A bit late to the party this week, almost as late as Dominic Cummings appearing at a press conference! The sheer arrogance of that man is just unbelievable! Only a short one this week as I’ve not really been ‘in the zone’. So what have we learned this week aside from one rule for one and one for another?

Shielding

Unfortunately it appears the Government have just put the extremely vulnerable all in the same pot and cast them aside by telling them to just hide away indefinitely. No guidance. No support. No consideration for the people themselves, their families/carers or most importantly, their wellbeing.

They’re quite happy to announce unlimited exercise for the public but as I’ve said previously judging by everyones posts on social media they’ve been doing this since day one! Why didn’t they announce an hours exercise a day for the families who are shielding a child/adult? Let them go for some fresh air without the stress of the possibility of bumping into someone.

The last 9 weeks have really taken its toll both mentally and physically on our family and others we have been in touch with. It’s a complete shambles the way they’ve treated the people in the vulnerable category. Basically the Government have washed their hands of them and are leaving it up to us to make the decision so they don’t cop the blame! It’s a disgrace.

Shops to reopen

To top it all off they announced yesterday (Monday) that some shops are to open from June 1st followed by all non essential shops on June 15th. Is this the place where we are to go and meet up with our families? How is it that we can all mix under one roof in an air conditioned facility circulating god knows how many germs but yet still can’t have our families around to our homes? Totally incompetent!

Mental Health Awareness

Last week I was sent a link by my good friend, Bernie. He’s a fellow ‘Duchenne Dad’ and both he and his wife, Rachel have been very supportive to us since we first met up with them at a Duchenne UK conference last year. The link was to a Mental Health Awareness course that focuses on the importance of Sport and Physical Activity. The programme aims to increase your awareness of mental health and provides you with a toolkit to build resilience, enable and support mental health recovery and tackle stigma and discrimination. I’m almost a quarter of the way through it and it’s been very interesting so far so I’ll be sharing my findings with you all in future blogs.

Walking back to happiness?

As I mentioned in my last blog, Louise spoke to Alfie’s Consultant at Manchester Children’s Hospital in regards to the way forward for us once lockdown ends. She suggested that as long as we followed the strict social distancing guidelines then there would be no reason why we couldn’t go for a short walk. I have to say on doing this the first walk around the block did feel quite strange and I have to admit the anxiety levels were high. Now you wouldn’t think a simple everyday thing would create such stress but for me personally it did. I think more for the reason of making sure Alfie was fully protected and making sure that no one came near him. The not knowing who was round the corner and if they were going to adhere to the social distancing. On one of the short walks last week, I took Alfie out in his wheelchair, a person was approaching us on the pavement and didn’t look like they were going to cross the road. On the opposite side, a family were sat outside on their garden wall! In the end, I had to go into the road to make sure the social distance was adhered! Dilemmas like this make the simplest of things all the more stressful. Thankfully where we live the street isn’t overly busy with cars but I’m not sure if that was just pure ignorance or the fact that the person hasn’t fully got used to the ‘new normal’ yet.

Enjoy the rest of your week and remember…

STAY ALERT. GO FOR A DRIVE. CHECK YOUR EYESIGHT.

Kieron

#duchDad