neurorehabilitationFromTheTrenches

Guest Article: This is a timely guest article from none other than Claire Fastner, reliable as always and moving me to the resolution's promise of 4 in January. This is a picture of the actual postcard Declan wrote and sent to ourselves while on our fateful holiday in Malta. I am not superstitious, so I just wanted to share this as it is pretty remarkable how well he captured what lay ahead. If the accident hadn't happened, we would have thought nothing of this postcard. Since the accident happened it has become a treasured artefact. I still remember the moment Declan wrote it. We had just gone to St. Paul's bay and had returned from a trip to a tiny island.  Here's actual footage of our journey. We sat in the sun and had a spare postcard, one depicting the salt pans on Gozo, which we had visited days prior when we had stayed on Gozo.  Thinking back to Gozo, another memory flashes back: We went on a scooter ride through Gozo. Suddenly, it sta

One of my New Year's Resolutions is to submit a minimum of one blog article every week, so here I am. This will be the first article containing my new section, called 'Records'. This will provide a status update on the three records, mentioned last week; namely, exercise biking, rowing and ski-erging. My new fitness regime is going well, in Veganuary. It consists of the usual, with the additional, weekly record attempts, which will be dealt with later, in the new 'Records' section. As well as these, I have also started new training for my arm, which will also be covered later, in the ‘ My Tree’ section. This section will be used from now on, for commentary on my ongoing training for my hand and arm (henceforth, H arm, note the capital ‘ H’, very Germanically, denoting a noun ). I have finally almost finished Professor Robert Sapolsky’s first book “ Why Zebra’s don’t get Ulcers ’ , so, you can expect a glowing review next time. Which reminds me, This blog

This year, got off to a sprightly start. I'm back more-or-less to my routine of training intermittently with my Gehbarren, the difference is that I seem more focused on my rehabilitation. For example, I just did my first Saturday, in the gym at Athlevo . I had, with Anna in physio, started three separate exercises: exercise biking, rowing and ski-erg, which I'll explain later. This Saturday, saw Claire and I take those same three exercises with us to Athlevo for our maiden attempt outside of physio. My intention, from now on, will be to break at least one of my records in the aforementioned sports (they are to me), every Saturday. I would also like to try to break one of them during one physio session, during the week, the day to be agreed with Anna. The records, as they stand, are: the less than impressive, for ableds , 4k in 11 minutes on the exercise bike; 2k in 12:45 on the rowing machine (Set during physio, last Friday); 1240 metres, in 10 minutes, on

Happy New Year! I enjoyed a fun filled Xmas break, during which, one of my friends explained that they take exception with 'Xmas' being used as an alternative for Christmas. I, for one, view 'Xmas' not as a lefty thing, but as a protest of Christianities' monopoly of all our time off work. So it's Xmas. Back to the description of my, to use another Americanism, holidays . Firstly, we both arrived in Dublin on the 20th of December. After a nap in our hotel we made our way to Brasserie Sixty6 for the annual xmas dinner. I was alarmed that there was no vegetarian options on the xmas menu, but we were accommodated quite well on request. It was a very pleasant evening, followed by a night cap back at our hotel with our good friends Art and Cath. Atypically, for the festive period in Dublin, we got a taxi fairly instantly. The next evening we had planned to, so went for dinner with our friend Alex , his wife Elisa, and their 3 extremely mannerly and talent