More advice on living with ALS

Yesterday we had a session with Susan Geis, the senior physiotherapist in the ALS Clinic. As usual she offered several very sensible and useful suggestions about ways to cope with Wendy's increasing disability. All the paperwork and other preliminaries are already in place to get a battery-powered electric wheelchair, which should be delivered in about a month. Susan pointed out that an ordinary wheelchair - she called it a 'transfer chair' - would be very useful too on many occasions. We had a long discussion also about the logistics of showering when her muscle strength declines beyond a level when she can get in and out of our shower unaided: the shower and the step up into it are about 15 cm above the bathroom floor and because of the confined space it's going to be a challenge to figure out a way to overcome that hurdle. Susan suggested that the two experts on ways to deal with such problems, the one based at the ALS Clinic and our community-based expert, Courtney Henderson, should confer together and figure out the best way to deal with this. As on many occasions since we were hit withWendy's diagnosis, I am very favourably impressed by the cheerful willing and aways positive approach that is shared by every one of the experts in the team that looks after Wendy.

I may need to do more about blenders. We have two, but neither coped very well with the delicious spiced salmon dish that I got for our supper last night. The aim is to render all Wendy's meals into what often looks like a very unappetizing mush, but actually tastes and smells pretty good.