A Truly Sensational Tuesday (Part 1)

So here we are with details of my morning appointment from last Tuesday.

Not quite as sensational as my feat of standing in the afternoon but still worth telling you all about.

If you remember - how could you possibly forget - last Tuesday, I was at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery (NHNN), at Queens Square in London.

In the morning I had a follow up appointment with Claire in the Occupational Therapy Department.

For a long time the tendons in my hands have been contracting and this has meant that the fingers have been becoming more and more bent.  I am very right-handed, and do everything with my right hand.  This means that the fingers on this hand have more range of movement than those of my left hand, which is now very bent. 

In the past I have been given thermo-plactic splints to try to help straighten my fingers but have found these to be difficult to use as they are so rigid, unccomfortable and they tend to cause soreness on my fingers where they rub on the plastic.

During my last appointment, Claire had given me a splint for my left hand.  This is made of a softer outer material, with a thermo-plastic insert.  I have found this quite comfortable to use, without it causing any discomfort or soreness.  However following a chat with Claire, she made a small modification to the shape of the thermo-plastic, which will hopefully mean I can use it longer without my hand becoming "tired".

She had ordered another splint for my right hand, and after trying this, it felt comfortable and I now have to try them both at home to see how I get on.

After this we discussed "Fatigue Management".  I have noticed that recently I have been becoming more fatigued than normal, even on days when I'm not doing much, and thought it was worth seeing what help Claire could give.

NHNN produce various documents relating to a number of conditions and on issues arrising from those conditions.  Claire had a copy of the "Fatigue Management for Progressive Neurological Conditions" and "Fatigue Management for people with Multiple Sclerosis" documents.  We went through the first of these documents and then Claire took some pages from the second document to combine the two, into a more detailed document.

The things that this document discusses and suggests are pretty much common sense things which most of us, probably, already do but its useful to see them all put down together.  The document gives an idea of a co-ordinated approach to managing your time, energry and tasks, in such a way as to limit the effects of fatigue.  There are simple charts you can use to monitor daily activity and your fatigue levels at points during the day, so that you can complete these and hopefully identify patterns, and the adjust how you are doing things and measure any changes.  This can done down to an hour by hour level, or just with the day broken down into morning, lunch, afternoon, etc.

Sadly due to my novice blogging skills I don't know how to attach this document to the blog, or even if you can.  I will ask my guru, Frank, if it is possible, but if you do want a copy of the document, I have scanned a copy as a pdf file, into my computer and will happily share this with you.

Having gone through the fatigue document, my appointment time was over.  I went and sat out in Queens Square and enjoyed the sunshine and ate a sandwich.

And then after lunch I had my amazing physio appointment, which you can read about in "A Truly Sensational Tuesday (Part 2)" which I posted yesterday.

As I thought Frank has solved the problem of getting this document so that you can see it.  Unfortunately its too bigger file to post on facebook but the link below should allow you access the "Fatigue Management" document.  Hurrah for Frank!!

https://www.dropbox.com/home#!/home