Hi, I am Barry or Baz to my friends. I am 41 years old with cerebral palsy.
Down to me stumbling I am in a power wheelchair and use a SL50 communication aid, which is a Lightwriter.
I live on my own with my cat called Ruby. I get support to live by myself – I get support most of the day. I get support in for things that I’m not able to do for myself like cooking and feeding. At night the PA gets me ready for bed, then I go on the computer that I work with my feet because my hands jump.
Lockdown is hard for everyone but one thing we need to do is think we are lucky to be here. In March of last year one of my PAs put a tent up at my back door because I couldn’t go out because of lockdown. This was up for the summer so I could go out and sit in it.
Over the last few years, I find the way I move around was getting harder, down to my age and the bad things I pick up over the years. Before locking down I asked could I see a physical therapist to help me, at my local hospital. When they got around to see me, we were in lock down and she could not see me, so she gave me and my PA a phone call.
The outcome of the talk was she told me about an online website which is called Giraffe which is a personal fitness program. She said I am going to sign you up to do this, there are 8 exercises in the program to do to support you.
To do these exercises I got sent out two fitness bands from the hospital. I was told to start on the green band because it was less difficult to start off with, when the green band gets easier, I can move onto the blue one. When I put Giraffe program on each exercise has video to show you how to do it right, then you can write how you feel after doing it – I personally think this is good. All information that I put in is checked by the physiotherapist. Sometimes I feel so down because I can’t see my friends but doing things like this helps me.