Monday 30 August 2010

Awol...

I've been a bit rubbish and slack this past week! I've had problems with my back from bumping up and down kerbs in the Gogo - lots of spasms and aches. So I've been resting a lot and if I'm honest feeling sorry for myself and been craggy with people!

Still, I have a fairly busy week ahead which I hope is more constructive. I am going to be asking a few family and friend members about how my disability affects them or changed their perception of me when it became a permanent feature of my being.

On the upside I’ve caught up with my music lately and I highly recommend the new Travie McCoy album Lazarus, it’s a real funky record. Each song is so different and a lot of them are very humorous. My fave songs are We’ll be Alright, After Midnight and Akidagain. The album is a lot more pop than Travis’ work with Gym Class Heroes.


Will catch you all up properly in a few days!

L x

Wednesday 25 August 2010

My beloved is dieting for charity!

Mike Garrick is fundraising for Bliss, for babies born too soon, too small, too sick

My lovely Boyfriend is losing 2st in weight in aid of Bliss (Premature baby charity) Just in case any one is reading this please click the link above and give generously.

L x

Tuesday 24 August 2010

Doing my own head in!

I’ve been completely frustrated today! I’m utterly overwhelmed with useless thoughts and regrets floating round my head.


This time 10 years ago I would have been celebrating my GCSE (all four of them – but hey I was proud!) results, I can’t quite remember how I celebrated but it was more than likely with a Chinese and a Gateaux.

I remember the excitement of picking up my results and realising I had the grades to do the year long media GNVQ. I’d not been to school for 2 ½ years previously to my exams but had a wonderful home tutor – Margaret, for the six months leading to them.

After 3 years of hospitals, no social life and being a recluse who sat in her room writing to pen pals (which by the way I still have 4!) I was so full of expectations.

2000 Was the new Millennium, my 16th Birthday, college, and the start of a Channel 4 production Big Brother.

No doubt every columnist/blogger/facebook status in the UK has changed tonight to commemorate the end of BB but to me (for at least the first 5 series) it was intriguing to see these people, how they all interacted and what they wanted to do or be. Some have succumbed to the Z list celeb cluster whilst others went back to their lives with the experience under their belt.

This leads me to my frustration. Lack of experiences. 10 years have passed and that quarter life crisis is rearing its ugly head again. I goggled this term, which I first heard in a John Mayer song, and Wikipedia brought up this list

1. realizing that the pursuits of one's peers are useless

2. confronting their own mortality

3. watching time slowly take its toll on their parents, only to realize they are next

4. insecurity regarding the fact that their actions are meaningless

5. insecurity concerning ability to love themselves, let alone another person

6. insecurity regarding present accomplishments

7. re-evaluation of close interpersonal relationships

8. lack of friendships or romantic relationships, sexual frustration, and involuntary celibacy

9. disappointment with one's job

10. nostalgia for university, college, high school or elementary school life

11. tendency to hold stronger opinions

12. boredom with social interactions

13. loss of closeness to high school and college friends

14. financially-rooted stress (overwhelming college loans, unanticipatedly high cost of living, etc.)

15. loneliness, depression and suicidal tendencies

16. desire to have children

17. a sense that everyone is, somehow, doing better than you

18. frustration with social skills

I don’t know how many you have to agree with but I’m on board with 1, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14, 17 and 18 - I think I might qualify. It’s a sad list that suspiciously looks like a check list to a mental institution. But it seems a common phase in a lot of people’s lives; there are even books on it!

I don’t know... I’m a Gemini; a completely overreacting drama queen. I have these days of real thought and contemplation. It drives Mike mad.

L x

Sunday 22 August 2010

Rubbish!

I did myself an injury Saturday morning.... my crime? Sitting up in bed! My back went snap, twang and pop! I spent the day moving round like a, quite literal, plank!

