Eating a Woolworths cookie might not be considered an achievement in most people's eyes, but I just did it using my left hand and I felt like giving the dude next to me a high 5.
The reason I was so excited is because I have a cerebral tremor in my left hand caused by a stroke, so gripping anything in my left hand is incredibly difficult - if the exaggerated grip strength doesn't crush the thing I'm holding to oblivion, the violent shake will inevitably end up with me dropping it on the floor.
The tremor gets worse when I'm trying to manipulate something in my fingertips, but the only way to improve the control in my left hand is to use the hand as much as possible. So over the last few weeks I've been rolling a straw in my left fingertips to try and improve my control, and when I got a cookie from Woolies yesterday, I decided to see how far I'd come and eat it in my left hand. I was amazed that I could break bits off and put it in my mouth before crushing it or dropping it on the ground, but I was more amazed by the joy that something so simple brought to my life.
It dawned on me yesterday that I struggled to remember the last time something simple in life made me sit back and say "Wow" - I used to send a friend "Left Hand Achievement Reports" when I found I could do something again with my left hand - picking up a Tic Tac, using cutlery. eating an apple or doing a cuff link up all floated my boat - so after my Woolies cookie success, I'm going to keep twiddling my straw and looking out for more "Wow" moments.
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