Travelling alone - reflections

I can't believe I've been back a week already. It only seems like yesterday that, in a moment of madness, I booked a week away in Finland. Before my holiday, I was really tired... exhausted... physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. It felt like I was waking up, going to work, coming home and going to sleep. I needed a rest.

I did wonder if I was making a big mistake, heading back to Finland whilst I was feeling so low but it turned out to be just what I needed.

The Positives

Right from day one, in Helsinki, before flying north, my friend whisked me out for a long walk. I was a little nervous, as it was a warm day... sunny... without Neil... wasps??? Actually, I didn't see a single wasp ALL week! Consequently, I got tons of exercise. I propelled myself miles! I sat outside coffee shops drinking lots of coffee and eating pulla. It was also really good to sit and chat with friends that I feel like I've known for ages... people who know me really well.

Apart from the night each end in Helsinki, I stayed in a hotel. Being completely alone allowed me some time to get spiritual refreshment. Tempting as it was to go out and spend my whole week seeing people, I decided before I went that I needed some time to pray and seek God. I know some of my friends and family won't get that but for me, it's really important and it makes a difference.


The Not-So-Positives

The biggest downer happened on Thursday morning. I had planned a great day out in Oulu, visiting old friends there. I was all on track until I started getting strange flashes in the corner of my eye. My heart sank, as I realised what it was. Within minutes, I had full-scale visual dramatics going on and the mother of all migraines hit. Fortunately, two of the friends I was meeting decided to brighten my day and drive north to see me instead. By late afternoon when they arrived, I was feeling much better and we went out for dinner.

That leads me onto the second negative. The only wheelchair accessible eateries in town were Hesburger and Pizza Rosso. The latter was lovely but took us forever to find. Everywhere else had steps, narrow doors, no toilets, etc. This became a bit of a theme for the week. In Neil's absence, it was much more obvious how difficult it would be to live independently there... impossible, in fact. Even the main supermarkets didn't have wheelchair trolleys. Dropped curbs were totally hit and miss. Mostly the infrastructure for accessibility just isn't there.

The photos show two touristy places, a museum/art gallery and a Santa's grotto type place. Both have steps to get in and I didn't find an alternative entrance.

In a way, this kind of bothered me, but in another way, it was helpful. It made me feel like I'm in the best place, here in England. Much as I miss many aspects of living in Finland, I wouldn't trade my independence for anything! So then, it began to feel more like a proper holiday, rather than a visit home. So, at long last, coming home actually felt like coming home.


Blending it all together

I wanted to get to a place of feeling a proper connection with home, whilst not losing a different kind of connection with Finland. I think my week away was really good for beginning that process. I certainly came back, looking forward to being back at work and feeling like I'm in a good place. I guess I can't ask for much more than that.

Some other nice pics of the week

Kemi's answer to Stonehenge?

Walk round the nature reserve

Kemi's Pink Church

The town - clean, light and wide

Personal Learning Environments

I'm still ploughing on through my studies. This week, one of the themes has been Personal Learning Environments (PLEs), as opposed to institutionally provided systems such as Moodle. One of the tasks led to me mapping out my own PLE. Thought it would be interesting to share it. You can click on it to see a bigger, full screen version.

My Personal Learning Environment

Travelling Alone

I guess travelling is one of the things that most disabled people worry about, to some degree. For the most part, I travel with my husband and/or my sons and we tend to drive everywhere within the UK. This week though, I'm traveling abroad on my own, which can be quite challenging. To make it even more interesting, I only planned this trip 3 days ago.

Today's section of the journey began with Neil driving me to the airport. That reduces the capacity for things to go wrong before I even start. So he left me, checked in, at Airport Assistance. It seemed unusually quiet there and there was an overkill of staff but I later discovered they were all new and only one was allowed to actually assist. He took me through security. Well, actually, he accompanied me through security. I hate being pushed and left my handles in the car. Ooops! Shame!

Security was largely uneventful, except for a very patronising 'pat-down lady' who clearly assumed my tremor indicated either guilt or fear. Then three male security chaps decided to investigate the contents of my 'toilet kit', pulling out a range of pads, nappies and catheters in public. It's a good job I've already waved goodbye to my dignity!

I opted to take care of myself from security to the gate. Warning - only do that if you know you can propel far enough. It's often a fair trek from all the shops to the gates. Anyway, at the gate, a lovely Oriental assistant, about 4 foot nothing and 4 stone offered to carry me to my seat. I was so tempted to let him try but I whipped out my stick and asked him to carry my bag instead.

I'm not good without regular meals. We had a lovely pork salad for lunch at home so I went into Boots in departures and bought a meal deal. It's cheaper to do that than buy onboard food. Plus, if you can't find anything suitable, there's still other options.

I find the flight quite easy. The height and width of the cabin mean there's always something to hold onto. There are handles in the loo, which is better than many other places. I use my wheelchair cushion to sit on, making it more comfortable and the airlines always have extra little pillows, so I put one in the small of my back.

I'm actually writing this in the air, somewhere over Denmark, I think. I find landing the worst bit of the flight. I nearly always lose sensation in my legs and bumpy landings hurt my back. It doesn't always help but 'zipping and tucking' Pilates-style, tensing my core muscles usually provides some protection for my spine.

Then there will be the long wait to disembark. I'm always first on, last off. By then though, they should have retrieved my wheelchair and I can tootle off to baggage reclaim, where the assistance guys will do all the hard work for me.

This time, a friend is collecting me from the airport. I just hope my chair will fit in her car. I didn't think to check that. Oops!

It goes in waves

I haven't posted for a while. I haven't blogged or even updated my Facebook status, beyond sharing a few photos. It's easy to post stuff when things are going well but the last few weeks and months have been pretty tough. Some of it has been physical - getting hurt doing simple tasks, taking longer than I would like to recover. A lot of it is emotional and sometimes it's not easy to know what to do with that.

