As I was waiting to go to bed my sling strap was resting on my arm in a really irritating and itchy place. So I decided I would try to move it myself. What an arduous task indeed! I moved my hand the few millimeters that it can move and moved my leg the few centimeters it can move. After a battle for two minutes or more I finally won! I got it to move, what a victory it felt like, it even made me giggle!
Extract;
.....[One summer a few years ago] I was trying to hit a red cricket ball that my father was gently throwing towards me. With a swift action I just about managed to take a small swing at the ball; I could only move my hand an inch or two [because my arm was propped up]. The ball would just hit the wooden stick and drop like a stone onto my clear plastic wheelchair table....
It is always a struggle moving the tiny amounts that I can but it's so liberating to do something for myself! That's why it is so important to focus on what you can do whether you have a disability or not! Read more about my small victories in my book DMD LIFE ART & ME!
EBOOK available here; https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/69702
Available on Amazon USA here; http://www.amazon.com/DMD-Life-Art-Ian-Griffiths/dp/1907652337/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1288120811&sr=8-1
Available on Amazon UK here; http://www.amazon.co.uk/DMD-LIFE-ART-AND-ME/dp/1907652337/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1288105302&sr=8-1
All links available in my website here; http://duchennemen.net16.net/Buy-my-book-s/
Foreword
I’m Ian Griffiths from South Wales. This book is a story of my life so far up to the age of twenty five years. I live with and suffer from the ill effects of DMD which stands for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. It is a severe muscle wasting disease and a life limiting terminal illness. It won’t kill you in six months in the traditional sense of ‘terminal’, but it’s far crueller than that, it steals every muscle in your body first and then kills you, anywhere up to the age of thirty. There have been cases of men living past that into their forties and fifties but only with drastic interventions such as ventilators and tracheotomies, more on this can be found by reading on.
I hope to cover a few things in this book, from a history of my childhood years to a more detailed history from sixteen years onwards and finally onto my current problems and triumphs. At times things I write may make you smile or may make you pause and think about the seriousness of life with this devastating disease. I really hope there will be a cure but currently for us supposedly ‘older’ guys with DMD (over twenty one), there seems very little hope. If I don’t see a cure in my lifetime, I hope my campaigning helps in some way bring it about for future generations, so another child won’t have to see their body wither and die before their time.
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