I have had a date for my check-up to see how my bones are growing. It is in late June as expected. Actually, it wasn’t going to be in June as I discovered when I called the hospital having heard nothing from them. The call went something like this:
Me 
: “I wondered if you could tell me when my appointment is likely to be?”
Bureaucratic monster lady (BML)
: “Due to your consultant’s holiday, rounds of golf and dinner out with friends the earliest it will be is 8th July”*
Me : “Can I put 8th July in my diary then?”
BML : “Oh no, 8th July is the earliest it will be – it will probably be later but I can’t turn that many pages in my diary or my fingers will get sore”**
Me 
: “Look, I don’t want to be a nuisance***, but I’m due an x-ray at my next appointment and until I get that x-ray I’m not allowed to do anything.
BML 
: “Due to your consultant’s busy schedule of long lunches, foreign holidays and having to make time for his mistress as well as his wife and kids****, there’s really nothing I can do, you’ll have to wait until we send you a letter”
Me : “Look, I really, really don’t want to be a nuisance*****, but when I say I can’t do anything, I mean anything – that includes bending stretching twisting driving lifting carrying laundry hoovering dusting (at this point I draw breath)… ******
BML 
: “Oh!” (sounds like riffling paper which could easily equally be knitting needles) – “I can fit you in on the 22nd June if you like”*******
Ah, the joys of having a National Health Service……
*I can’t remember the exact excuses she gave but I am certain these are the accurate ones…
**She didn’t tell me about here fingers either 
– I guessed that from her inability to check…
***Like heck I didn’t, but I have learnt that screaming “Listen here you fat cow” 
(or something else equally insulting, after all, I have no idea if she is a)fat or b)a cow!) , down the phone gets you nowhere …very fast!
****Again, I can’t remember the exact excuses but surely they must be something like this?
*****Ditto my last comment about being a nuisance (which I really, really want to be whatever I say down the phone), only now I am getting mad enough that ‘fat cow’ is starting to sound nice compared to some of the things I can think of…
*******And believe me I don’t do that often!
*******Well, why the heck didn’t she say so in the first place?
Recently I was in town, sitting outside the bank waiting for hubby when I saw something quite odd. It was an old lady who I am sure was quite insane. She had a shopping trolley with her (as many old ladies do) – you know one of those fetching items in a perfect shade of grubby tartan - a bit like this, only more careworn. That in itself, does not make her mad, far from it – to be laden down with 16 shopping bags full of bricks rather than using a trolley, now that really would be mad, but I digress. Actually, at the risk of digressing some more, I don’t think you could put many bricks in a shopping bag and she was much too skinny to carry 16 of them anyway, but I’m just trying to illustrate a point here*.
So – and here’s the odd bit – the trolley was upside down – not handle downwards, but stand downwards and wheels pointing skywards. She walked and dragged it behind her and it scraped along on the stand over every bump in the street making quite a racket. I wondered if she was deaf or simply mad. Maybe she was trying to get her daily exercise and wheels would have made it too easy. 
Perhaps she was an alien who had only ever seen shopping trolleys in pictures and had no idea how they were used, but was trying to blend in with the local population – who can tell…
So, what do you think I did? Did I stop her and say excuse me please madam, you are mad? Or perhaps I should have just tapped her on the shoulder and tried to politely point out the error of her ways. Maybe I should have just kicked the trolley deftly so that it flipped over onto the wheels and made her journey that much easier. In the end I did none of these things. I was so flabbergasted by the whole thing that she was round the corner before I could comprehend what I had seen. At least that’s my excuse, but really it was just that I was too scared that she was going to turn into a real life character from a ‘Men in Black’ film!
*Please note I have already been told a million times not to exaggerate! 
Did I ever mention that we have two cats and that one of them is completely nuts whilst the other is just a bit barking? !!! No, don’t be silly, they miaow, not bark, but I mean just that she’s just a bit mad as opposed to totally loopy like the other one. Actually, he, the lunatic doesn’t go miaow either (or at least not often), mostly he just chirrups and burbles, but now I am getting completely off the point….
One day, whilst lying in bed reading, the bedside light reflected off my nice shiny metal bookmark onto the ceiling and ever since, he spends a large amount of his time in the bedroom looking upwards waiting for it to reappear. One the one occasion when it did so close to the wall, he leapt upwards off the chest of drawers hurling himself without thought in pursuit of his new alien pal. He hit the wall and slid downwards into the gap between the chest of drawers and the wall – this was a shame for him, as the gap is actually slightly less than cat sized and he ended up like a cork in a bottle! You see – he’s definitely completely mad! Anyway, I now hide my bookmark under the bedclothes when I read, but he still keeps looking upwards!
