January – February 2010 – New Equipment, Discovering the Best Show in the World….and a Night with The King!

Those early discussions we’d had with the various support people started to pay off as we moved forward in January. The mobility issues on trips of any distance during the holiday had made us realise that we needed a wheelchair. Carol was still able to use the wheeled walker, and move okay slowly around the house but outside it was a different matter. A request was raised but it wouldn’t arrive until early February - so in the meantime I hired one as we were heading back to London! We’d had to miss the earlier Billy Connolly show so I got tickets for another on 22^nd January, and as we’re travelling all that way we might as well make a weekend of it and go see a couple of other shows in the West End.

That raises another subject I’ve not touched upon yet – disability access rooms in hotels. Remember this was all new to us back then so each trip was a new learning experience and we’d stayed in just a couple of others by this time – including the infamous freezing Premier Inn near Luton. While working in London I’d stay at the Novotel in Hammersmith (just opposite the Apollo for convenience by the way) so I booked us in there. It has good access to the tube (there’s another steep learning curve if you have mobility issues!) and it was a nice hotel. Unfortunately though the disabled access rooms weren’t brilliant if I’m being honest – a deep bath for a start which, if you have the kind of physical challenges that Carol was starting to present, can make things quite difficult.

Anyway the Billy show was good – but nowhere near his best so I did leave a little disappointed. The Saturday we went into town for 2 shows – but getting there in a wheelchair was an experience and a taxi was £25 each way. Make sure you study the Underground map very carefully – it’s a joke on such an excellent network just how few stations there are that have wheelchair access. For the West End the station at Westminster is the easiest one to use – and that’s a fair walk.

Also, can someone please tell me why you become invisible when you’re in a wheelchair? It’s amazing but people just don’t see you – in those early days my stress levels were seriously high what with stopping and starting for people walking across your path or just bumping into the chair – and don’t get me started on those ignorant gits on the tube who sit in the designated wheelchair spaces and won’t move - it drove me mad as Carol will testify!!

We saw “The Lion King” first and Carol was blubbing throughout – you see it was James’ favourite film when he was young and Carol went to the pictures 5 times to see it with him, so it all came flooding back. A show well worth seeing, fantastic costumes with very cleverly operated animals and a great soundtrack. Carol transferred well from the wheelchair into the seat so there were no issues.

The next theatre gave us a problem as I wasn’t aware of “access seats” – we weren’t regular theatre goers at that time so it was news to me but these are seats specially reserved for people with mobility issues and they have to be requested through direct booking. The theatre staff were wonderful though, and so was Carol for making her way both down and back up the stairs we had to use to access the stalls area. I certainly wouldn’t be making that mistake again but when the show started all that was forgotten as it just absolutely blew us away (hence the post title above). I’d seen it was on in New York when we were there in 2006 but we didn’t find time to go – “Jersey Boys” is the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons and it is the absolute must see – without doubt our favourite show ever and that certainly ended our trip on a high - we were already talking about going back to see it again. You can count in future posts just how many times we went back to see it. (I would also sneak in a couple of extra visits when I was back in London training – Carol was not impressed I was able to go without her!)

Back home life just carried on but we started to notice Carol’s voice and swallow change again so we needed to see the Speech Therapist (I told you she’d be back). The next assessment gave us instructions on choosing moist foods and thickening liquids – and so began our love affair with thickener – such lovely stuff. Initially we started with a scoop to 200mls fluid, but this would change within a couple of months to a scoop to 100mls – that’s progress but not the kind we wanted. Carol would soon need this adding to every liquid from tea and coffee to soup.

What this assessment also gave us was a new piece of equipment – a Litewriter. I’d never seen one before but quickly realised it was just what Carol needed – a machine that could talk for her, speaking the words that she’d type in using the keyboard. Needless to say the first words Carol programmed in cannot be repeated in this blog but caused great amusement in the house! When Carol did decide to use it properly it proved to be a great help – although some of the voices did make you nervous (especially Wendy - who sounds like Marge’s sisters in the Simpsons!). The Litewriter would be a great aid to communication for a number of months to come.
            

Carol went up North during February to stay with the family for a week and coming home we arranged for my mum and sister Elaine to bring her to meet me in Birmingham for a night with The King. It was the latest tour of the “Elvis Lives” show, which we had seen before but demands repeat visits. Elvis’ original TCB band play live on stage while huge screens show Elvis concert video recordings and his voice is heard over the music. It sounds like the corniest thing you’ll ever see – but I dare you to go – it’s fantastic! Our friends Tom and Jo came with us and really enjoyed themselves too and we stayed over afterwards in a Holiday Inn (disabled access room again – not too bad). On the way home we diverted down to London as I’d booked “JB” tickets again for the Sunday afternoon – Tom and Jo got to see what I’d been making such a fuss about all those weeks.

So a couple more months had passed – Carol’s progress seemed to have sped up somewhat but we had the equipment we needed and it was all under control – for now.