Dyspraxia Activist

Wednesday, 26 August 2015

Organisation

first off i'm sorry for not blogging as much as i said i was going to which also in a weird way makes it a good time for me to write about organisation and dyspraxia.

organisation seems to be one of the lesser known parts of dyspraxia amongst many others yet i feel can also be very frustrating as it is probably the most difficult part of dyspraxia to see but can cover a really large part of everyday life as even the simple tasks can be difficult such as making sure you have all of your equipment for school, college, university or even work which is something i forgot recently when i went to visit the dyspraxia foundation to discuss some future projects and had forgotten quite a few pieces of paper with information about these projects on them, some other really simple tasks where organisation can be important can be something like keeping where you live tidy (which is quite a big one for me) as i normally just let piles of rubbish or clothes build up and then will eventually clear it up.
for me that type of method seems to work with other things as well such as if i am ever re-organising some clothes, games, CD's or work i will normally do it all in one go such as when i was i started university i used to do all of my cleaning stuff on a Sunday and even things like notes from lectures i used to sort into different folders which probably makes it sound quite well organised yet i would still forget to do certain things or would lose something.
also as i am sure a lot of people will have seen and tried is to set out routine or plans similar to what I've just mentioned but sticking to those plans is alot harder than they first seem.

a very short post today as it was alot harder to write than i thought it was going to be as i seem to have forgotten everything about organisation so if you have any tips on keeping yourself organised leave them in the comments at the bottom of this post.

and before i forget to mention i have now reached the target of £1500 raised for the dyspraxia foundation from the cycle challenge i did last month and the justgiving page will still be up for about another week https://www.justgiving.com/Eben-Fletcher/, and i should probably continue to mention all those companies that supported the challenge atleast for the next few posts

i hope i have not forgotten anyone

http://www.cyclesuk.com/ specifically there maidstone store providing me with disount on equipment etc and great customer service (also i believe the first company to support me)
Sheppey FM http://sheppeyfm.org.uk/ local radio station that helped publicise the ride
http://www.endurasport.com/ cycling clothing
http://www.jenwoods.co.uk/ a local printers in Swale,Kent
http://www.hlgraphics.co.uk/
and chek out these hotels, B&B's etc. if you are thinking of going on holiday in any of these area's
http://www.irondukebrighton.co.uk/ in brighton
http://www.swallowsrestselfcatering.co.uk/ in weymouth
http://www.torbaycourthotel.com/index.php in or very near Torquay
http://www.parkhotelpreston.co.uk/ in Preston
http://www.etruriatownhouse.com/ in Kilmarnock
http://www.thebridgehotelscunthorpe.co.uk/ in Scunthorpe
http://johnogroatsbnb.com/ in John O'Groats
http://www.the-beeches.co.uk/home in Bristol
http://www.dornochcastlehotel.com/contact/location/ in the Dornoch/ Bonar Bridge area
http://www.rezarefarmhouse.co.uk/ in Rezare, Launceston, Cornwall close to Tavistock
http://www.lionandpheasant.co.uk/ in Shrewsbury
http://www.thegeorgehotel.co.uk/ in Inverary, Scotland
http://www.scottishguesthouse.com/contact-pitlochry-guest-house.html in Pitlochry
http://www.albahillsguesthouseedinburgh.com/ in Edinburgh
http://www.trapinn.co.uk/newtrap/ in Alnwick
and finally in hitchin where the dyspraxia foundation are based http://chartridgevenues.com/hitchin-priory/
also thank you to the two universities that allowed and were going to allow me to use room in student accomodation http://www.solent.ac.uk/home.aspx (my old uni) and https://www.dur.ac.uk/ and i also forgot to mention ther place where we had our emergency stop which was the ivydene guesthouse http://www.bedbreakfastcornwall.com/west-cornwall/helston/ivydene-guest-house/ which was very nice

Tuesday, 28 July 2015

THE CYCLE (suspended)

this post is about my cycle challenge which as you may have seen has had to be stopped or suspended and the reasons for why i had to stop the cycle challenge after 7 days making it to Lands End which means that i managed to complete approxoimately 500 miles out of the 2000+ planned miles which is still quite a lot.
the post that went on Facebook and other social media that explains the main reasons which made me stop is below (it was originally written and posted by my mum)

So after cycling approx 500 miles over 7 days, in some awful weather conditions, we finally arrived at Lands End. A day late after all 3 of us were taken ill with some sort of sickness bug!!! After much deliberation and upset Eben has made the decision to suspend the rest of this challenge until a later date. Those of you know Eben or understand Dyspraxia will know this decision hasn't come easily and you will also know how tiring the 500 miles of cycling over 7 days has been, but at least he put the effort in and tried!!!!
Eben would like to thank everyone who has supported him and made donations!!! Every penny raised so far will be going to the Dyspraxia Foundation. Total raised is approx £1200 plus what has been donated via just giving. Once again thank you for the support and understanding. Eben is sorry if anyone feels like he has let them down.

