My Nanna, who we lost to COVID in 2020, was a very inspirational lady who lived with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), for half of her life and always showed strength and humility, no matter how awful and painful her symptoms were.
Her name was June, so as we enter the second summer since she had to leave us, I’d like to thank her for all the things, big and small, she did to inspire me when she was here.
Thank you for showing me that sometimes you have to argue with doctors because they don’t always know best.
Thank you for being open about your pain and showing me that you don’t have to keep it hidden from everyone all of the time.
Thank you for showing me that animals can be among your closest friends.
Thank you for showing me that kindness to animals in need can be the best thing you can do with your time.
Thank you for giving me a love of nature, beautiful flowers and sunny days.
Thank you for showing me it’s important to take care of yourself on those sunny days and not dehydrating and burning yourself until you’re too ill to enjoy those sunny days anymore.
Thank you for making sliced kiwi and grapes feel like the most special treat in the world.
Thank you for passing on your love of everything magical, mysterious and mythical from tiny fairies to colossal dragons.
Thank you for all the lovely memories.
Thank you for being you.
Take care,
Donna
Self-care snippet
We’ve recently had our holiday in New York and had a lovely time but I walked far too much when I was there using up all of my energy. I had taken into account I would be doing a lot of walking, and managed my pain medication accordingly, but one of the things I did while we were there to rest was make sure I had lots of opportunities to sit down in the city, and take a rest with my book. They were having a mini heat wave while we were there, most days being around 40 degrees Celsius, so it was especially nice to take breaks and sit in the sunshine just enjoying being still and in the city rather than rushing around doing things all of the time.
Things I’ve seen, heard, read and talked about
‘The lady without legs or arms’: how an artist shattered Victorian ideas about disability The story of Sarah Biffin who was born with the congenital condition phocomelia. Her paintings will be shown in November in the exhibition Without Hands: The Art of Sarah Biffin in Pall Mall by Philip Mould & Company.
This Disabled Woman Tipped 26% And Asked Her Grubhub Driver To Drop Her Food Where She Could Get It — He Purposely Left It Out Of Her Reach This is a really upsetting story about a delivery driver taking advantage of someone’s disability because he didn’t like the amount of their tip. I appreciate that people here in the UK are not as reliant on the tip economy as in the US, but the amount of the tip, which seems pretty generous anyway(!) isn’t the point here - the heartless reply when a message was sent explaining the situation is very disturbing.
With the cost of living crisis, I can’t afford to survive on my disability benefits The reality of the cost of living crisis for one person living on disability benefits. This is something we’re sadly going to see more and more of as living costs increase.