The day has arrived…..

So today was my big day; a visit to the consultant Mr Morris to see if I could get the green light to ski again. My visit was so short and sweet that Laura had barely had time to park the car up before I was on my way with a yes from the consultant who fixed my shoulder only 16 weeks ago.

The plan of action now is to get back into the gym, back on the hand bike and of course back on snow, which will hopefully start with a trip to Austria at the end of May. June is very much a month of “work”, talks and presentations around the country, but on the off days I’ll ensure that I’m up at Chill Factore in Manchester taking sessions with DSUK or hitting the gym…and god forbid if we get some summer I’ll be making sure that I get out on  the hand bike.

I meet with the Brit Team next weekend to set goals for my 2012-2013 season and we’ll see what summer programme is happening with the team. I aim to be on snow July and August (with the exception being a friends wedding) and then for some of September. The big question is now, do I stay in Europe – the glaciers of the French Alps or head to NZ, back to Cardrona where the former Brit Team coach Jane has taken up her new role as the head of adaptive skiing on the hill…………big decisions!!

Qinetiq are working hard to ensure that my new seat is ready ASAP and it looks like I’ll be on target to train on it throughout the summer, so I have to thank them for their hard work and drive to get this new piece of kit delivered.

So my thanks has to be to Mr Morris who’s decision today has put a smile back on my face, and the wife’s – she can finally get me out of the house and back onto snow!!!

31st March 2012

The date may not automatically mean a lot to you when you read the blog title, but for me, and for Laura it was the date that we finally tied the knot and became man and wife; the complete Dunning family.

I won’t deny, it’s been a long time coming; proposing on the 15th March 2010 we’ve had a good two years and two weeks give or take to set the plans in motion (and of course an unexpected baby in that time to add to the fun). And I won’t lie it was well worth the wait, at just after 1300 on the last Saturday in March my beautiful bride made her entrance into St Albans Catholic Church in Wallasey.

In true Laura fashion the dress was simple yet elegant, her hair and make up just subtle enough to be noticed, but nothing more. After a very simple catholic wedding service (no full mass, Laura would have been driven to distraction) the register was signed and we were legally man and wife. Not something I would have dreamed of happening had you have asked me just over 3 years ago, but it’s amazing how times change, how people change and of course, how your circumstances change.

Surrounded by our family and friends we held the wedding reception as Leverhulme Hotel & Spa, set in the Port Sunlight village the building is actually the old cottage hospital;  a building that from the outside doesn’t look much, but the inside, well, as the best man described it “if Apple made hotels, with clean lines, glass and lots of white, they would have made Leverhulme”. The food, the service, the finer details were all amazing and Laura and I had the most incredible day possible, even the speeches were spot on!!!

Day turned into night and at 1930 we were inundated with more family, more friends, more people who we love and care about who wanted to share in our special day. It was touching actually that so many people had made the effort to travel from around the country to be a part of the celebratrations. And I have to say it was a good old celebration.

Our first dance to James Morrison’s “I won’t let you go” happened at around 2100, and I think that was the moment when it hit me, just how many guests we had, how many people had come to celebrate. Cameras flashed, tears were flowing and it was just a moment in time that can’t be forgotten……..and then the real dancing began, the party really started and for a man with no legs I’d like to say I gave the guests a good run for their money on the dancefloor!!

As everyone had warned us, the day went by so quickly, although at the time it seemed to be passing us by at a nice pace…but as the lights came up in the ballroom and the last of our guests were ushered into taxis we were shocked to see the time. 12 hours before we had been stood at the altar taking our vows!!

Our honeymoon is delayed so that we can share in the next big day, that of my best man Simon O’Brien and his future wife Charlotte Barnes-Davis which takes place this Thursday. It’s then off to Dubai for Laura, Ava and I, and their is even a rumour that Laura is going to take to the nursery slopes of Ski Dubai and have a lesson! Of course I will report back on this important moment should it happen, although I have a feeling that my wife will be far more interested in catching the suns rays and topping up the Vitamin D supply.

