No. 205. 'Keeping the balance.'

I write in the moment, sometimes those moments are low ones like my last blog, but life isn't low like that all of the time. Yes, MND is with us 24/7, but it just becomes part of your life, unwanted yes, but something you just get on with. You have to learn to adapt or those low days will consume you.

We have happy times too. Chris has been desperate to get his TR7 back on the road. He has owned it for well over 20 years and it has been off the road for about three years. He converted it to a V8 years ago and it has been an ongoing project for him when he had the time. When he was farming and well he was too busy to do what needed to be done and one wish he has is to go for a drive in it again. Of course he can no longer drive and to be honest I think actually getting him in and out of such a low car will be a bit of a challenge, but then isn't every day with MND?

A friend and Jordan have been working on it over the past few weekends and on Saturday it was actually off it's support and all four wheels actually touched the ground. Although Chris couldn't do anything to help, he has loved to watch Fred working on it when he comes over.

Yesterday evening Jordan had come over after putting a new battery in it saying that it wouldn't fire up. Chris was a little disappointed, but it hadn't been started for a while. A little while later I heard a familiar sound and I asked Chris to go to the window, by the time Chris had got there Jordan had come in beaming. There outside was Chris's TR7, the V8 engine purring away like a lion, Chris was thrilled.

There is still a little bit to be done yet and then it has to go through the MOT, but hopefully soon I will be able to take Chris out for a drive, I'll just make sure Karl is around to help get him out of the car afterwards. He may not be able to get back on a horse again, but we will damn well get him into that car.

So yes, we have sad days and bad days, but they are balanced a little by good days, days that are filled with smiles, days when MND can just p**s off for five minutes. It would be so very easy for us to wallow in self pity, but that would just make whatever time Chris has left miserable and what would be the point in that?

I will continue to share the bad days as that is the reality of living with MND, I will not sugar coat what this disease does to Chris, myself and our family, We are only human and it gets to us sometimes, but we will try to just get on with life as best we can. This road is only going to get tougher, but we will do our best to keep smiling and to keep the good memories flowing.