Knock on effects

When you have DMD expect the unexpected! Little did I know the consequences of eating difficulties when they started a few years ago. Thankfully I found out about puree food just in time to save me from dangerous weight loss but that in turn led to something unexpected. There are some foods that can't be blended down and they tend to be the green vegetables, so this led to an iron deficiency. I am probably now going to be permanently on iron supplements because of this which admittedly isn't a huge problem. There was another unexpected knock on effect as the supplement has started staining my teeth which has led to more frequent dentist visits and a more involved cleaning regime.

There are unexpected positive effects too! If it weren't for Duchenne's I would never have written my book or even found my proclivity for digital art. It's difficult to know what if any work you can do with DMD as the barriers mount up but you never know what's around the corner. A job or skill could present itself when you least expect it, when it comes you need to work hard.

Extract
....found a basic digital oil-paint brush to use. My early scribbles and sploshes were just aimed at getting a feel for paintbrush speeds and sizes. I don’t recall what my very first painting looked like but I did show it to my father one dark winters evening....

You can read more about the unexpected things in my life 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

My new Ebook Poetic Diversions available to buy here; https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/206857

All links available in my website here; http://duchennemen.net16.net/Buy-my-books/



My art can be viewed here; www.artwanted.com/thebigG2005


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.