EVERY year, Oxford’s Town & Gown fun run raises tens of thousands of pounds for research into trying to find treatments for muscular dystrophy. In a new column, Emily Bonner, 30, who was diagnosed with limb girdle muscular dystrophy in 2014, tells us what life is like with the condition

IT’S not been a great week. I had a double whammy on Friday, two falls, one day.

I’m not sure that’s happened before but it’s my own fault I guess for overdoing it and I was just about ready to give up when my mum’s voice came into my mind saying “you either sink or swim”.

Yeah, I’m going to swim for it.

In the end, it wasn’t the falls that bothered me, it was the two plates of food that I was carrying fresh out of the oven that fell to the floor, not smashing (miraculously) but turfing off all the food in the process.

There’s me kneeling in disbelief thinking ‘no that can’t have just happened’ before having to scoop baked beans up from under the sofa, only to realise my hands were covered in tomato sauce and they needed washing otherwise can you imagine the mess I’d make trying to get back to standing!

I had to crawl on my knees to get a cloth, which was painful enough as they had been bashed earlier in the day when my knee collapsed trying to get out of the car.

I’d cut my knee then, so the wound had reopened and was messing up my new lounge pants! I’d already gone to work with bloody, muddy trousers!

Hmm, I could make a poem out of that, bloody, muddy...come back to me on that one!

Yeah, all I wanted to do was get home and lounge. I was tired from rushing to yoga and then work and spent the day feeling all wibbly-wobbly from my first fall.

I knew I’d pushed it too much during yoga. Getting stuck between a running car and a brick wall was not great and there wasn’t much room for manoeuvre.

It took me a while to reposition myself so I could get back into the car seat. Shook up, I had to get back on the horse. Must keep swimming for my mum!

Now it’s a standing joke when I’m getting dinner: “So will that be on the floor?”

I now carry just one plate so if I fall I will only waste half of it! Luckily it was a good excuse to get takeaway from the local, not that I can get up the steps very well using the antiquated metal bar for support.

When will these villages become disabled friendly? I need to campaign! Accessing a pub is important, right?

Honestly though, I love the pub for the grub, I just need to get them to deliver to my doorstep and all will be well. Or train a dog to fetch it for me...now that would be pretty awesome.

As I apply for an assistance dog I wonder how it would work.

They are trained to bark to raise an alarm, say, if I fell over. The rate I’m going with the falling over the dog will be barking all the time and it would be like crying wolf!

Hopefully now, though, I will go a wee while before the next one. Here’s to hoping!