Adventures of Pom

Has anyone noticed that my blogging has reduced to a crawl? Probably not but it has.   Its winter. I don’t know about anyone else but Winter is my least favourite time of year.   Don’t get me wrong I LOVE Christmas.   Spending time with family, giving gifts and eating my Mum’s turkey dinner are three of my favourite pastimes. It's not just that my disability seems magnified from November to the end of February, the usual aches and pains are worse, my muscles stiffer and my daily routines are more difficult.   There is also the threat of my nemesis appearing.   Snow. Snow is evil. I have Chionophobia which is basically a fear of snow. However, mine is not a run screaming in terror phobia, such as one might get from Arachnophobia (fear of spiders) or Coulrophobia (fear of clowns).   I mean I am quite comfortable watching films like ‘Frozen’ and I can appreciate a pretty, snowy scene Christmas card but the thought of snow on the groun...

I can’t remember the time when I didn’t know that having my particular disability meant that the length of my lifetime was shortened.   By shortened I mean, barring any freak accident, my lifespan will not be as long as that of an average person.  You can't actually die from of ataxia (and it is not communicable!), it is not that simple.  Premature death is due to the complications that having a base code genetic defect causes.  For example; thickening of the heart muscle eventually leading to heart failure. Because I understood this (though not in detail) from such an early age, it was and is just another fact and so this knowledge does not depress me and it is not a sensitive subject for me to talk about.   Don’t get me wrong, this in no way means that I want to die anytime soon…I’m not ready yet, I haven’t finished! However I didn’t realise that this fact affects those around me as well (is that narcissistic?).   Well my slow decline into de...

I pick social life every time and that's never gonna change.   I am aware that the following blog entry has a rather fractured nature but I have not edited that as I feel it provides a literal example of my thought patterns when combatting the tiredness that living with ataxia brings. Ataxia does not affect mental capacity and it is often the case that I want to do more but my body either can’t or won’t do what it’s told.   Some days it’s only willpower that gets me through.   Use the force!! If anyone follows my blog (:-D), you might’ve noticed that I did not publish an entry last week and there is a very simple reason for this = I didn’t write one!! I didn’t write one due to a sudden and severe attack of Inertia. Inertia is defined as the resistance of any physical object to any change in its state of motion; this includes changes to its speed, direction or state of rest. It is the tendency of objects to keep moving in a straight line at constant velocity. Th...

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I am aware that my recent blog entries have been somewhat on the serious side and so I have decided to take a leaf out of the wonderful Shane Burcaw’s book and ‘laugh at my nightmare’! ( LAMN link ). I have decided to write a list of the 6 weirdest things that I do in order to deal with the effects of my disability.   I don’t mean things like ‘drinking through straws using a lidded beaker to prevent spills’, or ‘having people cut my food for me because if I try it is likely to end up on the floor’. I mean 6 things that might be unique things that I do.   I will be interested to hear from anyone that can relate! 1.        I like popcorn.  It is low on the glycaemic index which makes it a good little snack food for a diabetic.   I don’t want plain popcorn, that just tastes like little balls of cardboard.    Sweetened popcorn is nice but probably has more sugar than a diabetic is supposed to consume. Salted popcorn ...

Who is the fairest of them all?   Well not me that’s for sure, but that’s ok and here’s why… I’m going to go off on a tangent for a sec, but just bear with me for a while. Recently my television viewing has included episodes of ‘Body Fixers’ (E4) and ‘Celeb Botched Bodies’ (C5) (usually it’s ‘Game of Thrones’ and ‘The Walking Dead’ but hey, we’re in between seasons!). It constantly winds me up that some people in the public eye become obsessed over some teeny tiny imperfection and then actually have a risky operation to try and fix it which ends in one of two ways: 1.        They then notice another imperfection that needs fixing leading to more surgery resulting in more risks and a never-ending pursuit of unobtainable perfection. 2.        It goes wrong (more often it seems) leading to complications and more risk-taking blah, blah, blah…never-ending pursuit of unobtainable perfection. I always think WHY? ...

I went to see Josh Widdicombe’s touring comedy show the other day (link to Josh’s website ).   I love watching ‘The Last Leg’ ( LL link ) and a few years ago I was lucky enough to see Adam Hills perform his stand-up and he was fantastic (Alex Brooker, watch out you’re next!).   Whilst Josh was not the best at improvising (microphone breathing is not attractive!) his stand-up routine did make me laugh and his reminiscing of his younger years was highly amusing. Josh was supported by a very funny lady called Suzy who I had never seen or heard of before and it is her stand-up routine that has inspired me to write this blog entry (thank you Suzy x). There I was, all dressed up for the show wearing my semi-new and expensive ‘going out’ top from Next (well £30 is a lot for a top in my terms!), with a touch of make-up and my new hairdo and in the fabulous company of my sister…then some of Suzy’s comedy made me simultaneously laugh out loud and blush like mad (thankfully the l...