By Nick Morrison
Thursday saw a Blether at the Balfour.
This was an explanatory session from the team , Shauna Stockan, Julie Tait, and Judy Sinclair. This new unit aims to be a bridge between doctors and nurses and social welfare , health and well-being .
The Orkney unit is the second newest in Scotland the first being Shetland . The unit aims to address the social and welfare aspects of medical conditions whether they be permanent or temporary .
A case in point a friend has damaged ligament , the nurses at the Balfour explained to her how to do the backside shuffle to get up and downstairs her foot being too painful to do it conventionally . Elegant it is not but effective it is . The team explained that is exactly the sort of procedure they will be addressing and there are many similar ones .
It is intended to open a hub in the future and initial start will be at VAO on the 12th .
Related article: Developing Orkney’s Social Care: ‘Start Small, Think Big’
Categories: Uncategorized
A few years ago, I was very ill, and was stuck in an armchair, hardly able to move. For someone who likes to be outside, this was hard to take, and I think I would have gone quietly nuts, but I hit on the idea of ‘going for walks’ in my mind. These were the walks that Me and Mike and Ben-The-Dog used to go on. I also went to parties that I’d been to, and concerts, and re-ran conversations that I’d had. I tried to remember as much detail as possible – who I was with, what we were wearing ( one of them was a Mott The Hoople concert in about 1973, so what we wore mattered a lot, at the time!). With the walks, in particular, it was a wonderful way to get outdoors, when I couldn’t. Again, I went into as much detail as possible.
Then, when I got a bit stronger, I wrote them down in a sketch pad on my knee, then, stronger still, I could sit at the ‘pooter and type them up. Nurse Janet said it was a good strategy, and it was. For anyone in a similar situation, it can be enormously helpful, to ‘take yourself’ outside, or to enjoyable places, when you can’t actually go there. The power of the human mind!
As with the strategy mentioned in this article, about how to get up and down stairs, on your bottom! Strategies – help – they do. And even working out strategies, can help to occupy your mind. I still have lots of strategies, which mean that I can do things which I wouldn’t be able to do otherwise.
.