Wow! The appointment came through!

So, after I called the hospital and was told I would have to wait until February for my appointment I decided to call the consultants secretary. She called the hospital and then came back t me with the same story – I was on the list but wouldn’t be seen until February. So, I called a friend who knew someone who they thought worked in the same place as my consultant and she said she’d have a word “just in case”. On Saturday, I got a letter with an appointment in it for the first week of January – hmmm, is this a case of its not what you know but who??

More fool me?

So, last weekend we had visitors – PTV and HLW came down to see us and it was really great to see them. I love seeing friends, eating good food (even if I say so myself since I cooked it), drinking red wine and enjoying good company….

On Sunday we went out to visit a castle where we could dream about winning 120 million on the Euro Lottery and spend it on living like kings …..seriously, we did the local history thing ‘cos I think we all like to. I like the architecture and the history and I know the LW loves knowing what made the original owners tick whilst both hubby and PTV seem to relish the opportunity to poke into every corner and behave like schoolboys. Hubby always likes to get a guidebook and do the tour guide thing for the rest of us – this worries me sometimes as I am always afraid that we will pick up a busload of Japanese tourists and they will follow us home and we will have to give them all tea! (I’m sure that I dreamt that once too…)

Anyway, I decided to go tramping all over the castle with the best of them, up and down the spiral staircases with my walking sticks and on my feet for ages. I did fine although I gave up at the last tower and didn’t go to Lady Margaret’s bedroom (I’d heard it was haunted anyway so I had a good excuse!). My legs (and my back) held up all the way round and I thought that with a rest in the afternoon that I had done just fine. Sadly, I woke at 2am in pain and with no pills in the bedroom so had to toddle downstairs to get some and finally got off to sleep again when they kicked in. Now I bet you’re either asking yourself

1. why I was stupid enough to do the castle (when the answer is because I wanted to) or
2. why I’m bothering to tell you all this.

Well, I thought I’d tell you because of today – you see today, although a bit stiff, I’m actually pretty OK. In my pre-op days I would have still done the castle (because I wanted to) and would have ended up in pain just the same, but today I would have had to write off while I recovered. That’s great, isn’t it?

Coming to a sticky end?

I have some trousers sitting in a bucket of water in my hall – do you want to know how they got there???

Well, there I was, sitting at the computer, getting ready to write my latest blog entry, when I heard much cursing and swearing from above. It was hubby, and was coming from the direction of his hobby room. Immediately following the cussing etc, there was the sound of angry footsteps (a wife can always tell angry footsteps before any other kind) and much banging and thumping. I sat tight – it just didn’t seem to be a good idea to get involved at this stage but had many mental images of what had gone wrong….had his laptop just crashed and he’d thrown it across the room in a rage? Had a cat gate-crashed the room and got thrown across the room in a rage? Had a car crashed into the outside of the house and was hubby preparing to roll up his sleeves and shout at the driver? Well, it turned out to be none of these things, as hubby then came down the stairs. “Uumm”, he asked sheepishly, “any ideas on how to get PVA glue out of trousers?” It turns out that a largish amount of PVA glue miraculously spilt itself over his trousers (and his sweatshirt and the floor and the desk….). He claims to have cleaned the carpet (and tells me not to worry as it is A) under the desk and B) dries clear) so I left him too it – just got him to whip his trousers off and stick them in a bucket of cold water. The carpet is probably stiff and shiny but its hubby’s hobby room and no one will ever know unless I tell them…..Er, I wonder if blogging about it counts as telling?

Anyway, so that is how I now have a pair of trousers soaking in a bucket in the hall – so the mystery is solved….

Oh yes, and since I have been so frugal with my use of smilies in this post and because the whole incident was quite bizarre, I shall reward myself with the following one....just because I like it and it's bizarre too....

I'm back

I’m back (as a matter of fact, as a matter of fact I’m back) ^*1. Now I know you are all agog to know why I haven’t been blogging and must have guessed that I have been away. Well, you were right (and to the rest of you who just though I was being lazy – fie on you). I have actually been away visiting A of A&T fame (remember them?). Since A is my very best friend, it was great to spend some real quality time with her and her hubby. Somehow we ended up going shopping and spent enough money that we couldn’t carry our lunch tray to the table since we were so laden down with bags and had to rely on the hunky young man at the till to help us (well, that was our excuse anyway…). We each maintain that the other is a bad influence – which is just the way it should be when two women go shopping together! So, it was a great trip – must do it again soon I think.

Apart from gadding across the country in my little car (yay!), the only other thing I have done recently is to finally get round to reading the Bridge of San Luis Rey. Having heard that it was a philosophical delight and reading reviews that said things like “Wow!” and “Extraordinary” I had been looking forward to it for some time. In the end I was pretty disappointed – maybe I expected too much, or maybe generations of English teachers have been making things up about it in order to fill up lesson time. If you’ve read it and think differently, let me know – I’m always up for a bit of philosophical debate – just warn me in advance and I’ll get the red wine in!

^*1Yes, I really am old enough to remember when he was just a pop star!!

9 months just sneaked up on me!

OMG, it’s 9 months today, isn’t it? That must mean its surgery update time…

It’s really funny, but every few weeks I say how much better I feel and how much better I am than I was a few weeks ago. This surely can’t go on forever, can it?

