Adventures of Pom

Not a lot of people know the word Dysphagia. The dictionary defines dysphagia as difficulty or discomfort swallowing as the symptom of a disease or condition. Dysphagia is perhaps the largest reason preventing the adequate nourishment of many people and can be life threatening. I do some voluntary admin for Dysphagia Matters who aim to raise awareness of this and offer training courses to combat this. They are launching their new blog 'Dysphagia Chronicles' to coincide with European Swallowing Awareness Day and I am their first guest blogger! Please follow this link and have a read:  Dysphagia Chronicles also contact emma @dysphagiamatters.com for more information if you are interested in being a guest blogger.

My close friends will know that I have had issues with my Care recently and I have had to have my number of agency calls and my care budget significantly increased.   This is no one’s fault and indeed, would have inevitably happened anyway. However, it left me with two things.   A sense of not being in control of my life or anything at all (an extreme fear of mine!) and having to directly and openly assess what my quality of life is and what I need to maintain it at the level I want. Quality of life (QOL) is the standard of health, comfort and happiness experienced by an individual.   This can be measured using many factors including physical health, family, education, employment, wealth, the environment, religion.   Social services produce an annual care plan to not only ensure that my basic physical needs are met, they also ask many questions in an attempt to quantify and record my QOL in accordance with their own agenda and using their own general criter...