Saturday, April 28, 2012
Georgi’s gone to Armenia!
We were tipped off by a great friend of ours about a rehab centre in Yerevan (the capital of Armenia) so last weekend we rented a Dodge Caravan and headed down there - it’s only a 6-hour drive from Tbilisi.
The specialist here in Tbilisi had been to see him a few weeks ago and suggested that he needs an operation to straighten his legs, so we mentioned this place to him and he knew all about it, knew the specialist down there very well indeed, and urged us to take Georgi down there if possible as the therapy he could get there is like nothing he can get in Georgia.
Our friend in Armenia did a bit of groundwork for us - sorted an apartment out for us and made an appointment to see the specialist, though we didn’t know beforehand whether they could do anything for him.
I was very impressed by the professionalism and general “can-do” attitude we were met with in Armenia - so much different to Georgia where people are more interested in lining their own pockets by opening fancy clinics which look like hotels, but which fall well short of all the promises made on their websites when you scratch the surface.
In contrast the rehab centre we went to in Armenia was run as more of a public service (so it seemed) and the people who we saw there seemed to tick all the right boxes for me. They said they would give him physio & speech therapy for a month, and that I would definitely see some positive changes at the end of it. My wife’s certainly been impressed during the first few days of Georgi going there, and Georgi enjoys it too as there are lots of other children there and the place itself is set in it’s own little grounds with small cottages for parents and their children to stay in.
They’re going to use Botox on his legs (to relax the muscles from what I can tell). I was a bit surprised about this till I read up on it.
Fingers crossed it all works out. It was a bit of a gamble renting a place for a month and taking him down there, without knowing what they’d say, but so far so good.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
It’s all go at the moment!
My little soccer team Darlington F.C. (The Mighty Darlo) DID actually go bust yesterday and I was about to head down to the Hangar Bar and turn my Darlington scarf upside down, but the fans gathered round the body and resuscitated it…
Darlington go bust and then revived after fans raise £200,000
The club have NO staff (not even players) - they were all made redundant by the Administrator but the backroom staff are all volunteering to help stage the two next home games, the coach is working for free, and what players are still around are going to play on a match-by-match basis. The fans are collecting money to pay their wages while our “Rescue Group” tries to thrash out some sort of community-led business plan. The coach, Crag Liddle, deserves an OBE or something - he’s really the Youth Team coach who’s been looking after the first team for the past few weeks, he’s Darlington through-and-through and a monument to all that is good and decent about the game. I think he’s been the glue which has kept us all together - even the players who had to leave (they had to earn a living) were gutted at abandoning ship and many ex-players have sent messages of support or even donated to the… [Read more...]
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Father’s homemade machine helps disabled son to walk
Great story from the BBC about an Argentinean man who built a device to help his son to walk.
The first version of the machine designed for Ivo Cardile, who has been severely brain damaged from birth, was built in just a month out of a bicycle and wooden planks.
His father Jorge has now built four machines and is using them to try to help other disabled children.
Click to see the video.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-15695991
Want one! I’m going to write to him and find out if it’s possible to get one built here under licence. It might grab someone’s attention and provide a new business opportunity for a local fab shop.
The official website for this project is here:
Friday, November 4, 2011
Georgi has his own web site!
Georgi’s having fun posting links to his favourite films, music and games etc. on his new blog. He had one before but couldn’t use it very well so I took out a domain name for him and set him a new one up.
“FlatPress” is the blogging software I used to create his blog as it’s very easy to install, setup and use, but the real beauty of it is that it allows you to write and edit your posts using Windows Live Writer, which is very much like using Microsoft Word.
Georgi gets a big kick out of seeing his name “up in lights” and loves it when people comment on some of his posts - he has a pretty cool taste in music too ;)
His English is improving all the time, though his spelling is very phonetic (he hasn’t had any English lessons - he’s just picked up what he knows from listening to me and using the internet) but he likes to have a go at sending people replies.
It’d be great if he could use this to make some new friends - being stuck in the house all the time means he doesn’t really have any :( so I figure this is as good a way as I can think of to try and remedy that.
Also, if anyone out there has kids in a similar position, and you’d like any help… [Read more...]
Games for “one-handers”
In my never-ending search for things to keep Georgi occupied I found a couple of easy-to-play games called Pocket Tanks & Super DX Ball which you can control with a mouse, making them ideal for people with limited abilities.
The great thing about Pocket Tanks is that you can either play the computer or you can play someone else on your home or office network (LAN). I used to play MS Hearts on a network - sadly Microsoft decided that LAN games were somehow “bad” and disabled this capability a few years ago.
I found Pocket Tanks when I went looking for games where you could do this because it makes my life as a care-giver a bit easier when I find Georgi something he can operate on his own - it means I don’t have to twist my back and contort my arm to work some of the keys he can’t reach on his keyboard; he has some great games but a lot of them seem to need three hands and about 25 fingers.
These two games are suitable for kids of all ages (even us grown up ones!) and perfect if you’re looking for something to do while you drink your mid-morning cuppa.
As well as having fun playing games like this kids can also learn while they play, particularly in the Pocket Tanks game where… [Read more...]