I think to round off this blog, I can only say thanks, thank you to all of you who came to the church, the wedding reception and evening reception and made our big day so memorable. Laura and I had the most amazing day thanks to all of your support, and of course, thank you to Leverhulme for your attention to detail, your service, your amazing food and of course the staff who smiled all day long!!

Dubai – H4H event

 

 

 For my genuine blog followers, I appreciate my sporadic blogging of late is probably a little frustrating. With being injured I’ve not felt that there has been a lot to report, however the final weeks of March proved to be slightly busy on the “work” front.

Some of you may remember that last March Laura and I were invited to the Dubai British Embassy for a Help for Heroes evening, which raised a considerable sum of money. The upside of my skiing injury resulted in me getting an invite back this year to present with the founding CEO of H4H, Bryn Parry.

Bryn and I are no strangers, meeting for the first time when I was in Selly Oak and then of course our paths have continued to cross, most recently being at the Bambury wedding in Tedworth House. So emails were exchanged, ideas bounced around and the result was a hard hitting presentation that clearly tugged the heart strings of the expat community in Dubai as the money rolled in on the evening.

I’ve heard that it was somewhere in the region of 1 million AED that was raised as a result of the evening and I have to say I’m honoured to have been asked to return to talk in the Consulate Gardens and be a part of such an amazing event.

It was again a whirlwind trip to the UAE, however I will be returning in the not to distance future for my honeymoon with the new Mrs Dunning, and of course with our baby girl, Ava.

Still on this long road….

Firstly I think I should apologise as it’s been a while since my last post. It’s been rather hectic at times, don’t get me wrong, there have been moments of calm….but for some reason I only remember to write a blog in moment of organised chaos.

Since the last post I’ve been continuously seeing my physio at the hospital and she’s been working me hard as she know I’m desperate to get back on the slopes sooner rather then later.  I did receive some good news earlier in the month when I saw my consultant Mr Morris; he seems to think that it should only be a couple more months before I should be able to ski again and my physio agrees with him. Roll on the 3rd May for my (hopefully) final appointment with the consultant, when I’m looking to receive my green light to hit the slopes again! I think Laura’s already anticipating losing our summer to more winter climes for the second year running……..

Whilst my hopes and prayers are set on the all clear from him in May its obviously now only a matter of just over a week before Laura and I get married so alot of attention is turned towards that now. I think we’re all sorted now, it’s just a case of collecting a few final itemsl….and the best bit, paying people!! 

Whilst we’ve been sorting out the wedding and me getting my shoulder better, we still have the life changing little lady to deal with. Ava is doing great, 19 weeks old and no longer that little baby who came home with us in early November. She is starting to teeth now so plenty of early mornings and a lot of testing the decibel scale! 

I’m also back to giving talks at the local Slimming World groups again.  They have decided to support me again this year, which is great….without wanting to sound like a Tesco ad, “every little helps”. 

Last year they raised just over £5000 for me and I just could not believe it and I could not thank them enough for their efforts and support and they have promised that they would do their best to better last years amount for this year.

A few other local groups have come forward to do fundraising events this year, it’s amazing how one little article in the local paper drove this media coverage, public awareness and community generosity. Let’s hope I can make you all proud in 2014.

My thanks for this post go to my physio Sophie Adam who has been getting my arm back into shape for me in the quickest possible time. Without the help of Sophie and the consultant Mr Morris, I may never have been in a position to get back on the snow, and I can’t imagine the future wife would have been happy with that arrangement. As she says, I’m not really the 9-5 office guy am I? Also I would like to thank the local Slimming World groups for supporting me again, its the likes of people at the groups, and those that they pass the word onto about my journey that are making this 2014 dream possible.

It’s a long old road….

