want me too. daft row. but he died without me saying sorry dad. so, if any of you have fallen out with your fathers don't leave it too late, say sorry dad or one day you may regret it to.
take care all
Written by mortonlake
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14 June 2008
08:21:16 o'clock BST
Feeling Grateful
guest editors pick a thankyou
its been a quiet week really,mum has got a lot of pain in her toe, my ankle and foot is killing me, so i have been resting it. well,for me its resting.lol did cut grass and did bit in garden. mums visitor came thursday and i went to wells, rather cool though so did'nt stay long.
i want to say thankyou to mary Just Mary who is the guest editor this week, pam sent me email congratulating me so i went on magic smoke and looked. she has written a touching entry. and i am grateful to her. thankyou. but i want to just say something, i consider it a privilege to care for my mum, it's never a chore, and i am by no means unique in what i do. ok,it don't make it easier that i am not well myself, but there are many thousands of people who care for a parent, child, brother,sister etc. and who never get any kind of recgonition. so i am sharing this with them. anyone who thinks it is easy needs to try it, it's 24/7 365 days of the year, the pay is crap lol but the rewards? well, i am just paying mum back, for all she has done for me in the past. i have already been rewarded. 55 years of being her son.
one last thing there is a new journal by dee, if you are into fish pay her a visit, i think she will be grateful for any comments, Fishkeeping by an Ex expert she has just started this, very short entries,so why do i mention it? well, i know how it felt when i started this, lot of entries had no comments, and you feel is it worth it? no-one will be interested. and i think she has what it takes to become a really interesting journal writer. so go on,pay her a visit. its a decent day here, sunny but a cool wind, so i shall get on and do a bit in garden i think. take care all
Written by mortonlake
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09 June 2008
01:21:45 o'clock BST
Feeling Thoughtful
the proof of the pudding..............
yesterday was lousy,it poured all day, very wet,cool and miserable, so i got on with housework. cleaned kitchen and shower room, took me ages as this bloody ankle is killing me. got up this morning to a very damp,misty dull morning, which got out at 12.30 to glorious sun,and warmth. cooked a yummy roast beef lunch,cleared away,loaded dishwasher ( no im not rich,pam gave it me lol her son got it,and it was being used in her berdoom as a tv table. lol its a tabletop one but its been plumbed into cupboard under sink) and went to bed til 5.
now,remember i was praising spray and grow a few entries back?? get it from QVC shopping channel, another free plug. lol. well these pics show why i praise it so much . enjoy and if anyone not into flowers nice having you this far lol.
tomatoes are doing so well been sprayed with it every week huge trusses and looking good. get fed every 2 waters with tomato fertiliser as well.
busy lizzies in a flower pouch were tiny plug plants. every plant has been sprayed every week with spray n gro EXCEPT for the bottom left plant. again fed weekly with toato feed. as can be seen there is a huge difference in the quality and size of plant. i was careful to choose 10 plugs exactly the same size. poor little thing is being sprayed now lol
front of my house no its not a jungle underneath window lol they are day lillies look bit untidy until they bloom
fuschias doing so well
again sprayed weekly n fed watered every day soon dry out
this is on an old plinth i found when i moved in think it was a bird bath once i turned it upside down,the pot is one of a set of 3 that cost 6.99 a set and is near the pond.
so, think you now know why i praise spray n grow so much. 2 more sprays will do,then i feed twice weekly with tomato fertiliser and hope they keep going until september. i did try and add these pics as an album and crashed twice doing it so hope you enjoyed them. take care all and many thanks for all the kind comments you left.much appreciated
Written by mortonlake
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