Well – it’s been some time since I wrote anything, but you may have noticed that the site looks a little different. I’ve added the blogroll from Bloglines – this has blown out a bit recently, and partly explains the lack of writing – I’ve been doing more reading – and yes I DO keep up with them. I’ve also added Technorati Favourites – not surprisingly the faves are from the blogroll. The blogroll will probably not grow greatly – blogs will come and go, as will the Favourites … but in the meantime.
I also found a couple of logos to pretty up the "Interested in …" sidebar – digitalsalvo is Tim Auld, an Adelaide photographer who has taken on volleyball as a special interest, so he gets my support here.
The ClustrMap looked interesting, so it’s there for a while – I’m happily surprised at the geographic spread.
The "John’s Journey" link I picked up from Dennis Howlett’s blog – I will be adding a link to the Motor Neurone Disease Association of Australia as well. For those of you not familiar with the disease, I pray it stays that way for you – it is an obscene experience watching otherwise healthy people waste away before your eyes. I’ve come across it twice – my father-in-law was diagnosed with it just after his retirement, and the following ten months were agonising for him and the family; and a colleague’s wife (a young woman in her twenties). Dennis has also had personal experience with it, which no doubt explains his support for John’s journey.
Sorry about the morbid patch there – and I know there are plenty of other equally-shattering diseases and afflictions out there. MND bit close to home, so it’s my interest.
I’ve gone back to the 3-column format, mainly to reduce the width of the posts in an attempt to make them easier to read.
I mentioned CoComment in an earlier post – that’s getting more interesting as more people get involved (and it’s some proof that I’m engaging in conversations SOMEWHERE, even if not here).
Technorati Tags: blogs, digitalsalvo, MNDA, favourites, CoComment, ClustrMaps
I am not familiar with this disease; I wonder if it’s similar to ALS. I visited the MND association website but still am not clear. Will check out the medical literature and see.
Fortunately, I don’t know the disease, but I do share with you, Dennis, on seeing one’s mother get less healthy over the course of a year and then, despite having had perfect health all her life, go. It is frustrating trying to explain health and medicine to so-called medical professionals who closed their minds at graduation time, and, as you say, deal with the fallout from their inactivity and the greater emotional loss from the passing of a loved one.
Hi Ric – MND – my mother survived 3 months after diagnosis, that’s how utterly clueless the medical folk were, despite some 2 years of tests prior to. It devastated my dad – they were married 54 years. I don’t know about you but it’s the relentlessness of the illness that got to me.
The thing I learned almost straight away is that there is so little knowledge about it. The next thing I learned was that it is absolutely essential to get every bit of help going as fast as possible. The final thing I learned was that close relatives need a massive amount of support because it is so draining. I took those three months out pretty much and then another six months trying to support dad.
Mum fought every inch of the way to continue communicating and we devised a way for her to do it, David Niven style – thumbs up and all that – pretty much to the end.
Very hard to get over. I’m not morbid about it. I just can’t get my head around it.