Dogs, baby,husbands and life. AKA "feelings"

I am a woman who is trying to help drag the UK into 2012 by giving practical advice to help new disabled parents source accessible high street baby and child equipment and discuss methods of carrying out parenting tasks from nappy changing to bathing a baby.However as I am a disabled parent every now and then it feels important to air my experiences or feelings, it is ok to have sad feelings, annoyed feelings, be exhausted, feel it all gets a bit much, these feelings are what makes us normal and what every parent, able or otherwise feel.

I have spent six weeks and counting almost entirely house bound.I have also spent six weeks very separate to my son which is the worst pain I have endured with my illness. I can cope with a lot of actual physical pain,that requires getting a grip, taking painkillers and applying clever thought in order to cope with an "on strike" limb. I can endure being house bound,done it as a child, why not as an adult, but being unable to open my sons cot after his nap and watch him hold his arms out to me and all I can do is stand by the cot giving little man a kiss on his forehead whilst we both wait for daddy to come and help, that hurts.I can not cook for my family right now as I can not stretch to reach the microwave or oven hob. I can't make any one drinks.Usually I have ways of doing things but I am out off action at the moment whilst my body is in lock down. Not being able to help care for my son when I love doing parent things is tricky. Women do things differently to men.My lovely husband has tried hard to care for me and our son ,despite his severe pain that left him shuffling like an old man, he has just got on and kept going.Equally for the past few weeks I find Christopher sporting an old baby vest and a budget nappy and that's it.

My husbands hands are getting worse ,which is cruel being that he is a graphic artist, so he favours old vests because the poppers are so worked he can dress our son easily and given that he is practically a single parent at the monent I do not blame him for keeping his tasks simple.However when I am in charge I always find smart clothing for our son to wear for the day and as any reader will know by now, I don't buy inaccessible clothes, he has elastic waist shorts, envelope opening t shirts, all easy dress clothes but still the trusty vest is utilised.

Son almost dressed!

I have chucked medical advice out the window, doctors asking me to hardly move my leg due to precarious replacement is just stupid when I have a small child and a mothers heart! The doctors would have been kinder to have kept me in hospital so I didn't have to hear my son cry for me yet not be able to reach him! So with my canine partners help, I get back on that floor , move my blooming leg and at least sit with my son who now understands once I am on said floor I can not move and so he brings his toys to me, or passes them to my dog to take to me if the distance is too long to crawl. These moments in the day, no matter how my ankle pulses hot shooting pain through me at night, how much morphine I take to combat pain or how many times I vomit due to high morphine doses, these moments of time and happiness with my son are worth every thing to me.

Yasmin helping me onto the floor

Finally it is difficult at the moment because I seem to find myself amongst pregnant people. I am very much looking forward to people I know having babies as will be playmates for Christopher. However there is sadness in me too, I feel sorry for my son that he will never have a sibling. I and my husband can not risk all that having another child will entail on our joints. We would probably never leave hospital as we both already have damaged joints requiring yet more surgery which we both keep putting off for the sakes of Christopher. i would dread to think what would happen if another child was on the scene. This fills me with sadness, not for myself but purely for Christopher and so I thank god for my Canine Partner dog Yasmin who although is getting old is being a great happiness and company to our little man. He squeals with delight as Yasmin my dog goes and gets us a book to read and brings it to him on my lap. He loves it when she rolls around on the floor and laughs his head of which makes her do it even more this mischevious pair! He brings his toys to her for her to play with and she brings me books to read to him.

Thank god ,despite being very young when I got Juvenile arthritis/ Stills disease,all those toxic chemo meds both myself and my husband have taken over the years, we have managed to have a healthy, happy little boy. For that I am so so grateful and will not allow myself to be so selfish or complacent about what I have as I know there are couples out there who can not have children.


Thank god for Canine Partners, we have a well trained and patient lab who stays still whilst cars are being lined up along her furry back. "Canine Partners" is not just about a helper dog but about being a friend during more isolating times.

To find out more about Canine Partners, a Charity that helps disabled people's lives directly, please go to Canine Partners website

August is also Stills disease awareness month, Stills is another name for Juvenile Chronic Arthritis. Over 12000 children are diagnosed with a form of arthritis in the UK today and is the second most common illness a child can suffer with in Britain, childhood diabetes being the first. This illness is an immune system faulty programming that attacks the whole body, eats joints over night and leaves young children with dangerously high temperature, rashes and swollen lymph glands and ravaged joints requiring years of surgery to patch up the body over a lifetime. If you are interested in learning more please go to the Stills R Us website

Thanks to whoever is reading this, sometimes you just need to talk x

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