Since you've asked.....

A comment on my last post, the China Girls one, has asked how Jude spends her day. I think I know who you are but I'm not sure. I would be happy if you would remove all doubt, but if you really want to preserve your anonymity, thats OK as well. Anyway, here goes.

Basically, I just facilitate what ever she wants to do. She spends a lot of time sleeping these days. She has 3 or 4 naps during the day, & is rarely later than 10.00 pm to bed. We have a carer in Monday to Friday to shower her & dress her, as her upper limb strength is now such that she can't lift her arms much above waist level without holding it with the other hand. Her lack of motive ability in her hands also mean that such normally simple jobs as doing up & undoing bra straps is now beyond her capability. A hand held shower that I put over the bath for my mother & a transfer stool are an absolute godsend, making it so much easier to shower her. We are very lucky with our carer in that Colleen is also a very dear friend of ours from before Jude being ill, so I have evry confidence that she is being treated with love, dignity & compassion.

I feed her. At present she has 2 meals of 3 bottles of Fortisip, a liquid food, a day. She has these via her PEG tube administered with a syringe. At this point, she also has however much water she feels she needs via the same way. Very occasionally, she will make herself a strawberry milkshake & sip quietly at about half a glass of that.

Her day is spent mostly either reading, watching TV, or puddling on the computer. She was lucky enough to be granted an electric powered lazyboy chair, which is where she spends her time either reading or watching TV, We also have a TV in the bedroom, so she quite often snuggles up again in bed in the morning, some times watching it, sometimes sleeping again. A very dear friend of ours provides us with a steady diet of point & click games for the computer that are relatively easy physically for her to play. She is also happy to converse on Skype. Our name there is Truckenman, so drop in & say "Hi" Don't be offended if she doesn't answer, because she will probably be playing full screen games.

The little dog is more my mate than hers. Jude definitely belongs to the Ginger Ninja's, & that ius scary territory for a little black dog. Inevitably, if she is sitting or lying down, either one or the other will be either close by, or actually sitting on her lap. As to her mobility, she is still able to get around to a limited degree, but runs out of strength & breath very easily, so if we are going anywhere that involves walking, mall, supermarket, main street etc., then it is far far easier to bundle her into the wheelchair that we carry all the time in Sherman.

Her favourite TV programmes are mainly food, renovation shows & detective series like CSI. OH, not to mention the inevitable vampire series.

AS far as what she thinks is concerned ? Well, probably the best person to tell you that is her, so without further ado, for the first time ever on my blog, here she is.......

i am very blessed with the people who assist me day to day. It is not easy because i am used to doing the careing (i.e.) belonging to F.E.D.s fulfilled that for me. I am coming to terms with my non functioning hands no matter what i do they just won't work like they used to. No more patchwork or quilting and no more gardening. B--------R. So I now use them as much as possible on the computer for crosswords, writing on the computer to fill in my christmas cards, and I read a lot I always used to so that has not changed. I love to go out but I tire very quickly very frustrating. my weight is slowly going down. i have spent most of my life trying to do this very thing, but it is a bit scary just now how to stop it I am blessed with a wonderful family whom I love to bits, they are helping to do things like catching up on the windows that desperately need cleaning. The cleaners that come into your home never do the job properly .makes me very angry . I have the odd thing like shooting pains in my neck that gets on my nerves (actually, I wish they did) I could go on but... I'M FINE. Blessings to you all.

Hi, me here again... Not a lot really I can add to that.. Take care.