I was talking to someone this week, who reminded me that adjusting to a disability is like a bereavement. He's right, of course, but it's five years now. Surely I should have got it all together and be fine. Neil and I have both been bereaved in the past year and a bit and after the initial grief, there have been moments - like waves - of new grief. Anniversaries, memories, or just realising that you want to tell them something. Well, it's true. Adjusting to disability is like that too.

There's a part of me that doesn't want to share how I feel at the moment. It's not positive or inspiring. It isn't strong or courageous. However, if one day, someone is going through the same and they read this, at least they'll know they are not alone.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary

Don't you just hate contrary people? I do! They want different things from one day to the next. You can't please them. They're fickle and changeable. So it's even worse when I feel contrary. I want people to treat me completely normal... but then if they don't take account of my disability, I feel angry. I want to be independent... but if they don't help me, I feel abandoned. I want my family and friends to keep me challenged... but I haven't got the emotional strength to even try at the moment. I don't like being touched by people I don't know very well... but I really just want a hug. I want to work... but I'm tired.

At the moment, I have a lot a questions and a lot less answers. There's a mismatch between what I want and what I need. I feel angry with others but even more angry with myself and I don't even really know what I'm angry about. It just makes me want to withdraw from everyone and everything and hide away forever.

Too many changes

A couple of weeks ago, someone at work implied that I should know about all new developments in all areas across my patch. Sounds reasonable, I guess. The person who thought this has lived their entire life in the same town in the same patch. It really annoyed me though. Of course, he's not to know that we've moved house 4 or 5 times in the space of 4 years, including an international relocation and that I've done that at the same time as adjusting to my new physical condition. New home, new country, new body, new job, new church, new people, new... new... new. He isn't to know how much I miss having full health and strength, how much I miss living in Finland, how much I miss being a teacher, how much I miss going somewhere local without needing a satnav, how much I miss being my old self!

Expectations

I have high expectations of myself and others. Other have high expectations of me. That's fine. In fact, it's good, most of the time. I don't know myself though, whether, at those times when a new wave of grief overwhelms me, I want the expectations to be lowered a bit or not. I remember once, walking in the sea with my mum. I think we were in France, on the Atlantic coastline. I was about eight. A huge wave came and knocked us both over and pulled us under the sea. We lost grip and I remember swirling under the water, with my eyes open, watching debris and sand and thinking I wouldn't survive. I wasn't frightened. It didn't hurt. It was just a really strange feeling. That's how I feel right now. Just strange and not myself. I might get washed out to sea and never be seen again but I'm a good swimmer and it's more likely that I'll find solid ground again and walk away unscathed, wondering what on earth just happened.

Hauskaa vapua kaikille!

I love the way Facebook now shows us memories of what we were doing on this day in previous years. I enjoy scrolling through my old posts to remember what we were up to. Today is May Day in the UK. We always celebrate it on the first Monday of the month. In Finland, it's called Vappu and it's always celebrated on 1st May, regardless of what day it is. So my title today has been my status almost every year since 2009. It means 'Happy May Day everyone!" But here's what we've done on Vappu:

2009 - The boys were quite young. We cycled into Oulu and had a picnic in Ainola Park. The snow had melted.

 I can't remember where in the day this fitted but we had a party at church and played lots of silly games and generally had a lot of fun.

 Cycling over a big bridge into the city. Cycling in Oulu was really enjoyable most of the time, especially in Spring.

All our bikes, lined up in the park while we sprawled out on the grass. The river in the background had already thawed and the fountains were on. The park was full of people, all enjoying the day.










2010 - We were just starting to build our house and the foundations had just been laid. We were covering the foundations with 'egg box' to stop water from getting in.

2011 - We were in the middle of building our house and we spent the day hanging the sauna door. It was made of thick glass and was so heavy!

2012 - I was in bed, completely paralysed and in a lot of pain. I didn't know it at the time but I had cauda equina syndrome and I should have called 112 and gone to hospital.

2013 - I was travelling back to Finland, having been in the UK for a job interview for a headship of a school. At that time, our whole focus was on getting ready to move back here. It was the first of several interview trips.

2014 - I had an interview for a job with East Riding Council, something to do with data. I'm kinda glad I didn't get it because then I wouldn't have got my current job, which I really enjoy.

2015 - Absolutely no idea. I was probably at work - just a normal day.

2016 - We were on a cruise to the Norwegian Fjords. It was the first sea day and we spent it swimming in the pool before having a lovely meal.

So what about 2017? Well, Neil will stay at home and work on the garden. We've had it completely relandscaped to make it wheelchair accessible. It's lovely to sit out and potter. Meanwhile, today, I'm taking Josh shopping. It's not often I get the chance for a mum and son day but he needs some new clothes and then we're going to get his 21st birthday present (almost a year late) - a new piano.

What I love about taking a day and remembering the years gone by, is that it reminds me we don't know what life is going to throw at us next. One year, we were in the midst of building a new life. Just a year later, our lives were turned upside down. So many people thought that I had stayed positive in spite of what happened but the truth is, I considered suicide on an almost daily basis. I was terrified that we couldn't survive it. Pain, exhaustion and fear were immense for a while. But then only a short time later, we have built a new normal. I never expected to be happy again. I never thought I'd find pleasure in something as simple as being accepted but last night, Josh went snowboarding while I skied. He could have raced off on his own but we did it together. Today, we'll go round shopping centres, me in a wheelchair and him walking, and he's not embarrassed to be seen with me. It's all okay. I'm happy.

One of my favourite Bible verses is this: "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." (Romans 8: 28) Bad stuff happens but God can bring something good out of it. That gives me such hope and confidence to face the future.