Well folks,  since I’ve had the desperatly needed surgery on my shoulder I’ve been doing what the doctors asked of me and rested the arm, which included being in a sling morning, noon and night for 4 weeks. Two weeks after surgery I returned to the hospital to commence physio,and have continued to go weekly to improve the range of movement in the arm and loosen things up as the shoulder remains fairly tight . The physio I’m seeing has been working the shoulder hard to try and help things in the right direction and I’ve got exercises to be getting on with when ever I’m not changing nappies or doing my share of the morning feeds.

Apart from the physio and the feeds not a lot else has been happening really, it’s just a waiting game to see as and when I can hit the snow again….but for now all attention is switched to the impending nuptials. So it’s busy, busy, busy making order of services and favour boxes!

On the subject of weddings, Laura and I had a trip down to Salisbury a couple weekends back to join in the celebrations of Bernie and Lizzie’s wedding. Bernie is a friend from rehab and early CSDST days and it was lovely to share in their day.  The marrige ceremony was held in a small church/big chapel depending on how you look at it, which has been condemned and had been reopened just for the wedding (permission granted from the Archbishop of Canterbury himself) and  needless to say because it hadnt been used in such a long time it was slightly chilly inside!! The army of heaters brought in to try to warm the congregation were sadly fighting a losing battle! 

After the ceremony the wedding reception was held at the new Help for Heroes recovery centre Tedworth house.  It was the first time such an event had been held there, and it was a huge success….the food was outstanding, the company amazing and the speeches raised a lot of giggles. Laura and I where actually sat next to Bryn and Emma Parry (founders of Help for Heroes) who we’ve met a number of times before and we had a good chat about things, problems faced by the veterans and the lack of facilities in the North West. Amazingly they took on board everything we had to say and are looking into some ideas we suggested! 

We both had a lovely day and was great to see so many people again who we hadn’t seen for a while. So thank you so much to the new Mr and Mrs Bambury for their very kind invite.

Now for the eagle eyed readers of my blog, you may have read in my previous post about my interview with Graham Bell for Ski Sunday. I had hoped to be able to inform you all when the piece was to be aired, but unfortunately I only found out last minute that I was to be included in this weeks programme. So, for those of you with Ski Sunday on series record you may have noticed me on this evenings episode, explaining how I came to be skiing and how I hope to make Sochi, Russia 2014. The episode also included the FIS Men’s Downhill from Sochi and I have to say their is now a lot of excitement in our house with regards to the next Paralympics.

So to sign off, thank you to everyone for your kind words following on from tonights airing of Ski Sunday, and for those of you that have missed it, I’m sure you can catch it on iPlayer in the coming days. And thank you to Sophie Adam (physio) for working me hard in a bid to get me back on snow as soon as humanly possible.

Long and winding road to recovery

Firstly I’d like to wish all of my blog readers a very ”Happy New Year” and I hope you all had a wonderful festive period! I did something very different to celebrate this New Year, something that I haven’t done for quite a while!!  I was in bed for 10:30pm as I was being picked up at 5 oclock in the morning on New Years Day to go to Liverpool airport for my flight out to Innsbruck. Operation collect car and return to the UK had started, collecting my car from Neustift and driving it 7 hours to Serre Chavalier in France. 

I had to drive it to Serre Chavalier a I was doing a interveiw with the 5 times winter olympian and now presenter of Ski Sunday Graham Bell. At this stage I can’t tell you when I will be hitting the screens, but once the producer has given me the date I’ll let you all know!! 

After doing the first days filming in Serre Chavalier I recieved a phone call to say that there had been a possibility that my MRI scan had been brought forward to the Friday, which in a nutshell meant that I was to be on the road straight after filming on the Thursday. The filming on the Thursday only took a couple of hours in the morning and so I had started my manmouth drive home by lunch time.

I finally made it home just before lunchtime on the Friday and after a quick turnaround Laura, Ava and I ventured off to the hospital for my MRI scan. I wasn’t just having the normal MRI scan as I was having radioactive dye injected into my shoulder so the scan would be even clearer.  