Our fairies have been on holiday for quite a while now and this is leading to some problems in our household. What do you mean, you don’t have fairies? We have lots of fairies in our house, but sadly, all our fairies either went on strike or on holiday when I went into hospital and left all the work around the house for hubby to do which was pretty unfair given the circumstances.
Anyway, just so you know, we have a laundry fairy, an ironing fairy, a kitchen cleaning fairy, hoovering fairy and a bathroom cleaning fairy, to name just a few. We don’t have a shopping fairy as most of our fairies are actually quite doddery and don’t do anything that involves heavy lifting, or walking too far from the car! I’m sure that many women out there are either nodding vigorously to this ‘outing’ of the household fairy population and related hubbies are scratching their heads in complete ignorance – it’s either that or you are all shaking your heads sadly thinking ‘she’s completely lost it now’ 
– I can’t quite tell from here…
Well, to the household problems. You see, with the laundry fairy away, we have had quite an influx of hatless gnomes and it is getting increasingly difficult to find a pair of matching socks. Sadly, sock goblins are not indigenous to the UK (I think they only live in North America) so we are getting no help with this crisis. In the end, I decided to do some serious research into this problem to see if I could track down where the hatless gnomes might be living, but have had no luck as to where their normal habitat might be. My Googling actually led me to many other theories on the absence of single socks but many of them, like dark magic or wormholes are just completely batty!* (Unlike hatless gnomes of course…)
Anyway, I have tried to get hubby to do the traditional ‘fairy calling ritual’ which involves using a washing machine, laundry basket and washing line, but it simply hasn’t worked. Since hubby has followed pretty much the same rituals as me, with just slight variations as to the mix and quantity of machine contents, I can only come to the scientific conclusion that the calling only works when done by a woman. I guess in the end the only answer will be to get me completely fit and then hopefully I will be able to tempt the laundry fairies to come back…
*I was however quite surprised to find Schröedinger's Special Theory of Socks at Everything2.com. This stipulates that not only do socks in a washing machine exist in all possible states for socks, but they also exist in all possible states for other objects. Theoretically, you have Concorde , the remaining members of the Beach Boys AND Shergar riding Lord Lucan (or the other way round even), and God knows what else floating around in your washing machine. It's not really that difficult how to understand that if you suddenly leap into the kitchen and yell "Boo!", the laundry will suddenly have to resolve itself into socks. Which means that some of your socks will get it wrong, as the universe can be kind of slow on the uptake sometimes. So don't be surprised when in addition to suddenly missing socks, you also have three of some socks (of which you had two only a few hours previous) and some unidentifiable objects. This is why so many theoretical physicists are also raging alcoholics.
I may as well ask whether omission is the same as telling lies really. The situation is this – I was asked to go away for the weekend but it involved a journey of about 130 miles (each way). Now I know at the moment that everything I have asked my surgeon if I can do or not, the answer has been “no you can’t do it” so I decided not to ask…and I wondered, well, umm, is this wrong of me? You see, right at the moment, I am starting to feel much better – much more like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s true that I’m not what I was, but regarding this I can do nothing more than breathe a huge sigh of relief (yes, I can really breathe!) and in many ways I’m more like a teenager than I have been since – well, since I was a teenager really! It’s only now when I am starting to recover enough to see the benefits, that I realise just how bad things had got and why everyone was telling me it was a good idea to get this op done. Anyway, I don’t mean to go rambling on about the op, I was gonna tell you about my weekend…
Hubby abandoned me to the care of Best Male Buddy (BMB) for the weekend and he took me in his car all the many miles. 50 miles down the road we had a short stop which turned into an hour and I took pain killers and wished I could add alcohol to them to face the rest of the trip! Anyway, at about 100 miles I asked to turn around and go home but since it was closer to get there than back, we pushed on. Gawd, the roads in this country are bumpy and they get bumpier the further you go – why is that? Anyway, we met up with a bunch of friends, some very good and a couple who I hardly knew. Conversation over dinner Saturday went something like this:
BMB: “Hey Warped Woman, you know B, don’t you?”
WW: “Yes, we met about 2 years ago but I don’t think we’ve ever chatted”
B: “Well, I know the name and I’m sure I’ve seen you before but I can’t place you at all.”
