The Prince and the frog

The other evening we went out, me, hubby, my bruvver and his lady. She was muttering things about divine intervention and nature taking its revenge on the careless and so we had to find out why.

Now, to understand the story, you have to know that my bruv is easily distracted in the way that only the brainy boxes are and he often forgets stuff because there’s usually something more interesting to do. Now, HL had gone away and came home while bruv was out at work only to find the back door wide open. Having established that no-one had ‘had it away’ with the telly or the stereo, they finally came to the conclusion that when he had put the bin out the previous night, he had simply forgotten to shut the door – probably been distracted with working out just why E should equal mc²or something like that…

Anyway, understandably, HL was upset and angry, fearing that she could have been murdered in her bed (had she in fact been at home!) and in the way that only wives can, she was determined that he ‘should not be allowed to forget’ his misdemeanour. So, poor bruv was in the wife’s bad books when he got up to go to work the next day. He crept miserably downstairs and picked up his shoes from the conservatory where they had been for the last two days, went to the bottom of the stairs and sat down to put them on. “That’s odd”, he thought as he was about to put his right shoe on. “I don’t remember leaving any socks in these shoes...” So, he fished into the shoe to pull out the sock and had a real fright as the sock suddenly said “Ribbet” very loudly and jumped out into the hall! Turns out some frog had come in through the open door and had taken up residence in his shoe!

HL thinks it serves him right…nature getting its own back and all that…and does she let him forget it? No, of course not, but is she still cross with him? No way! She’s still too busy laughing….

So, sh*t happens, does it?

You know I told you all about my toe last week? Well, it got infected and it went from - "Aren't I lucky I can't feel my feet" to (screams in agony) - "Have you got a pair of scissors? A knife? Aargh, No, just give me that ballpoint pen - maybe I can cut my foot off with that!!!"- all within 12 hours.

Now, that I wouldn't mind (well of course, I mind, but I could stand it) if only life's response to 'you've had it all too good lately' wasn't to kick you in the foot an then find out what else it could do to really make your day....

I phoned hubby from 300 miles away (with my bad foot) and he told me had had bad news - someone had tried to steal my car. My little car, the one I love so much. They had stuck a lever in between the door and frame on the drivers side and had bent the door. They didn't get in so they went around to the passenger side and bent the door on that side too. They bent it outwards so far that you can get your arm through the gap that they made. This is a 24 year old car. A classic. My pride and joy and those b*stards don't care that they have upset me. That they made me cry and that I am now completely stuck in the house with no transport. I hate them and hope that something really really horrible happens to them. It's true - I may be a live and let live kind of person but I could make an exception....

Hop along Cassidy

What a nut….

…there I was going away for the weekend and had packed my bag ready to go. I had done the difficult thing of getting it downstairs on my own^*1 and decided to move the case to one side so that it was easier to get past. Now what happens next deserves a bit of an explanation so forgive me if I ramble I bit…(would you expect anything else?).

Now hubby is always telling me that owning to the fact that I can’t really feel my feet, I should wear shoes more often, but true to form I was just ignoring him and was toddling around barefoot. Now of course he is right, I should wear shoes more often – maybe if I did I wouldn’t be walking around with a sewing needle in the bottom of my foot (don’t fret, it’s been there for years and years) – but as you can probably tell, I have been ignoring people who say I should wear shoes for ever (poor mother…)! I always figured that if you can’t feel when you stand on sharp object, that’s an advantage, you just pull the drawing pin (or whatever) out and get on with it, but other (probably more sensible) people say that this is all a*se backwards and if you can’t feel your feet the trick is to avoid sharp objects altogether.

Anyway, I am digressing a lot here, so I will get back to the suitcase – the facts are these:

• I was moving it
• I had bare feet
• I pulled it towards me quickly whilst my brain sent a message to my foot to move out the way
• The message went awol and my foot stayed where it was
• I caught the suitcase under my big toenail and pulled upwards sharply

Some cursing ensued at this stage…

• I then pushed my nail back into place and tried to ignore the blood.

So, that was a trip to accident and emergency where they were very nice, poked and prodded me and told me I was probably quite lucky that my sensation is impaired as they have quite high ceilings in the hospital and no stick long enough to get people off once they’ve screamed and leapt up there. For the time being I get to keep the nail (and not in a jar!) but have a review next week. It’s only a minor operation if it needs to go, the consultant said. I nearly said ‘call that an operation?’ whilst pulling up my shirt to reveal my evidence of being sliced and diced, but somehow resisted the temptation.

Makes walking bloody difficult though as my right leg is my lead leg and my left one won’t work without being led…its interesting I can say that!

One last thing on the subject of nerve messages. If it took too long for my brain to get the message to my foot and I am only short, how do tall people cope? Or is it something like tin cans and a piece of string and its only if you stretch them out straight that you can hear the person talking into the other tin can….? Maybe everybody’s nerves are the same length and tall people’s are all nice and taut and mine are like spaghetti junction……what do you reckon?


^*1 Method: take all valuables out of case, push case down stairs (in process frighten cat who runs up curtains and adds yet more nail holes to the already shredded lining) then follow case downstairs (carefully) and put valuables back in….works every time!

