I don’t know how many people I’ve asked whether there is a cook book for persons like Pádraig. They looked at me as if I was from Mars. Even the dieticians. Their answer was: just go into a supermarket and have look at the dairy section. All the soft stuff.

Nice one, but it ain’t as easy as this. There is stuff that ‘bonds’ badly with the chemistry inside a mouth that isn’t used to food anymore, an environment that produces phlegm, stuff that is difficult to swallow. Milk products are part of this range. On the other side, there is other stuff like ‘Apfelmus’ (stewed apple) or mashed carrots or broccoli that is easy to process and easy to eat. This stuff, in a way, by-passes the bad chemistry or, maybe, neutralises the phlegm (or mucus). – So, why isn’t there a guide, a cook book, pointing all of this out, telling those of us who need to know, what we should be cooking?

There is another issue I’ve been thinking about. Where there are limited resources, people tend to do whatever they can to get access to those resources. Once they’ve managed, they’re happy. Bu if they shared their knowledge and thus facilitated other people to get access to the same resources, they would even be happier.

Today, a new miracle arrived: a full-blown brand new Vojta-Table. A therapy table, so big, it just about fitted into Pádraig’s room, and only because we deduced that his wheelchair could be parked in the hallway.

Food, and food for thought.