Mum and Miss M.P helped me out and I was thinking that a few extra meds, a good night’s sleep will do the trick! Sadly Miss M.P is a coffee fiend and I'm a sucker for a warm beverage when feeling rubbish. Now it's 2am and any chance (which on a good day is hard enough) of a good night’s sleep I feel is lost.... I'm on a caffeine high!

Miss M.P has been told off on FB.... and now what to do with my night.... do you think they’ll let me and the Gogo into a nightclub?

L x

Friday 20 August 2010

Terms and Conditions...

I doubt anyone beyond my faithful circle of friends is reading this but I thought I'd better let you know why I am disabled.

I've not consciously tried to avoid the subject but a friend mentioned that although it's nice to let people know about my freedom and the fun parts of my life, my conditions do govern each day and I suppose my personality too!

Firstly I have a form of Cerebral Palsy called Hemiplegia which in my case means the left side of my body is weaker and less co-ordinated that the right. This most likely occurred when I was being born. I didn't give my Mum the nicest birthing experience, and I apparently become distressed on my way out and had a stroke - always the drama queen!

I have a very mild version of Hemiplegia, and probably would have avoided a wheelchair and basically would have just had a limp. But, I developed a condition called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome or Complex Regional Pain Syndrome to long term sufferers it’s known as Really Sucks Disease lol! As the name's indicates I am in pain - a lot pain!

RSD is different in every person that has it. Some people go into full remission and others like me, don't! Since I was 7 I have been in various degrees of pain with spasms, burning pains, muscle aches, pins and needles etc etc . but as I've got older the pain has gotten worse.

Although I go out quite a bit - as you've probably guessed I'm a people person. After my visits, I'm exhausted! I don't want to bore you too much with it, but life can be difficult, as I don't sleep much at all, I'm constantly drained from the pain its self, plus some days I find the simplest things like cooking or doing the dishes a trial in my day.

BUT in the end, I do have a good life; it may not be your average one! On the good days, I try to make the most of it, as cliché as it is, you don't know what tomorrow will bring.

I still feel I need to do more, and make a mark on the world. I joke that I'm having a quarter life crisis...... maybe I am!

L x

Thursday 19 August 2010

No Buns!

Batteries lasted well today! Made it to Southend General Hospital and back with a quick nip into Sainsburys on the way and the dial is still on green!

This means I can easily go bug my friend Jo regularly – on my own! (Not that she’s reading this or knows what I’m planning) This also means I’ll get to see her little boy more too. See what I mean babies everywhere – no one to push me!

My status on facebook recently was “yet another baby on the way!!.... Something in the water.... I'm starting on Milk... no buns in my oven thank you!” I love the Auntie duties but I also love giving them back. I’ve only just got my freedom; I don’t want to give it up again!

Got to see beautiful baby Alex again for a bit, he and Mummy are hopefully going home tonight! I probably won’t see him for a couple of weeks and I know they’ll have millions of visitors!

Cooking dinner for friends tonight, but hopefully an early night as having a meeting with the guys from My Town Southend and a driving lesson all before 10am!

L x

Wednesday 18 August 2010

Seeing things in a new way....

After last weeks battery fiasco, it seemed that I had not plugged the GoGo in properly to charge, it's still not going more than 5 miles a go but I spoke to the guys at Able Aid (including my strange but never the less lovely friend Mike who works there) and they said it probably needs draining of power a few times to get the battery going again.

It really did worry me though, I'd had a few days of this new life and although shopping for yourself may not seem that exciting - I love it! I hope I don't take it for granted.

I'm starting to hate pavements ever so slightly, they are atrocious, especially the London road from Southend to Leigh..... thankfully I'm on enough pain meds to knock out a horse, that my back doesn't hurt! Went to The Piano Pavilion to see Karen for lunch with Mike (who's home for 6 days until Friday) - at the Sky Blues Cafe - love their jacket potatoes!

I couldn't get into a few shops along the way, and I'm confused to notice that Bar 56 have taken out their ramp into the venue? I've e-mail them, as they had a perfectly good one and have replaced it with steps, effectivly loosing 18% (estimated disabled people) of their custom.

