JVes

I have a wobble board. My physio doesn't want me using it yet. You have a good point about the ship & balance.

Question for this guy: how much stuff does a non-floating city of 10K people use/generate? Wow: probably about the same as the floating city of comparable size!

I've talked to many people who want to come to Australia 'some day'. And for them, yes, the travel time is a deal breaker.

I wish my body allowed me to do such things. I need to use a walker just to safely get around at home. I like small ships, for an obvious reason. As for the mega-ships, I don't think that Australia/NZ has the cruising population to support those.

I used to live just off tram 96' route. I think it was that one. I no longer live on a tram route, and I miss it. It led past some lovely places, so sometimes I'd just ride the tram, get off on a whim. There was a great supermarket - independant so I never knew exactly what was in stock (other than the basics). I love the Melbourne trams. I really do. If you're looking for a city which has a wide variety of 'you never know what you'll find' shops, move to Melbourne and live close enough in that you're on a tram line.

I just had a tooth break, and now extracted. I need a cruise.

When I see it like that, I'll definitely give it a try. I'm not sure if it's in our mainstream supermarkets, but I'm sure a grocer or a farmer's market might have some. If I can find it, I'll buy one and hunt down a recipe.

My brother is also severely ill: he's actually worse off than me, and his prognosis is bad. He came up with a plan for the rest of his life. He works on giving his wife and children good memories of him. They're the most important people in his life. He's also sharing life with our parents and with me, but (understandably) his kids and wife are his main focus. In my own life, my mantra is that every day, I teach something, learn something, and make someone smile. If I achieve that, it's been a good day. Since I took up that mantra, I have had 99% good days. The one day I didn't had a bad fall that took me from Emergency to Short Stay. I think that's a reasonable excuse! (PS: I now have balance excercises in my PT folder.) Having a way to decide whether or not a day has been successful helps me a lot. Consider making up one of your own!

All I can imagine is that she was having a horrible day. But no, she had no right to talk to you like that. And thank you so much for asking first. That's extremely important. You did right. People behaving like that are the ones being rude. Unless clearly indicated otherwise, treat a disabled person as a normal one, except for the visible disability. When I'm using a walker, I take up more space on a footpath or in a hallway so I appreciate people making the space for me. But (as your daughter said) "there's nothing wrong with my brain". Those of us who have invisible disabilities have a problem unique to us (I think). We take a disability-only parking spot, put our tags on the dashboard, and get out of the car. Only to be abused (sometimes quite seriously) for 'pretending to be disabled'. Same with special seating in busses and trains. JJK and MareBlu Thank you so much for your kind words. And I know you both mean it, you're not 'just saying' that. You have no idea (maybe you do) how much it means to have that sort of kindness. I leave you with a phrase I cling to on bad days: I GET KNOCKED DOWN, BUT I GET UP AGAIN, Y'AIN'T NEVER GONNA KEEP ME DOWN!

I have three choices, and the first two are unacceptable. Die. (Unacceptable.) Become so apathetic and lethargic that I have to get dumped into a nursing home or equivalent. (Also unacceptable.) FIGHT LIKE HELL and GET AS HEALTHY AS I CAN. (Very acceptable.) So yeah. Option 3. And I hope everyone reading this chooses option 3 if/when they get faced with these three choices. And help loved ones to choose, too. Make sure they choose it for themselves, so it sticks. John, I am very happy to see that you do have good health. Treat it as the gift it is, and make sure to enjoy it. Take your friends and family to a park and play frisbee with them. Fly kites. Climb mountains and enjoy the view. Go to the beach, and wade in the surf. Swim in the surf if you have skilled lifeguards patrolling. Hunt for shells. Get a stick and water shoes and explore the rockpools, gently poke things with the stick to see if they're an animal or a plant. And think of me when you do these things. Just for one or two tosses of the frisbee! What you can do to help people like me: Notice if someone's wheelchair is stuck in paving. Ask if they need the help, and get them free.* (IMPORTANT NOTE: always ask before moving a wheelchair.) Hold a door. Speak to the disabled person, too often someone will speak to the person helping them. ("Do you think she'd like this?" "Why don't you ask her!") * A real incident. The wheelchair was stuck in cobblestones on the edge of the road, and in the four or five minutes it took Bestie to reach her, noone - noone! - helped her. Bestie, of course, did. Got her past the cobbles and onto smooth pavement. One of the most memorable times someone helped us: Bestie and I were struggling to manage one person in a wheelchair (me), one pushing (Bestie), me loaded with carryon bags in my lap, and I was trying to manage a pair of suitcases in front of us, like pushing two prams at once. An apparently able-bodied person saw us, saw that we were aiming for a lift, took about two steps to his left and pushed the lift call button, and was on his way before we could even say a proper thank you. I've never forgotten that kindness.

