Hi everyone
Apologies for the long delay in up-dating my blog page, finally!!
Hope you all had an enjoyable Christmas & New Year! As a family
we went away on Boxing day for a week to my parent's inlaw's
beach house at Waikawa just north of Otaki. Last year a number
of people helped out in getting the place tidied up ready for
Christmas, thanks to all that helped & they were also working on
a path & ramp to the rear deck for wheelchair access,
unfortunately this didn't get finished in time, next time we go
should be all go!! Well my dad very kindly built a wooden sledge
with ropes attached & I clinmbed onto this & they pulled me up
the internal flight of stairs, rather challenging but fun. I
would never have been able to do that a year ago as I didn't have
the muscles, all the hard work is paying off!!
Julia & the kids had a good time, swimming, kayaking, playing in
the sand-dunes, bonfire with marshmellows on the beach, etc, I
hung out at the house with a family that came along to help out
for the week, did a lot of standing & sideways walking at the new
handrail on the deck, some sandstone sculpturing, lot of great
food, etc& lots of good sea air through the lungs, a great week
had by all!!
Took a bit to get back into the swing of things for the start of
the New Year after a great week away, all good now. A new
programme has been set for me this year, I rise around 7:oo AM',
Get myself washed & dressed & then a caregiver arrives around
8:oo AM' to take me across to Laura Ferusson Community for my
breakfast. I have offed to make my own way across there but they
are not so keen, wonder why!!! Well anyway after bacon & eggs for
breakfast, get real Phil, I us'ually have some free time for an
hour or so, I have been receiving a daily devotional by e-mail so
I use that time to catch-up on that, then I go of to the GYM' for
an hour to an hour & a half & then I have my shower, etc. It is
pretty much lunchcctime after that & then into my afternoon
programme. I do a variety of things in the avo, ranging from,
musec lessons using drums, keyboard playing, listerning.
Computer lessons working with a laptop connecting to the net
inreadness for my upcoming studies through Weltec, looking at
studying Life Coaching.I have tution with my Braille Note, this
the unit I e-mail with, it has many, many features & I am about
to bc the proud owner of a brand new one thanks to Enable NZ' for
funding it & to all ? in the Blind Foundation that helped with
the application process. Thank you, thank you so much. The new
unit comes with many more features than the one I am currently
using on loan from the Foundation, comes with a cellphone so I
will be able to txt people & when my hearing gets better, make
calls, has double the braille capacity that I can read on the
display from what I currently can read, wireless & one very cool
feature, there is a menu called "Face to face", well I can plug
in a small keyboard which comes with the unit or I can hand some
one the cellphone & they can do the same thing on the cellphone
keypad, anyone can have a conversation with me & I can read it of
my display as they type on the keyboard or keypad, the cellphone
works wirelessly within a 10 metre radius of the unit. Also go
swimming on a regular basis in the avo to H2O pool in Upper Hutt
with a swimming instructor from the pool, when I get some free
time I enjoy doing some sandstone work, currently just about
finished a sculpture which is in the shape of a koru with a vine
carved into the face of the stone & I am getting some coloured
glass cut to glue into the circles I have created on the vine, I
am planning to send this peice to the inessiness' rehab centre in
Dunedin as a thank you for all the amazing work they did with me
& supporting the familyffffy This year I have setup regular
listerning sessions in the avo 3 times a week with a famealy
friend who has very kindly volunteered & we do concentrated work
for around an hour at a time, currently working on phonic's &
will build it up as time goes on. In December last year when I
returned to Christchurch Audiology Unit at chchristchurch
Hospital, eni was only hearing through 3 of the electrodues on my
Cochlea & when they connected me up for more mapping I had made a
huge jump & now I am hearing through 12 to a greater or lesser
degree, some are a mex of noise & vibration but only a matter of
time & concentrated listerning bf they convert to noiseccspeech,
really believing with God's help & the concentrated listerning
sessions that later this year I am going to get some good hearing
out of my CI'!!!
I generally stay at Laura Fergusson Community for dinner & get
picked up around 6:45 PM' & it is home james to catch up with my
family. On the weekends I hangccout with my family, get out &
about with them now we have the new car,Laura Fergusson were very
successful in putting an appliction together for funding & we
added a bit ourselves & we now have a Toyota Alphard, 7 seater
with a purpose-built hydrolic ramp in the back for my chair, with
my chair in the back we loose 2 seats, makes life a heap easier
for my babe & others when taking me out. Also on the weekends if
the weather is OK' I do some sandstoning work or bike riding on
my low-rider out in the den, used to be the garage & last year a
number of volunteers & the generous support of Laura Fergusson,
converted it into a room for the kids, Ju & I to use, put a
ranchslider in, lined the walls & lowered the ceiling & put in a
fold-down set of stairs for storage above, totally cool & thanks
heaps to all those that gave of their time, etc to carry out the
project, they also put in some raised planter boxes in the
backyard so I can enjoy doing some vege gardening, had one good
crop out of the garden this season & about to plant some more!
Usually try to get out to church on a Sunday, great to be able to
catch up with people & be encouraged & hopefully encourage
others. My extended family often help out with signing the
message to me & of course not forgetting having a real coffee!
More important!! I am kept pretty busy & that is cool!!
My walking is getting better & better on a weekly basis, I am now
walking at the parallel bars without a harness & after doing a
number of sitting to standing exercises, I average around 20 plus
times walking up & down the bars in my alotted time, I do a lot
of standing at home using the rails my dad has put in our
backyard as well & I am believing that if I continue to work hard
& with God's help I may; able to start walking with a walker
later this year, also do walking when I am at the pool, I am
keeping the dream alive that I will walk again!!
I have made some friend's at Laura Fergusson Community, these are
residents that live there & they have learnt signing so they can
chat with me, has brightened my life up, thanks heaps guys if you
are reading this!!!
Thanks also to the great team at Laura Fergusson & the amazing
job they d!!Thank you Blind Foundation for all that you have &
are doing for me, very, very cool. Thank you Christian Camping
NZ' & Grace Trust for all that you have & are doing for us, you
guys roak!!!Thank you to all that have helped in so many ways,
from the deep south to the top of the country. We have been very
blessed!!!
One last this ing bf I sign off for now, I have been approached
by the Blind Foundation about my story, they have a magazine
called "Outlook", & they are putting together an issue called,
"Inspirations", & they are after stories of people that have been
through life changing events in their lives & inspite of their
circumstances they are excelling & achieving great things, so
they can use the storys to inspire other people to achieve their
goals & dreams. They believe I have one such story, I am humbled
& challenged by this, but have agreed to do it, if it helps
people & inspires this to reach for the stars, would be real cool
if you would pray that God gets the glory out of this & that
people are inspired!!!
Well best sign off for now, will be endeavouring to make regular
entries, so keep an eye out & I will as well!! The healing is
continuing in my body, almost on a weekly basis I feel small
inmprovements in different areas of my body, very cool & thank
you God & to all you out there that are praying for me on a
regular basis, you guys are AWESOME'!! Thanks also to those of
you that e-mail, really appreciate it & the encouraging stuff you
send, please keep it up, I always look forward to reading it & if
I don't reply straight away, I apolonize.
I am working on loading some photo's of me in action in the GYM'
& various other things I do & hope I will be able to load them on
my blog pag