BMB: “She used to walk with a lurch like this”
(Grossly exaggerated imitation of major limp ensues)
B: “OH YES! I do remember you – I’ve seen you walking!”
BMB and I will have to have a serious chat…I was very hurt when I mentioned that it was all an exaggeration and he said it wasn’t! 
Do you know that record, the one that goes: “I'm gonna knock on your door, ring on your bell, Tap on your window too”?* Yep? Well, I want to tell you how I feel about it. It’s not actually that it ever made it onto my top ten list of records (not quite my era or taste), but I really didn’t have that many feelings about it until recently and as a result of recent events I have now decided that I hate it! I know, I know, these are strong words, but they have to be said. Do you want to know why I hate it? No? Well, I’m gonna tell you….
Early one morning when I was recovering from surgery (if you don’t know about that, why on earth are you reading this blog?) the doorbell rang. It was early enough that I was still in bed (no, not 10 o’clock it was 7.30 and stop interrupting!). I thought it must be a parcel delivery – I have no idea why, but the Post Office always does this to us – we get parcels really frakking early ** but they can’t get the regular post to us until lunchtime, but I digress (again hee hee!). Funny thing was that hubby leaves for work around that time so I was surprised that he and postie hadn’t bumped into each other on the front path. Anyway, I lay there and thought that there was no way I was going to try and run down the stairs with my crutches, just to get a parcel – they’d simply have to shove a card through the door and hubby could pick it up later. What happened next was odd – you see the parcel man usually rings the bell once, then he rings it again, then he bangs on the door and shouts “coo-ee” through the letterbox (well all but the last bit) – and is guaranteed to look all impatient when he has done all of that in the space of 30 seconds and you get to the door puffed out in your dressing gown with all your hair stood on end (a la Cherie Blair collecting her flowers the morning after the election). So… the doorbell rang, and then there was silence – no more ringing, no banging, no coo-ees. It was an odd enough situation that I hauled my fat a*se out of bed and went to the room at the front of the house overlooking the street. Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice would say, our car was outside. I decided since I was halfway there, I might as well limp my way down the stairs and open the front door – this I did, just to discover that the doorbell had rung because a member of our household had forgotten their keys! They collected them and that (as they say) was that.
You may be wondering what on earth all this has to do with hating records – well, I’m getting to that bit (although aficionados of the song may already know what’s coming). I crutched my way, slowly (and painfully 
) back up the stairs and got back into my nice warm bed to relax a bit and listen to the radio. They were playing a song that was not on my top ten list (I will leave you to guess what it is) – I drowsily settled down and then I heard the doorbell again. “Oh &*$%”, I thought, “what now?” I heaved my bulk back out of bed and went back to the room at the front of the house and peered out. What did I see? Well, nothing – the street was completely empty – no car, no postie van. Odd I thought, maybe I dropped off for a second and dreamed it. I headed back into the bedroom and then I heard the bell again! By this stage I was having visions of faulty doorbells going off every few seconds through the day and wondered if I would have to call Señor Ding-Dong. It was then that I realised – it was that frakking** record. Every few seconds in the backing track someone rings our doorbell (or at least an identical one….).
So, now you know….
* I believe (after having Googled it) that the original was by Mark Clausing and if you are desperately interested you can find out more details including full lyrics (good grief!) here: http://www.ceder.net/recorddb/viewsingle.php4?RecordId=2990
**Do you watch BSG too?
…I’m back again but this is only brief (and nicked from another blog too) – I just thought it was an interesting way to waste time…
Here are the rules. (If that's what they are...)
- Grab the nearest book.
- Open the book to page 123.
- Find the fifth sentence.
- Post the text of the sentence in your journal/blog along with these instructions.
DON'T search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what's actually next to you. (I actually wonder what would happen if you did this with every book you own – if you put them together in the best possible order, could you get a sensible story? If you did, what about copyright?)
