The East Kent MNDA Group were excited way back in August to start discussions with The Yarrow Hotel in Broadstairs for our Christmas Lunch. This was the first time since the earliest Lockdown that we’d been able to plan such an event. With everything in place: Saturday 11 December as the date, menus chosen and 40+ people scheduled to come, we were hit by the latest fears from Omicron the day prior to the event. It was early days so we decided to go ahead with the planned event but make a number of safety requirements, e.g. people needed to have had a booster jab, taken a Lateral Flow Test on the morning of the day and observe social distancing wherever possible. The hotel was visited earlier on the Saturday and table positioning and ventilation checked. Also, any idea of holding a raffle was, sadly, abandoned as it would have created too much movement around the room. By lunchtime only one pwMND and his carer cancelled which was a huge relief.
Our new Chairman David Ward, gave a speech at the end of the lunch and long service presentations were made to Chrissie Batts and Judy Keay. Both were for 10 years of service to the MNDA East Kent community and both richly deserved.
The event was a huge success with people happy to see each other after a long time + the hotel did us proud, as always, with excellent food, service and attentiveness by staff. In fact, many people didn’t leave until 3-4!!
Our dearest hope is that next year Covid will be less of a worry.
The United To End MND campaign – led by the MND Association, MND Scotland, My Name’5 Doddie Foundation, people with MND and neurologists – has successfully secured a Government investment of £50 million over five years into targeted MND research.
The Government made the announcement in the middle of November with Prime Minister Boris Johnson saying:
“We are going to throw the full weight of government, industry and civil society behind a new British-led scientific mission to transform the fight against this devastating disease.”
The investment pledge came after two years of campaigning by the coalition and following a four month media campaign in the Sunday Express under the banner ‘Fund the fight to cure MND’.
Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Sajid Javid, who met the campaigners at Westminster in September, described the campaign as ‘hugely important’.
Work started immediately on seeking meetings with Ministers to confirm when and how the funds will be made available and the most effective way to target the investment.
We will be holding an on-line support meeting on Wednesday 15th July at 11am. We will be using Zoom, you can download the app at https://zoom.us/support/download
If you are living with MND or have been affected by MND, you are very welcome to join us.
We very much hope this meeting will be a success and we will consider further meetings if there is demand. We feel it might be possible to have meetings for specific activities, such as music, films, books or indeed anything for which there is demand from members.
If you would like to attend on Wednesday 15th July please send an email to webmaster@mnda-eastkent.org.uk or telephone 01843 579941.
One of our members wrote the following report about services being offerred during the current pandemic crisis.
Due to Covid-19 my normal clinic was cancelled. I was offered a video consultation instead.
This would be with the same consultant and specialist nurse
that I would have seen.
The only stipulation was that I had to have a smartphone
(ios or android).
If I didn’t have a smartphone there was a contact number to
call to advise them.
On the day of my appointment I received a text message with
a link that I had to press at the time of my appointment.
This opened a video screen on my phone where I could see the
consultant and specialist nurse in a room.
The video quality was very good and the audio was clear. I
had no buffering issues. Although I have a very poor mobile phone signal I have
a very fast internet connection so I tend to run everything through my internet
connection.
I felt that I had had a proper consultation and had covered
everything that I wanted to ask (I had made some notes beforehand).
I didn’t feel rushed.
An issue was that normally before the appointment I would
have blood/lung function tests at the hospital and then discussed at the
meeting.
This could not happen.
Another issue is privacy. Its important that you are
somewhere quiet and can talk freely. Likewise it is important at the hospital
that it is treated as though the patient is physically in the room.
I would certainly like to use the system again.
When we are in more ‘normal’ times perhaps we could be given a choice hospital attendance or video consultation.
Chrissie Batts MND Specialist Nurse who was part of the above consultation added the following.
Since the start of the
Covid-19 virus which has caused havoc in our lives, we have all had to
adapt. Being a technophobe with little
knowledge, this has been even more of a challenge.
Usually, I would meet people living with MND at home or in the clinic, having face to face to discussions. As clinics and home visits became suspended, I was asked to trial the new system that EKHUFT were introducing to support consultations.
I trialled this with a
couple of colleagues prior to breaking it out to patients!
I surprised myself as to
how easy this system is to use, so am encouraging other nurses to use this
system. Obviously it isn’t the same as
meeting face to face but, at the present time, it is solving a few difficulties.
If you have used the system with me please let me know your thoughts which I can share with the IT team
The Ruby Walk to D’Feet MND took place in Canterbury on
Sunday 6th October.
Under lowering skies, we hoped for a period without rain and
our prayers were answered and our walk went ahead without a single drop of
rain.
This year is the 40th anniversary of the Motor Neurone
Disease Association. To mark this event Brian Sackett and his sister Hilary
Smith organised the Ruby Walk to D’Feet MND.
Both Brian and Hilary lost partners to MND, so it is a subject very
close to their hearts.
Brian and Hilary hoped that 40 walkers would walk for 40 minutes and raise £40 in sponsorship, a target of £1600.
54 Walkers turned out on the day, walking for 40 minutes
around the athletics track at Lifestyle Fitness in Canterbury, raising the
astonishing sum of £3,113 in sponsorship.
The event started with a group photograph of all the Walkers
by the Kentish Gazette, which we hope will be published in their next edition.
Walkers came from all parts of East Kent and some walkers
travelled from as far as the Isle of Sheppey.
Huge thanks to Brian and Hilary for organising this excellent
event, especially thanks to all 54
walkers who jointly raised £3,113 in sponsorship to date, a fabulous amount
which will be used to support people living with MND in East Kent and to contribute
towards researching a cure for this devastating disease.
