Tough Mudder

 

I work (for now), I love, I live, I have fun. Just with wheelchairs and drugs and spasms and stuff...

 
18 April 2020
A man lies sprawled in the shade. He is lying across a sofa, asleep. He is wearing pyjamas, with his T-shirt riding up to reveal a less than glamorous belly. He has a dodgy Mohican haircut.

Covid-19 ain’t no flu. My Coronavirus and my Multiple Sclerosis

Yikes! Well that’s been a fun two weeks or so. Not. Lockdown all started out ok. The sun was out and I was set on getting just a bit fitter. This brief video of me exercising is not speeded up. At all. No sir-eee https://youtu.be/lKE6OAxR9HI Then, just as the U.K. was approaching peak cases and hospitals were heroically, desperately bursting at the seams, I developed the main symptoms of Covid-19. A constant, exhausting and painful dry cough. A fever. In my case, a sore throat and a touch of nausea too. And anxiety through the roof. A doctor call-back confirmed I probably had it, as did a dashed paramedic visit to our son, who also had Covid-19, but with an […]
20 February 2020

What has Disability Ever Done For me?

    That was a poorly timed Monty Python joke of a title if you weren’t sure… RIP the spamtastic Terry Jones. And he’s not even in this picture. Oops. I so wish I wasn’t disabled. I wish to the depth of my spasms I didn’t have Multiple Sclerosis. It hurts on so many levels, it’s relentless and it is utterly, mind-bogglingly exhausting. But do I wish life were different? Nope. I am delightedly, delightfully, deliciously, dottily married. We have two stupendous children. A lovely extended family. I am knicker-droppingly‌ gorgeous. Obviously. If balding, ageing and sometimes smelly. What more could I want? (Crème brûlée more often possibly, if I am being picky?). I was prompted to think this through […]
16 July 2019

A Glutton for Funishment

Oh dear. There was me thinking I had come up with the word ‘Funishment’ all on my own. I was wanting to describe my Tough Mudder/Wheelchair Rugby/Skydiving adrenaline fetish. And it turns out fetish is thoroughly appropriate. Funishment is apparently defined as ‘a pleasurable way of being punished, usually in a sexual way.’ Oh.     There was nothing sexual whatsoever about being manhandled like a sack of potatoes by a dozen guys and gals over, under and through 15 devious Tough Mudder obstacles. Especially on the multiple occasions I got a wedgie, or my ‘special pants’ were on display while being dragged over the line or a high wall.     Why exactly did I love it? Why do I […]
21 June 2019

Why I do stupid things…

Hmmm… That title could take this blog so many directions!   Option 1 Yes, Multiple Sclerosis makes me visibly disabled, tired, never far from a loo etc. It also affects my thinking. Cognitive Dysfunction they call it. The same faulty nerve signals affecting my legs (for example) directly impact my brain. I can’t process the world around me as fast as others. I can’t concentrate or focus for long. I forget things, especially short-term. I struggle to multi-task. [insert appropriate bloke joke]. On a bad MS day, I would certainly pass as stoopid. Nope, not talking about that today. Option 2 It’s a bugger, but my brain is also affected in other, subtler ways. (the long-suffering Mrs W would argue […]