as mentioned in that post above there are couple of traits of dyspraxia wich many people who understand dyspraxia a lot will know such as getting tired more easily but that should probably go into another blog post on its own and one trait or mindset that is often associated to many people with dyspraxia is that we are very determined to achieve things that we want to do and even more so (especially for me) if people do doubt us so you just want to prove them wrong and that is why this blog says that the ride has been suspended and not totally cancelled as of yet as i may decide to restart it in the future or find a way of completing the 2000+ miles such as around my local area or doing various events.
this cycle challenge has also taught me alot of things the main one being that this country is just hills make sure i prepare alot more if i am to ever take on a challenge like this in the future (dont do it directly after the last year of uni when you've not slept properly) and also off-roading on racing bike can be fun but quite scary at the same time.

very importantly as you can see above we have raised over £1000 (most in cash via street collections etc.that took place during the cycle challenge) pounds so far and our initial target was set as £1500 so if everyone who sees this donated £1 we would most likely achieve that target or we could easily exceed it, if £1 was donated for every mile i did manage to complete.

so if you would still like to donate my justgiving page https://www.justgiving.com/Eben-Fletcher/ is going to be left open until the end of August for any who would still like to donate to the Dyspraxia Foundation.

there will also hopefully be other fundraising and awareness events that i plan to do with more involvement with the dyspraxia foundation who i have sent an email to discuss meeting with them to plan these events.

i also hope to be able to blog everyday or couple of days from now until what would have been the end of my cycle challenge (13th August)

and to finish the blog post off i am also going to be thanking all of those companies and hotels that supported the ride by keeping a list of them and their links at the bottom of every blog post that i do until the end of August

i hope i have not forgotten anyone

Tuesday, 7 July 2015

MY DYSPRAXIA

in this blog post i am going to give an overview of how Dyspraxia affects me and hopefully provide some more information on how dyspraxia can affect different people. so i am going to start by saying that dyspraxia affects everyone in different ways for example some people might have certain aspects affected only mildly whereas some people only have a small number of aspects but it can still affect someone a lot.
so going on to how dyspraxia affects me i would say and feel that i am probably affected by most aspects of dyspraxia probably more so by the physical aspects such as co-ordiantion etc. for example i have terrible handwriting so much so that alot of my friends at uni would ask me if i could actually read it myself which my response would be yeah sometimes, also shoelaces a notable difficulty for people with dyspraxia and for me i didnt learn to tie shoelaces until i was 13 years old also some people may not be aware that muscular dystrophy is also linked to dyspraxia and it is like a difference in muscle size or strength compared to that of "normal" people and it is something that i think i may potentially have as i sometimes get these random quite extreme pains in my shoulders such as i can wake up and i dont want to move my arm because my shoulder hurts so much even when i keep it still although this does not happen that often.
also i am affected by the most well known aspect of coordination or clumsiness as sometimes known meaning that i can sometimes walk into door frames smash my toes onto a step (which i did the other day and it hurt alot) and probably the "best" dyspraxia moment which im sure most people dont believe walking to school in year 10 i believe a falling over air and actually breaking my leg quite badly ending up in plaster cast for 16 weeks and to top that off whilst on crutches i fell over in the local supermarket.
moving on to the more mental aspects of my dyspraxia such as one of the known difficulties is that of memory and forgetfulness as i do quite often forget to do things even when those things are quite important such as i kept forgetting about needing to reply to some of the hotels for the cycle ride and i sometimes forgot about some parts of my university work until quite close to the hand-in deadline. another thing which is one the well known differences in people who have dyspraxia is the thinking in a different way to those who are not neurodiverse (neurotypical) and for me this can be finding different ways to do certain things that for me are easier and makes more sense but others dont really understand why or the logic behind it or making connections between certain things although they could seem to differ completely from each other and it all still makes sense to me however it may not to other people. another thing which im sure many people with dyspraxia can relate to is keeping myself organised and tidy and this is probably a quite large part of my dyspraxia (not that what ive mentioned isnt also a large part) as i can and do when i have other things to do i completely forget about doing other important things such as cleaning.
probably the last thing to mention is speech this is probably the least affected part of my dyspraxia as i have never really noticed it that often in the past but i do sometimes stutter a little bit and can occasionally say a couple of words the wrong way round and it is something that has developed more over time or i may have just noticed it a bit more as i have become slightly older.
i almost forgot about the sensitivity part of my dyspraxia alongside flexibility which may seem a bit odd but hyper and hypo flexibility can also be linked or a part of dyspraxia which can be certain parts of your body moving more than what is considered normal so for me i can bend my fingers in weird ways which is hyperflexibilty often more well known as being double jointed whereas hypoflexibility is the opposite were you do not have the range of movement as most people these can also cause serious injuries or disruption and sometimes be painful but luckily for me it is just my fingers and it doesnt hurt me if it ever does happen or if i freak people out by showing them (which can be very funny).
in terms of sensitivity i am quite hypersensitive with certain things touching certain parts of my body (such as knees) and in alot of other cases other people touching me sometimes something that i believe also affects quite a few other people with dyspraxia and sensitivity issues can be food and its textures or taste which in my case makes me very picky as for me something like chicken has zero taste and some other meats that are not processed into things like sausages or burgers i do not eat because i feel like i am just chewing on nothing for a long period of time also certain materials i really do not like the feel of the most noticeable one for me is that i cannot wear jeans because i absolutely hate the feel of them and everytime i have tried i have pretty much wanted to rip them off.