Anyway, mine came up with this:
“He’d scarcely dare hope that someone as wonderful as Christine Copperfield, someone as cool, confident and popular as the class Girl Most Likely had not got better things to do with her fabulous, exciting, fulfilling life than log on to Friend’s Reunited.” (Ben Elton ‘Past Mortem’ - which I am just about to start reading)
I considered this to be an odd coincidence as I have had very little at all to do with Friend’s Reunited (which is curious in itself as I now discover, turning the book over for the first time and reading the back, that it is actually all about Friend’s Reunited). Now before I head off digressing again, I know it is odd that I hadn’t read the back, but its not like I bought it or anything, Hubby bought it and it was just there sat on the shelf looking at me until yesterday when I finished my last book and was grubbing around for something new. Anyway, back to Friend’s Reunited and my limited contact. A whole ten years ago I tried to find Hubby’s best friend from college days as it was one of Hubby’s significant birthdays and I wanted a nice surprise. I also thought giving him a whole person would be a pretty cheap present as all I would have to pay out would be some minor rental charges to the friend’s wife or significant other! As it happened, I wrote to newspapers and did some research but the guy has the commonest surname on the planet (no not Wong, commonest British name!) and so I struck out and ended up having to spend a fortune buying hubby a stereo instead. He doesn’t still have said stereo, it having had an accident with a tin of paint quite early on in its life! Anyway, back to Friend’s Reunited. A few years later I was idly browsing their site looking for people from my own school and discovered the only person registered was the class swot who is now a high powered Hong Kong lawyer on an enormous salary (listed in her entry!
) So, as you do, I decided to just check my brother’s school (and maybe spot a past boyfriend?) and Hubby’s college too. Would you believe it – there was hubby’s birthday present! So, what next – should I wait for the next significant birthday or should I just rush in headlong. Well, I e-mailed the guy without mentioning anything at all to hubby and we made plans in secret for us to meet him and his wife at their house. One weekend I packed up the car and gave hubby a map reference and asked him to navigate me there – You can just imagine the conversation:
“What’s this”.
“It’s where we’re going today”.
“It’s the other side of the country!!!!”
“I know, I thought it would make a change to take a nice long drive…”
Actually that’s a bit of a fib – I don’t actually intend finishing my blog completely – it’s just that my scoliosis surgery story is nearly over (I hope). I know that when I have avidly read other peoples blogs I found that they went through the same agonising before surgery as me, they went through surgery just like me and then they went back to their normal lives and never entered a single word in their blog again. Just like that! No goodbyes even! 
People the far side of the world get involved in your life (and you in theirs) you’re drawn together by a common interest (ok, ok a medical condition is hardly an interest - you wouldn’t actually decide to have scoliosis would you?). Anyway it seems a shame not to say goodbye - so I thought I’d like to say something in the best Oscar traditions.
I thought what I’d do is update you about my back, monthly and then maybe at 3 monthly intervals – I always want to know how people feel 3 months down the line or 6 months or a year or 2 years (5 years 10 years?) & so maybe you do too. I’ll put something in the blog each time to say when I’ll next be back with an update (and try and be a real organised bunny and at least get close to the right date) – maybe then you won’t feel as bereft as I did……(of course I’m probably typing this for my own benefit as you’re all fed up and went down the pub ages ago…)
......................... 
I have to say that I did think of just doing these ‘back’ updates (err, that sounds odd - can you actually have back updates – I mean doesn’t that suggest something about behind you being in the future?) – oops there I am, digressing again – and in addition making no sense at all….! Anyway, just like it says in the title, I’ve been wondering about it and in the end I decided that I’ve had a load of fun doing this blog so will continue writing. I see no reason why, just ‘cos I’ve said goodbye, I can’t continue with the mindless drivel. Well, why shouldn’t I? - It’s my blog and I’ll write what I want to………
Next scoliosis only update will be at around the 8th June 2006.
- please note - this is a before and after shot!
Next non-scoliosis update will be – umm, well, it might even be tomorrow – who can tell in this crazy mixed up world…
Ok I own up. I am a bit fed up but probably not in the way that you’d expect. I am normally a pretty busy person and even now that I’m limited in what I can do, I am still keeping myself busy with various hobbies. It’s just a case of picking the right hobbies to get on with (I’ve got a lot to choose from!). So it’s not that. I am actually a bit fed up with the fact that I was a reasonably fit person before the surgery. Now not that I was ever going to be a marathon runner (
), but I can swim just fine, and a long way, and pretty fast – in fact, I generally go (went pre-op) to the pool a couple of times a week to swim a long way. Well, not at the moment I don’t and my fitness level is going through my boots*. No swimming, no resistance work, no anything. Just sit around and watch your blood pressure go up and your stomach expand that’s what my surgeon said. Actually, I’m fibbing, he didn’t say the last bit, but that’s what it feels like and do you know what I am fed up with most? It’s the choice, that’s what. I would like t be able to choose what I can do, based on whether I feel up to it but nope, I’m not allowed until my fusion looks good ‘clinically and radiologically’. Nuts!
