waiting for a bus

So a lot has happened recently - let's dive straight in, shall we??

First up i have some new Real-Life Heroes - the guys who've submitted user reviews for incontinence pants on the Boots website. They were all aged between 35-44 (just like me) and this fact led me to man-up, walk into a shop and buy myself a pack (following my leakage mentioned back here).

I decided to get them because I've had to do some travelling for work to meetings and events, as well as trips out with my family.

In actual fact I've not had to USE them (if you know what I mean) - obviously I'm not saying that this is any kind of a cure but just having that protection seems to have removed the thought that i will need the toilet from the front of my mind.

Plus they look super-sexy too!* 
(* please note - they don't, but it's still better than running to a public toilet with damp trousers)

Anyway, I've got an appointment with a Urologist coming up in a couple of weeks. More pee-pee talk later.

Speaking of appointments, I've started seeing the Neurology Outpatients Therapies Service again - walking any sort of distance is still an issue. In the two sessions I've had so far, the Physiotherapist has discovered that my problem seems to be that I'm using my toes to compensate for the lack of control in the rest of my legs, especially the weak muscles in my shins.

(i know! who knew shins had muscles??)

I know some people really hate physiotherapy (and physiotherapists) but i love it - i find it fascinating the way that the human body will try to fill in the gaps in itself - "the shins aren't pulling their weight so the toes are going to have to step in" or something.

(and yes i really do still think that the image below is a good representation of this...)

And in the last week I've had my first assessment session with the local Psychological Therapies Service and next week I start my first course of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT).

I'm really excitied by this (probably not as excited as my Dad, who thinks I'll be able to give him some notes...), and it weirdly has some parallels with my physio.

Physiotherapy is all about being aware of your body and trying to consciously be mindful of posture and gait. CBT (as far as i know after one session) is all about being aware of where your thoughts come from and which particular situation has prompted them, and then coming up with coping strategies for the future.

Hardly CBT.101 but like i say, it's all new to me. A good friend of mine (who happens to be a Clinical & Forensic Psychologist) told me that CBT is a good therapy as it's nice an practical - "a lot of therapy can be a little bit too far removed from the reality of a person's actual experience" - and it's this practicality which appeals to me.

And that was even before my therapist came out with this classic line:

Humans aren't designed - and certainly haven't evolved - to be happy all the time.

Brilliant! 

Obviously, I'm sorry if anyone reading this is a creationist (and to paraphrase the late, great Bill Hicks, I'm not sorry if you're offended, I'm just sorry that you hold such ludicrous beliefs) but that just makes perfect sense to me - if you're in a jungle, an evolved state of anxiety and fear is a good thing as it keeps you on the lookout for (I dunno) a fricking huge beastie who might be looking for his lunch. The old Fight-or-Flight scenario, y'know?

So now that (most of us... well, quite a few of us) have got the old food-and-shelter thing sorted out, where do those senses go? Turns out they're still there, just lying dormant until we hit a bump in the road, when they go into OVERDRIVE.

Well, the two week holiday period i wrote about here has been and gone - i had a really good response to my post on Shift.MS, some people saying they would never dare to go abroad with their kids while they (the parents) have limited mobility, others saying that you just need to let the airport know that you'll require additional help.

So we never went abroad, for numerous reasons, most of them financial. Instead we had two weeks at home decorating the study (which was cleared of clutter way back in the halcyon days of Relapse2012) and nice days out with Evie.

That's all for today - phew! Thanks for reading this far.