We would also like to thank Lifestyle Fitness for allowing us
to use their track and to Kentish Gazette and the KM Group for their support
and especially to everyone who contributed monies towards this great
fund-raising event
If anyone has any sponsorship remaining to be paid, please
send your cheque made out to MNDA East Kent to 171 Percy Avenue, Broadstairs, Kent,
CT10 3LE or alternately to Just Giving at https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/rubywalk2019 If you use the Just Giving Link please
indicate this is sponsor monies for the Ruby Walk.
Anyone wishing to donate can also use the Just Giving link
above.
It
is for people with Motor Neurone Disease (MND) to give courage, hope and
positive determination for others to live with this condition. I don’t like to call it a disease it such a
horrible word for people to say Martin had MND for five years.
Martin
and I would often start reading articles in the magazine and stop reading them
as it would often be about people who had left us, I don’t want to sound
disrespectful to anyone, but we found that extremely hard reading.
We
wanted to open the magazine and find positive stories, uplifting articles, tips
and guides on how to manage life with MND.
Articles
about people’s adventures, ideas that people might have and hobbies that people
can do despite MND.
We
would often start reading articles only to shut the magazine so I wanted to
write an article that was uplifting and if only one person gained from it, I
would be happy
At
the beginning everyone who has MND knows what it is like, so I’m not even going
to go there. I was racking my brain every minute for something to help. It came to me acupuncture may be beneficial, now
this may not work for everyone, but in our experience, it was so helpful.
We
went to see this doctor in Canterbury, who was extremely professional. You can imagine our lives were upside down and
we could discuss nothing. It seemed we
could only talk about getting calls from hospitals, from nurses, from the
hospice; all this at the most stressful time.
We felt situation was helpless. Our emotions were so high, and
everything seemed to be collapsing in our world.
We
went to this Chinese doctor, who lead Martin into the back of his practice, and
I waited in the front, not knowing what to expect. When Martin came back after half an hour, he
was smiling which made me smile. Just
the way he was different.
We
left and when we got to the car, I was asking millions of questions about what the
Doctor had done. Martin told me he had
put these needles around arts of his body, telling him he could not cure MND,
but that he could but all the emotions Martin was feeling in a box and put them
to sleep in the back of his mind.
Having
shut the lid on the box, from that day our lives changed we could talk about
everything freely without having a breakdown. The positivity was astonishing, and we started
living with MND. Our lives were no longer taken over by MND.
Martin
continued to see him for a few months until it was no longer necessary for us
to go. We decided that we would live
each day as we would have done without MND and we did just that!
We often
went fishing, it took our minds somewhere else, outside in the fresh air
laughing and having fun. When Martin
could no longer fish, I started to fish and my excitement and laughter
when catching a fish, made Martin laugh.
He said it made no difference who was fishing he found watching me, so
engaged in it, fun for him.
That
the sort of guy he was to be able to find hobbies and activities that keeps
your mind focused is the best medicine in the world. It takes you out of your thoughts and allows
you to think of other things. It gave us the strength to carry on as normal.
We were not hiding away from MND, this was the therapy which worked for
us
I’m
not saying it was all rosy, there were the hospital visits and the consultant
visits which in the end we stopped attending.
Martin thought them a waste of time, all doom and gloom. Our experience was not positive, but this
article is about hope, courage and determination.
The
time came when Martin needed a wheelchair, challenging for most but not content
with the wheelchairs available, which would just about go over a stone when
outside. A friend put up a fundraising page and Martin
had the best outdoor wheelchair available and a van with ramps. He would sit in the back and I would drive,
and we went on the beach, up hills in the mud this wheelchair went everywhere. Martin could still do whatever he wanted to do
and go anywhere he wanted.
As
Martin’s condition progressed, we sold the van got a car with a portable car
hoist and Martin sat in the front still doing what we wanted to do. He would spend hours looking for stuff on the
Internet so we could continue do what we wanted.
Over
time we changed our hobbies to the garden which became our sanctuary. I bought trees and shrubs. All sorts of planning went on and we always
kept busy.
I
could write pages and pages more. I
wanted to write this article to give you an insight into Martin’s world with MND.
It
was never a walk in the park. We coped by being together, doing everything
together, having many interests. Keeping
one step ahead motivated by love, caring for one another, smiling, laughing
reading books out loud, listening to music, having a beer, smoking a cigarette,
sitting out in the snow, and standing in the wind because you like the wind in
your face.
Still
facing forward even when you are ill you are still you! MND cannot and will not change that.
East Kent MNDA Group help their annual Spring Lunch on
Saturday 27th April at the Yarrow Hotel, Broadstairs.
There were 36 diners and we all enjoyed a well prepared and
presented 3 course meal by the staff of the Yarrow Hotel. The food was excellent and heartily enjoyed
by everyone present.
We had the honour of having Richard Coleman, the Chairman of
our Board of Trustees as our guest.
Richard gave a short speech about the history of the association and
where it is going in the future, which was very well received.
Richard made presentation to Katy Styles and Clive Hudson
for service to the association.
We had been donated a 4 Ball Golf Prize for Goodwood and we
duly auctioned this. Pat McCabe won the
bidding with a donation of £100.00.
Adrian Powell made an impassioned plea for diners to either
join our walk to D’Feet MND on May 18th or get their friends to do
so. See www.mnda-eastkent.org.uk/walk19
We ended with a raffle, which is always fun. It is a joy to watch the anticipation of our young diners. Thanks to all our members who contributed prizes.
Thanks to everyone for coming and special thanks to the
staff and management of the Yarrow Hotel, who made us feel very welcome.
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