*Actually a friend of mine said to me “it’s OK, you don’t lose total fitness levels for 12 weeks”. I stop and ponder how long recovery is likely to be– “oh well that’s OK then!” (Sarcastic thanks 
) – I am wondering how she ever got to be a friend at this point…..
It is now exactly 12 weeks since I had my op – gosh, doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun (I must have said that before I’m sure). Anyway, time for an update on who I am what I have turned into and where all my marbles went over the last few weeks….
I have reached a pretty good point in my recovery I think (Lynne take note) and I am cutting all pain meds down steadily except the nerve ones. On the subject of the nerve pain pills, I intend going to the doctor when this lot runs out (about a month) and trying a lower dose of them too as if I am late with a dose I am getting nowhere near such severe symptoms. My scar is looking really good, very nicely healed and hardly red at all – I am pretty proud of it which, as those of you who know me well might be a surprise, considering how I feel about at least one of my other scars. Anyway, it is, as hubby puts it, very impressive – it’s still numb in a few places, but doesn’t stop it looking – well, impressive! My walking is getting better all the time. I am still using two sticks but mostly as a balance aid and find that I can get around most of the house without them (furniture is useful). Because balance is such a big issue, I still have to be really careful about falling – I always fell over a lot, but it didn’t really matter if I bruised my knees before – now, I cannot afford to displace my hardware, so falling is a big no-no. I wouldn’t dream of going out the house without the sticks and am still using the wheelchair a lot. We took a trip into the local big city last weekend and had Tapas in the old brewery courtyard, spent all afternoon in town and generally did something a bit more normal– it was fab! Most of my swelling has finally gone. I still have the nasty bit on my side but that is much smaller and my preggo belly is just about gone – I think pretty much everything else that’s left now is just flab!
Interestingly, with so much more of the swelling gone, I have found for sure that lots of my jeans don’t fit the way they used to. You don’t realise how much the shape of your back alters jeans - well, you just think of them as leg covering, don’t you? I expected to ‘gain more waist’ on the side where my ribcage touched my pelvis, when they stretched it out, but somehow I didn’t expect to get shorter on the other side as that was straightened! So, this means that where I used to wear jeans to fit the left side (they would be all squashed in on the right side) they now fit neither side. Shopping will be called for when I feel all the swelling has gone and as soon as I can get my jeans on without the grabber thingy. Now, that would be embarrassing – taking your grabber thingy into the changing room – imagine if it was one of those communal ones…*
*…actually that would be cool if you were trying on tops – you could own up to alien probing, shark attack, or all sorts of other things with such an awesome scar!
Most people think hubby is a pretty straight guy, even when they’ve known him for some time, but altho’ he’s not in the same league as the cat, he does have his loopy side. In fact he can be quite mad at times – I would give details but it would be far too embarrassing (mostly to me!). I however do distinctly remember a ‘works do’ (his not mine) where he was truly on form
and one of his colleagues mentioned to me that she didn’t realise he was as much fun as he is. I think lots of my friends who don’t know us/him well think the same, as he does put on a very sensible face to the world - unlike me. After all, I’m sure it’s plain to the whole world that I am mad (or at least when I wear my tie died trousers (oh yes I do – and even with legs like mine…!!) 
Anyway, all this got me thinking to how we all put a ‘face’ on for the world. Take my surgery, just cos I’ve had a nice juicy blood transfusion, I am all pink and rosy cheeked (actually, I am pretty rosy cheeked most of the time although it may normally have something to do with a nice glass of red….
) Then there’s the thing that I smile a lot – I do, I have a big cheesy grin on my face most of the time, especially when I am with people I like 
, so, given a combination of the two, I usually look in great health, even when I feel like sh*t! It’s not fair really – here I am, having gone through major surgery, and having been told that I can’t lead anything like a normal life for ages and ages and ages and I look like I’ve just come in from a gentle jog! Nah, that’s not true, that would mean I was all puffed out and sweaty, probably with grazed knees where I’d fallen over – umm think of something else where you look fit and healthy, please ….
....please note - I am not really moaning here - it's good to look healthy. I guess I was just a bit short on blogging ideas today and needed a good excuse for some cute smilies....
– isn’t it about how old you feel? Good job this is over the internet though and I don’t have a web-cam – I can’t have you seeing what a raddled old hag I really am! 