From having the scan on the Friday afternoon everything seemed to freefall into some sort of organised chaos; Karen my physio spent a lot of time on the phone to the hospital during my Monday morning appointment, the result, an appointment with the consultant the next morning. So Tuesday saw another trip to the hospital, and Mr Morris, the shoulder specialist gave me the findings from the MRI, which in reality was exactly what we were expecting. I had snapped the cartilage off from around my shoulder and I had a very small tear in one of the ligaments.  He told me that I needed surgery to repair the cartilage and after a moment to think when he could fit me into surgery he announced “what are your plans for tomorrow?”

As Laura was only planning on getting into the swimming pool to start her phys (operation return to wedding dress size) we agreed to the surgery the following morning. It took an age to get through the paperwork and pre op assessments, probably not helped by all of the staff coming to a standstill to fuss over Ava….NHS deadlines/timescales missed appeared to be our fault last Tuesday!

So Wednesday brought another trip to the hospital at 07:30 to the surgical unit.  I finally got called through at about 8:45 to start seeing the seperate nurses before going to theatre at about 9:10.  Next thing I knew was waking up in the recovery room and the consultant saying all went well with the surgery and that I’d see him again in couple weeks time.

I spent that night on the trauma ward, seeing the physio the following morning before being discharged and returned home by Thursday lunch time. Now that I’m home I can’t really do much with my arm at all as it has to stay in the sling day and night for at least 2 weeks until I see my consultant and the physio at the hospital. I’m trying to rest up as much as possible, but it’s hard to get comfortable and therefore sleep isn’t forthcoming at the moment!

So not the ski season I had in mind, but hopefully the surgery has been successful and I’ll be back on the snow late summer for out of season training!!

This time for my thank you’s I’d like to thank my physio Karen Winrow again for getting me that early appointment and I’d also like to thank my consultant Mr Alf Morris for seeing me so quickly and arranging the surgery so soon.  

On another note I’d just like to say a “Happy Birthday” to my future Mother in Law who hit the big 50 yesterday!

The slow road to recovery….

Well folks, firstly I must apologise for the delay in getting this new post to you and secondly I would like to say I hope you have all had a fantastic christmas and are continuing to have a wonderful festive period.  Christmas here at FOB Dunning was pretty quiet with Laura and I having lunch alone (obviously Ava is a little small for indulging in sausage meat stuffing and pigs in blankets!), however we did spend the late afternoon and evening visiting relatives. All in all though a nice day, Ava was spoilt rotten, we had a lovely lunch and have spent a lot of time over the festive period catching up with family.

Recovery for the dislocated shoulder hasn’t been going to badly, however it is slow progress. However I have been getting more and more mobility in my shoulder as the days have been passing (therefore able to help with the nappy changing at last) and I’m starting to get some strength back in the shoulder.

I had a fracture clinic review last week and sadly the consultant didn’t deliver the greatest news. I’m to have an MRA (it’s like an MRI but they inject the radioactive dye) scan to see if I’ve broken some of the cartilage that holds the shoulder joint in place which the consultant thinks I’ve managed to do.  Hopefully the scan will take place in January, but I’m now at the mercy of the NHS!  My physio also thinks that I’ve torn one of the ligaments which, again hold the joint together, so typically me it looks like I’ve gone and made a right meal of things!

I’ve been carrying on with the physiotherapy in a bid to get my shoulder in the best possible condition should I require surgery and hopefully reducing my recovery time. However until I have the scan everything is just speculation, so once I’ve been scanned and given the verdict by the consultant I’ll let you all know. For the moment though I’m off the snow and home (apart from a brief trip to collect the car from Europe this weekend).

My thank you’s this week has got to go to Karen Winrow who is the physio who has been looking after me since I returned home injured. I’ve been seeing her a number of times now and she has been working my shoulder really hard and the improvements have been really noticeable.