Sadly no. Chronic illness. Cbtours: I laugh at my problems. A lot. Otherwise, I'd cry. That said, look at the first post in this thread: So major, major YAY! Also: I need a cruise. It obviously has a positive medical effect on me!

My body hurts. I can't sleep. I need a cruise.

Fortunately, I can't eat the things which I draw the line on. Not a true histamine I-might-die allergy, just an uncomfortable gut rebellion. Makes a nice 'excuse'. Mostly fish and shellfish. Things which leave me feeling 'do I really want to try it?' include haggis, snails and blood pudding. I'll try them twice. Maybe three times if they're offered differently (like the okra). You enjoy your okra and I'll be willing to try it in a gumbo or something. I'll enjoy my vegemite and am glad you're willing to try it in that different way. It'd be a boring world if we were all the same.

Thank you for being open-minded (open-mouthed?) enough to give it another try. Expect it to be salty and bitter, expect it to be something you have to get used to. Like anchovies or olives. Or okra. Okra is my big 'no' and 'why?' One day when I was sick and needed help, Hubby gave me an okra curry. I love curries, and I love curries from this particular brand, so I was expecting the curry-on-rice he gave me. Yum. Then I took a bite of it. And my entire body rebelled. I can't even tell you how it tasted. All I can remember is the rebellion, the absolute and utter NO. So, being me, I took another bite. And it was worse. I think hubby ate the rest of the okra curry. I'm still open to eating okra. But at a buffet or in some other situation where I can control the portion. Like getting one ladle's worth of a gumbo that includes okra. So if my body does that rebellion thing, I haven't wasted much. So yeah, I'm just glad you're trying again with something gross. Good for you! Let me know how you go.

tl;dr I blather on about stuff. If you don't want an update on me or a mini-lecture on how it's fine to accept help, skip ahead to the next post. NEVER be afraid or embarrassed about getting help when it's needed. Humans give, it's built into the instincts that make us groups. Think about how you feel when you offer a gift and it's refused. I can't describe the feeling, but it's icky. Our social structures - for most of the societies I'm aware of - provide gifts of goods and services to people who, for whatever reason, need it. If you can't safely carry your food to the table you need to call upon the gifts our societies provide. Let the server at the buffet bring you your food. He or she gets the acceptance of the gift, you get what you need. But accept gracefully. I make a point of acknowledging them as people: a bit of eye contact, a smile, and a thank you. I also get out my notebook and write their name and department down, along with a summary of them going above and beyond to alleviate my disability. That notebook comes in very handy for the post-cruise survey. Enough lecturing about disability rights and how kind people are. Update on me. My physiotherapy is going well. My carers have a few small things they watch to monitor my progress: I can get up from the couch without needing their help, my grip strength is increasing, I can get into the bathtub (to shower) without my foot touching the top of the bath most days.I can sit down and get up without help except on very bad days. Small things, but important small things. Storms, hot or cold days, and other such atmospheric events have huge effects on my physical and psychological health. Right now, it's been the second of two very hot days (though thankfully we've not yet had a 40+ Celcius day) and we've had a storm so bad that the city had a 'hunker down and seek shelter' storm warning. So right at the moment it's bad. Yesterday, I wound up having a meltdown. I'm doing some sort of exercise every day: arms day, legs day, torso day, balance day. Lots of balance days, that's my most important. I don't know if I've ever told people, I had a fall a couple of months ago where I wound up out cold. I wear a panic watch, so once I called Hubby and Bestie, they called an ambulance. Medical checks happened, I wound up in short stay for observation, and I'm obviously fine now. Because of that - and other falls - balance is the most important exercise. And I'm hoping all that balance exercise will help on cruises. An easy balance exercise: do with a friend. Stand in front of the bed or a sofa or something else safe to fall onto. Your friend stands in front of you, and is ready to push you onto the bed if you start to fall. Close your eyes for ten seconds. That's all. Just close your eyes. I get very aware of how my feet are keeping me balanced, all the tiny little movements they make. Let your friend do the counting, and let you know when to open your eyes. I have bad days, I have bad weeks, I'm coming out (I hope) of a bad month. But overall I'm improving, and I've maintained most of the benefit from the cruise. My case manager is working on getting me the funds for a "respite", in our case a cruise, and my travel agent has my file close at hand waiting for Nikki to give us the 'go'. We're planning to stick with Princess for the first few cruises, since we were very happy on the Grand Princess. Diamond Princess is also in our waters. We'll deal with getting passports maybe later this year, maybe next year. Once we have that, we can do New Zealand cruises. (We live in Australia, so we have the older cruise ships. We also have access to lots of Aussieland cruises, so no urgency on the passport.)