I'm very happy to annouce that one of my best friends gave birth on Monday (16/08/2010) to a gorgeous little boy Alex Thomas Collins 6lb!

L x

Friday 13 August 2010

Freedom - Already taken for granted?

Well I've had three days of independence - it's been interesting! I'm not in the best of moods at the moment as I went into Southend High Street to meet with Brian and Malcolm from My Town Southend about writing for the website as Lady Gogo. The meeting went very well, am excited at a new challenge. My Granddad Roy would be proud (he set up Food News - a food industry publication).

But on the way back from the meeting, suddenly the battery dial started going a bit crazy and landed on red! Queue a panicked called to my Mum asking her to come walk with me the rest of the way home! This is exactly why I was put off electrical mobility in my teens. Still, one of my brothers came and rescued me and luckily I made it home. Gogo is on charge now but I'm meant to be going out in two hours with friends - eek! They both have prams - double eeeek!

The thought of going back to no mobility scares me after one week!
L x

Wednesday 11 August 2010

Big Wide World!

Ok, the Big Wide World isn't as scary as I first thought! As silly as it sounds, doing things on your own is hard work! I had no idea how much I really relied on my friends, family and Mike. Now I have to watch what the general public is doing i.e. they get annoyed with me, when THEY walk backwards into the scooter! Which by the way is not going very fast at the moment - snails over take.... not to mention people 50 years older than me!

And packing my shopping!? What a juggling act that one is... so your meant to pack, load the scooter and pay all at once? Don't get me wrong, I'm not stupid or naive I've been shopping thousands of times but someone else has always packed and I just paid. These are just things I suppose I've never done on my own - simple as!

Now today is different. I was, somewhat, being supervised by my friend Karen (who owns The Piano Pavilion). Today I am shopping completely one my own. I need cream, a card and rucksacks, a scooter doesn't come ready with shopping space and as stuck up as this may sound I do not like the ready made bags for scooters - someone needs to realise being disabled do not mean we don't want to look good!!

L x

Monday 9 August 2010

Why LadyGoGo?

Why did I chose LadyGogo as my Blogger name? Apart from being an awful play on the amazing LadyGaga. It's simple I'm a lady, and I have just invested, with the help of my friends and family, in a Gogo mobility scooter.

This is also a hence to the Diary or Freedom. Since I was 12 I have used a wheelchair more and more, and now it's 95% of the time due to my health conditions. But life is changing fast in 2010 and a ton of my closest friends and family are having babies. Babies + Buggies = No one to push me around (I know, how rude of my friends to do such a thing!). So, although a had a horrible time with an electric wheelchair in my late teens that put me off electrical mobility for a long while, it was damn time I gained some independence.

Today, Mike went back to his rig and although I only purchase the scooter three days ago and I'm going out alone, for the first time in about 12-14  years. Granted I will be meeting with my lovely friend Karen, who helped fund the majority of the Scooter plus a new wheelchair (Coming Soon!), I'm still feeling nervous as hell!

L x

Introduction

Hi,
I'm 26 from Southend, Essex, UK. I live with my boyfriend Mike, a Unit Manager on oil rigs, in our cosy 1 bed flat. I have a great family, lots of wonderful friends and a thirst for the new or different in life!

I have created this blog as a venting site for my thoughts but also to help other disabled young people like myself and local businesses and projects I am/or will be involved in.

I'm not going to be one of those annoying happy clappy, disabled rights activists. As much as I, and many others try to deny it, our disabilities, in my opinion, do define us to a degree. Whether we like it or not people first see the wheelchair/scooter/walking sick/white stick etc. and judge on that. I do it myself, curiosity is natural and first impressions always count. Ignorance on the other hand can be helped. I will, over time recount stories of damn right stupidity as we go.

So that's me, or a simple outline to a complex and possibly annoying blogger.... we'll see...

L x