I went to the pub this evening with Harry, Ollie, Fat Sister and King Russell. I didn’t stay long though because I was wriggling all over the place. The pub’s only five minutes from the lair so I thought I’d be able to make it back on my own.…

I woke up this morning in a reflective mood. Last night along with Leftwing Idiot and Poppy, I saw Mark Thomas’s incredible and thought provoking show, Extreme Rambling – Walking the Wall, currently in its last few days at the Tricycle Theatre.…

I’ve mentioned the amazing treatment I’ve been having recently at Kings College Hospital. Since I injured my ankle due to a tic, I’ve had help from several different departments there, and the care has been fantastic. This morning I went for an orthotics appointment, arranged by my physiotherapist.…

In the last few days I’ve done some things that I haven’t done independently for a long time:

I picked up a glass and had a drink.
I wrote down an address in my diary.
I shaved my legs.

This massive progress is thanks to the strategies I’ve learned during Habit Reversal Therapy.…

I had a physio appointment this morning. My ankle is getting much stronger and less painful but I’m still wearing the protective boot. The main problem is that the leg tic responsible for this injury persists.

The physiotherapist is brilliant. She hasn’t treated anyone with tics before but is really thoughtful in her approach to me.…

It’s Sunday morning. I hadn’t needed to get up so I didn’t set an alarm. Annoyingly, it was only 7:30am when I woke up. I tried to roll over and go back to sleep but my tics mean I’m rubbish at lying still.…

I had a Habit Reversal Therapy (HRT) session this afternoon and my therapist introduced some major changes in my exercises. These are a big step forward in my course of treatment.

From now on, every time I tic and bang my chest I have to make myself do the same action back to front.…

A woman started screaming at me in the Post Office this afternoon. I explained I had Tourettes but she carried on shouting at me to stop swearing.

I felt upset for a moment before realising there was nothing more I could do and there was no point in worrying about it.…

This afternoon Ruth and I went for lunch with a family whose teenage son has Tourettes. His tics are similar in severity to mine and Ruth’s and although he’s met other people with Tourettes they’ve all had milder tics. I think it’s important to meet people whose experience is similar to your own.…

Yesterday I was interviewed on As It Happens, a daily Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) radio show. It was aired in the early evening and at my request all my tics, which included some swearing, were left in because I felt it was important that my disability was heard uncensored.…