Ooh, emerging into the bright new dawn offered by this new blog site, I hope. If you haven't read me before, I've just skipped over the internet from diaryland where I was at http://annanotbob2.diaryland.com/. I'm pretty technically illiterate so will have to discover how to do links and personalise the site but it's far too late for all that now.

In the hopes that some of you have come with me I'll just plough straight on. Apologies to anyone else - the link is above if you find yourself interested.

Today felt as though gravity had been turned right up. Too tired to stand up straight or do anything much more than plod on from bed to flopping into the counsellor's chair, then dragging myself round to Sis's for a bit and home again to slump on the sofa.

I've still been doing the other stuff - an hour of counselling and on and off all day talking to Younger Daughter on the phone as she visited Elder Daughter in the care home for the first time, interspersed with mega-anxiety about both of them. YD thinks the staff haven't all taken on board that ED is virtually blind at the moment (which, this being MS, may or may not be permanent), which induces panic in me as I don't remember seeing any mention of visual impairment on their web-site, so maybe they're not geared up for that*. But they can't send her home - they won't, I'm almost sure. So I'm going up again next week, with YD.

* wrong - see below

ED phoned me this morning, though, which means she's definitely on the mend as that required remembering that she had her mobile with her, all charged and ready, and that she could ask someone to dial my number - she still has one of those classic old school Nokias with a tiny screen which even I can use. She sounded OK, told me she was "absolutely fine" and was on her way to physio (ED: Where am I going? VOICE: Physio) so all good, really.

I've drifted off there, into pondering the mysterious field of brain rehabilitation - I'm sure I've read that the brain can form new pathways to replace ones that have been damaged and want to start studying it tomorrow. Alongside the neurological damage wrought by the MS, ED has had ZERO stimulation for so long that she needs to learn to think again. With luck, the physio department will be on this already, but if not YD and I will give it our best shot. I'm going to make her a giant noughts and crosses board. They already have a massive scabble board, about six foot square, upright, with letter tiles to match. ED can see the letters enough to read them and can make words (for a very short time, but she CAN), but can't see the board. So she should be able to see a board about three foot square and noughts and crosses has good, short games that might nudge her logical part into action. Man, she used to have such a sharp mind - she was the only person I knew who played four suit spider solitaire and got it out often enough for it not to be a waste of time. That's a really good reference point, I found, with the staff - everyone plays spider solitaire, or has played it. I do two suits and have a success rate of 16% - it's all about sequencing (I think - maybe it isn't and that's why my success rate is so low). Telling people she studied Ancient Greek and Latin, just makes them think she's posh, which she isn't - she got an assisted place, all paid for - but telling them she could play four suits, they all understand immediately what she's lost in a much more straightforward way. A good mind.

Well, as so often, I leave this page feeling better than when I started.

PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT, if only to wave. I have been STARVED of comments by the bastardry of technology and frankly, could use a lot of hugs these days.

Today I have been grateful for: sunshine and no wind; being so much on the same wavelength as YD - we don't need to labour points or spell things out, we get it at once - thank fuck for that; recreational drugs, viz cannabis, the leafy form; ED having been in the home a week today and there's been nothing I've heard that has made me feel disappointed in who they are and what they do; Bloke, who is also on his knees, coming round for a little chat and fantasise about the house we will have together (we don't say 'when his dad dies' but it's there, of course. Like, awkward, as the youth used to say)

Sweet dreams