Mags making progress

Just a quick post to keep up to date.
Mags is making very good progress, feeling and ability is returning to her left hand and arm, and her face has once again got that infectious grin across it.
She tells me that she’s desperate to come home, but secretly I think she’s quite enjoying herself. The staff and other patients are certainly enjoying her sense of humour!
Talking of other patients, looking around the specialist stroke unit, Mags is very lucky to be as well as she is. Some of the poor souls are really struggling; incoherent, feeding through a tube and immobile.
Mags is chatty, fairly mobile (she insists on getting up to go to the loo), and positive.

I took Meg in to see her on Wednesday, lots of cuddles and waggy tails. Only for 15 minutes, then we had to do the rounds of the other patients in her room as well. I don’t think I’ll take her again, though. We’d just got into a routine but it got all upset when I took her in. She (Meg) has been a bit depressed and listless since, hanging around at the end of the towpath where I’d parked the hire-car.

It’s 2.3 miles from here to the hospital, a 35 minute fast walk (40 by the fourth trip of the day!), which means that Meg is left for nearly four hours in the afternoon. To cut this down I decided to buy a bike. Not without serious consideration; it’s been 38 years since I‘ve ridden, and the route involves crossing the middle of town, once in daylight, once at dusk and twice at night.
But I dropped in to a bike shop on the way in yesterday and got fitted up with a second-hand mountain bike. He had lights to fit and a check up to do so I picked it up on the way home. A little wobbly for a start, but I soon got the hang again. It’s knowing which of the 15 gears you’ve selected which is the real problem! And the spray up the back from the unguarded rear wheel.

Rusty Trusty Steed

Just had coal boat Alton deliver some solid fuel, so we’ll be alright for that for a month, now. Mags is likely to be in for another week or ten days yet. They want to be sure she can fend for herself before she’s discharged. Which is a good sign. Some of her fellow patients will never be in that position…

I’ve spoken to the enforcement officer for this stretch, and am OK to stay here for a bit. While I had a car I emptied the loo cassettes and filled a water bottle at the sani-station at Bosley top, so they’ll last for another few days.

Thanks for all the messages and offers of help, sorry I haven’t time to respond individually, but they are all very much appreciated.