Lots and lots to report … quote of the week goes to Mike after it took us nearly 4 hours to get home from the cycling on Saturday night “I am so over being disabled” – nice, it was very helpful!

Have been far to busy to write a post, in fact I nearly got this one written today but didn’t manage to get it posted before we raced off somewhere else.

Lots and lots of thankyous again! I think in order:
- thankyou so much Jules for your work on the sponsor banner for the TWC – it looked great!
- thankyou to the wonderful Fred Morini who lifted MIke’s spirits (and most of those at Talbot) with his flying visit on Wednesday — see more below.
- thanks to those who came along to the cycling with us and enjoyed a night out — what a fantastic event
- thankyou to Margaret who whilst over from Perth on her holiday dropped in our the foulest day ever to do some Feldenkrais work with Mike – he loved it!
- thanks to the wonderful, wonderful ladies (most of whom I do not even know) who came and cleaned my house today … it was getting out of control. Michelle – you are amazing and Jenna – you are an angel!
- and Kent … who managed to procure a “tumbling monkeys” game. This has proven very difficult to find and is Ash’s absolute favourite that she and Mike can play together!

During the week, the wonderful Fred Morini took a day out of his hectic schedule and “popped” in to see Mike -from Brisbane! Thanks to Flight Centre for organising his flights to allow this to happen. In 2001 Fred had a little stack (ie, he crashed off the road and down a steep embankment) and broke his back in 5 places. Like Mike, he did not believe that his legs would not work again. Although he cannot feel his left leg, you would not know to watch him walking around that he was ever involved in an accident. Whilst we don’t expect that of Mike and the level of his injury it is so nice to (as one of the guys at Talbot said) “see someone who has done it”. Fred is now back on the bike and loving his riding – he is on his way back to Europe already! Fred was amazed to see how well Mike was but was horrified by how little “work” he is doing. The boys had a good chat about standing for hours each day and getting serious about “doing some work, work hard, and then work some more”. It was great for Mike to hear how an injury was handled in Germany and Italy 7 years ago in terms of the amount of work that was undertaken. It just makes us more determined than ever to continue with the treatments we are using, get MIke on the FES bike as much as possible and in the pool whenever we can and to get him home where we can get up early each day and make the most of each day. Mike is very keen to get a standing frame for us to leave him in while he watches the cricket …. I think that needs to get added to the projects page!

Wow – what a weekend. Raced around like a headless chicken trying to get stuff ready for the TWC last week. We took Ash to the cycling on Friday night and she loved it (well, actually she thought the commentary was a bit loud and she enjoyed the warmup most when all the bikes were on the track). Mike got to enjoy one the few perks of being in a wheelchair – a spot directly opposite the finish line! Then on Saturday we enjoyed the dinner in the middle of the track. A very different perspective, or maybe that was the wine talking! Was great to be out and about with friends, although I think there was a time that Mike thought he would need to get the neighbours in to chuck him in bed – thankfully the rain meant that a cab was impossible to get and the good folk at Connex were doing track work on our line so after a bit of jogging around in the rain and a few failed attempts, by the time we got home I was more than sober enough to operate the hoist! You live and learn …. and we learnt that we need to get our own van with a hoist! Anyway, didn’t let it ruin a brilliant night ….. definitely highly recommend being in the middle of the veledrome – although I am pretty sure I watched much more cycling up in the stands!

I am off to NZ for a spinal conference tomorrow until late on Friday but will be home again for the weekend. I assume that I will not be technically competent enough to post a message from over there so probably the last you will hear from me before next week …. but don’t forget to have the kids lined up to destroy my kitchen (I mean have fun cooking!) for 6th December.

That looks like being our last date for any fundraising this year so I get to relax after that and sleep, sleep and sleep! Yipppeeeee! Next on the hit list is “get Mike home” and into a full-on program. We need to so I don’t have to listen to Ash whinge the whole way to Talbot each day!

I was trying to be all organised to have some meals ready for Mike and Ash while I was away but Mike just laughed — apparently he and Ash have it all sorted to get take-away every night!

Again, thankyou to everyone who is doing amazing things to help us out – I am sure this is only necessary b/c I have developed some sort of baby-brain-type phenomena since Mike’s accident …. and hopefully it is only temporary and I will be able to resume ability to cook and clean and function on some sort of normal level in the very near future. In the interim though, a hard pill to swallow but thankyou.