Anyway, it’s true that I do feel pretty good and lots of people have commented on how well I look too. I’m beginning to wonder if I actually looked ill or tired a lot of the time before the op, the number of people who seem to think like I look like I’m glowing with good health now….Anyway, some details for all you scolio people who want to know what the future holds…

My stomach and the area around the scar is still mostly numb but just recently has been itching. It’s maddening, ‘cos with no skin sensation you can scratch all you want but since you can’t feel it it’ll do you no good. I am desperately trying to resist temptation as I know (to my cost with my feet unfortunately) that you can do quite a lot of damage to skin you can’t feel, without meaning to. That same area still gets puffy too if I do too much – and yes, I know the answer is not to do too much, but hey, this is me we’re talking about! On the subject of not doing too much, I should mention that I may have to cut this entry very short as it is officially my afternoon off, and the SPF will be very cross with me if I eat into it. I shall tell you all about that another time I think…since I’m short of time.

My walking is pretty good – still use the 2 sticks but I am getting further (and a bit faster too I reckon). I actually saw my neuro physio last week and she was delighted to see me doing so well so that’s good. Like I mentioned last time, my left leg, although not working in quite the way it used to, is now starting to feel normal. What I mean is, that the way it is right now, is what I am used to now and I really can’t remember how I used to do things with it. It’s not like I ever had a clutch in a car^*1 so I’m not missing anything much.

So, that’s it really. My pain levels are better than pre-op but maybe not as good as I wished. The nerve pain in my leg continues, but I am now down to half the dose of the meds I was so it’s all going in the right direction.

I’ll give you another update in a month (at about 8th December) and once I hit that magic 1 year mark I’ll update 3 or 6 monthly. Let’s see how it goes eh?

^*1No feeling in your feet means that when you want to change gear you push your foot down hard – you move the gear knob – there is a nasty crunching sound and you realise that your foot must be nowhere near the pedal. You take your eyes off the road to peer suspiciously down into the footwell to see where your foot is and raising your eyes back to the windscreen you see that you are now in a field….well, it’s something like that (but I never quite got into a field). Automatic gearboxes are a miracle in my book (and probably in the book of anyone who’s a passenger in my car!)

So what part of 3 months don’t I understand?

Today, it being November and the best part of 5 months since I had my follow up appointment, I called the hospital. I did this because I was told I should have my next appointment after 3 months as part of the ‘close eye’ that they would be keeping on me …and in my world that would have been September!

I figured that I have now been patient enough and it should be time for me to phone up and rattle a few cages. I got through very quickly and spoke to a very bored sounding lady who told me that she would add me to her list and I would get an appointment as soon as one became available.


“Add me to your list!”, I squawked, “shouldn’t I already be on it?”.

“Well, yes maybe, but I am now adding people to my list as soon as they phone”.
“But I rang 2 months ago”
“Well, yes, maybe, but I was on holiday then so even if you spoke to someone else, they wouldn’t have put you on my list”.

“So, does this mean that patients are demanding their own appointments, it doesn’t matter when the surgeon wants to see you, it just goes on when we phone up?”
Some vague muttering ensues from the other end of the phone….
I push on regardless: “So, is there any merit to me phoning you every day so I get pushed further up your list?”
She assures me that however many times I call her I only get put on the list once!
“Anyway”, she says, “you have been seen since last February, haven’t you?”
“Yep - I’ve had surgery too and this is supposed to be a follow up….a 6 month one….Oh yes, and just as a matter of interest, about how long am I likely to have to wait?”
“Well, a minimum of 6 weeks so it could be January or February.”
My squawking at this point is unrepeatable but easily imaginable. I am again reminded about what a brilliant health service we have in this country.

So, I got nowhere with my appointment but looking on the positive of it all, I have learnt 3 valuable lessons about the NHS today

1. Patients get to set their own appointments depending on how fast they can get to the phone and how impatient they are - it has nothing to do with the medical staff, especially not the surgeons.
   
2. Time moves very differently within hospital walls
3. Keeping a close eye on you means that you should be seen more often than once every 5 years.

Thank goodness I’m not experiencing any problems or I'd not just be feeling like this.....

Bonfire night....

Enjoy the fireworks.....

....but be safe!

The MIL – Part 3 - Home time soon

The MIL is doing well and should be home tomorrow. Things seem to have gone on just the way that they should have in hospital and she passed her stair test yesterday (oh, I remember those heady days….). The physio is very pleased with her progress and she is apparently already able to cope with her own sticks rather than crutches. The FIL is still a bit worried though so he has arranged with a friend who is a ‘big strong man’ to give her a lift home rather than me. He approached this subject very carefully, saying that he didn’t want to hurt my feelings and muttering something about the friend being steady driver and not speeding (I’m telling you, it’s nothing but a rumour guv!). Seriously, my feelings are all intact, I am just really happy that they have someone they can trust – after all, I wouldn’t be much help if she decided to have a bit of a wobble – hip v. back, I wonder who’d fall on top of who….

On another subject (and briefly if I can), I had a visit from someone last week and I was going to blog all about it because it was a good (and useful) visit. I found myself idly thinking what acronym I could use for my visitor and had decided on the SPF^*1. It was only after I wrote it down that I thought, "hey ho, that looks familiar" – isn’t that what it says on my sun tan lotion bottle? I racked my brains for something else, but eventually decided that SPF would do just fine – since she is so tall, next summer I will take her out with me and she can shield me from the sun just by standing next to me….


^*1Sports psychologist friend