in the future i may go into each of the different aspects of dyspraxia in their own blog post but if there is anything that you would like me to try and cover comment about it below and maybe i will be able to blog about it.

thank you for reading this post i hope it has helped by showing the many different ways in which dyspraxia can affect someone or many different people and gives you a small amount of insight into what it can be like to have dyspraxia for some people.

more information on how dyspraxia affects people can be found on the dyspraxia foundation website http://www.dyspraxiafoundation.org.uk/

Thursday, 25 June 2015

Cycling for Awareness, 2000+ miles

unfortunately i had to cancel/suspend this ride only 1 week into it you can see the details of that here
http://dyspraxiactivist.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/the-cycle-suspended.html

i was meant to post this last weekend.sorry.
if you read my introduction to this blog you will see that i mentioned a cycle ride and that is what i am going to focus on in this post.
for a while now i have been trying to plan a very large cycle ride around the UK to try and raise awareness of dyspraxia alongside raising money for the dyspraxia foundation.
so to go into the details of the cycle ride itself i am going to be cycling over 2000 miles from my hometown in Kent to the Dyspraxia Foundations head office in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, via Lands End to John O'Groats (LEJOG) (the most south westerly and north easterly parts of mainland britain) this means i pretty much go around the entire contry. and im starting it next month July 20th to be exact and finishing on the 13th August
i chose to do this instead of the often seen charity cycle rides like LEJOG because i felt this had a direct link to dyspraxia and the dyspraxia foundation, what could be better going to them. a friend actually said to me the other day why do somthing this big and my answer was that LEJOG was too normal even though that about 1000 miles itself. also it came really as a coincidence that i like cycling and it being a known skill for people with dyspraxia to struggle learning
im still trying to find places to stay in some of the areas on my planned route as well as sponsors for spare equipment
my justgiving page is https://www.justgiving.com/Eben-Fletcher/ please share it with everyone you know and donate if you can it will be much appreciated.
all the companies that are or have supported me so far i have provided links to below with details
i hope i have not forgotten anyone.
http://www.cyclesuk.com/ specifically there maidstone store providing me with disount on equipment etc and great customer service (also i believe the first company to support me)
http://www.endurasport.com/ cycling clothing got an email today saying they will be able to suppport me.
http://www.jenwoods.co.uk/ a local printers in Swale,Kent
http://www.hlgraphics.co.uk/
and chek out these hotels, B&B's etc. if you are thinking of going on holiday in any of these area's
http://www.parkhotelpreston.co.uk/index.html in Preston
http://www.etruriatownhouse.com/ in Kilmarnock
http://www.thebridgehotelscunthorpe.co.uk/ in Scunthorpe
http://johnogroatsbnb.com/ in John O'Groats
http://www.the-beeches.co.uk/home in Bristol
http://www.dornochcastlehotel.com/contact/location/ in the Dornoch/ Bonar Bridge area
http://www.rezarefarmhouse.co.uk/ in Launceston, Cornwall

Saturday, 13 June 2015

What is Dyspraxia

Dyspraxia is a neurological difference which affects the way we think, learn and do, many different things. it can also be defined as a form of developmental co-ordination disorder (DCD) which is another commonly used name for dyspraxia.

as dyspraxia has previously been known as clumsy child syndrome it is most well known as being a difficulty with motor skills small and large (known as fine+gross respectively), this means that our bodies sometimes don't do what our brains want them too in the correct time so the name clumsy child syndrome could be a partial description of one of the aspects of dyspraxia however dyspraxia does not only affect children it can also affect adults although many adults may not know they have dyspraxia as they would have developed coping strategies for the aspects of their dyspraxia which affect their lives.
also dyspraxia does not only affect your co-ordination or physically it can also affect things such as perception, thought, sensitivity, speech and language. people who have dyspraxia or know dyspraxic people often know that we can think in different ways to others such as coming up with different solution to problems or different ways to solve problems.the speech and language difficulties often come from verbal or oral dyspraxia, with i believe verbal being not being able to get the correct words out or possibly stuttering whereas oral dyspraxia is caused by lack of control of the muscles required for movements of the mouth. another common trait of dyspraxia is difficulty with memory especially short term memory which is probably the reason we lose or forget things like keys and phones quite often.

dyspraxia also often appears alongside other difficulties such as dyslexia and dyscalcia as well as ADHD attention deficit (hyperactivity) disorder.
also to make it clear dyspraxic people are all affected differently by their dyspraxia some people can have the physical difficulties and not the verbal or sensory other can be affected by many of the aspects of dyspraxia and some only affected by a small number of the aspects which means that no two dyspraxic people will ever be exactly the same or affected in exactly the same way

there are two links below for more info about dyspraxia
the first a link to google search page
https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=dyspraxia

the second the link to the dyspraxia foundation website which also has helpline contact detail for any support or advice that may be needed
http://www.dyspraxiafoundation.org.uk/