Ah, sat navs, such fun!

I have to tell this story even though it didn’t happen to me. Sadly I do actually know the person to whom it happened – it isn’t an urban myth although it should be (and I bet he wishes it was!).

On a trip away for the weekend, my friend (I shall call him John for the purposes of this story) programmed his sat nav with the postcode of his hotel. The address on screen came up as No. 1 Castle Hill and so since his hotel was on Castle Hill (and just had a name and not a number) he was happy he was going to the right place and set off.

He’d been on the road a couple of hours and suddenly the sat nav told him to cross over a major road junction that he had just arrived at. He thought it a bit odd, as he had half an idea that the hotel was off to the left, but the sat nav said straight on and so that’s what he did. He kept following the instructions and finally, around half an hour later, the smug voice^*1 of his sat nav said ‘you have reached your destination’. He found himself outside a tall imposing wall, looked up (and up and up) and found himself looking up at Windsor Castle (Castle Hill presumably) “Blimey”,. he told me, “I thought I was going to a posh hotel, but I didn’t think it was that posh!”

Turns out that he had transcribed the numbers in the postcode (which in this country are 2 letters followed by 2 or 3 numbers and 2 more letters) from something like 856 to 865 and that’s how the error had occurred. Well, he was almost as red as a tomato….

^*1They’re always smug aren’t they….oh yes, and is it true that all men use the women’s voice and all women use the man’s voice?

On a similar note to some recent wonderings

The BUF asked me recently if the nerves in my leg were getting any better and I had to tell her that no, they weren’t; but that wasn’t really the whole story. You see, the longer it goes on, the way my leg is right now is more ‘normal’ to me than the way it used to be. The longer it goes on, the more used to it I am and the more used to doing things in a different way I become. So, there’s some stuff I still can’t do, but everything else I’ve just found a different way of doing – so much so, that I have established a new type of ‘normal’ – if that makes sense.

It’s just one of the things that’s changed over the last 18 months since I had the operation and I know that there are people who are looking at me now and thinking that I am actually worse off than I was before. That’s just because I am now using a couple of sticks to walk and am choosing to use a wheelchair when I have a long way to walk or a long time to stand (as it wrecks me otherwise). Having said that, it’s wrecked me for years, I was just too stubborn (or too stupid) to make use of these things before. In fact, it’s not really that I am any more (or less) disabled than I was before, it’s just more visible to people now.

It all boils down to this, would I have the operation again? - and the answer is Yes of course I would. Lots of things have changed so much for the better you see. Now, a long time ago I was told that I would be in a wheelchair by the time I was 40 and that as time went on this would become a permanent arrangement. So, yes I have a wheelchair, but right now (and I am past 40) it is my choice to use it to make my life easier and less painful. It’s great – I have the choice and therefore the best of both worlds. Had I not had the op, then that in time would have been very different.

On the subject of things being different, here’s some of the stuff that I can think of right now without giving any great deep thought on the subject. With my wheelchair, I no longer have a cushion which has been cut down on one side to level me up so that I could sit upright. I no longer have to stand with all my weight on one leg and the other one bent just to keep me upright enough not to fall over and I have nowhere near as many problems with spasm in my back (boy when they used to hit - I sometimes even didn’t want to breathe they hurt that much!) Cinema seats no longer dig into my side when I watch a film. My painkillers actually seem to work and I can really breathe well (and I had no idea how worse that had got).

All of that is just amazing – don’t you think just a bit of wonky wiring and a few little patchy nerves is a very small price to pay….

Harry Potter and the Post Surgery Fug

Last week we went to see the latest Harry Potter film and I really enjoyed it. Without giving the game away (in case you haven’t seen it) it has some great performances (although not by Daniel Radcliffe obviously^*1) in it. I especially like Alan Rickman, doing his very best Sheriff of Nottingham performance^*2 as Snape^*3 and Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge is brilliantly mean in a very pink and fluffy kind of way.

Of course, the new book is out too and we have bought a copy. Now, I was talking to a friend of mine and they said that they couldn’t really remember too much about the last book and wish that they had re-read it before starting on HP and the Deathly Hallows. So, I wondered if this might be a good idea myself and looked on the bookshelf for our copy of HP and the Halfblood Prince. I couldn’t find it anywhere but I was sure that I had read it…

Later that night I asked hubby about it – “Well we both read it”, he said, “Maybe we borrowed it from the BUF? Anyway, you must remember it; it’s the one with the potions…” “Potions?” said I, “I don’t remember any potions! I think I remember that I read it but I can remember absolutely nothing about it at all. I think maybe I read it while I was in my post surgery fug…”

There’s no answer to that really apart from buying a new copy…just off to Amazon now then….

^*1He certainly never learned the art of smiling in acting school!
^*2I still think “You - my room, 10:30 tonight. You - 10:45. And bring a friend.” Is one of the finest film lines delivered anywhere, by anyone…apart from possibly the threat of cutting one’s heart out…with a spoon…!
^*3..and who else could deliver this line in response to Harry Potter’s: “Sir, it's Quiddich tomorrow!” - Snape: “Then I suggest you take extra care, Potter. Loss of limb will not excuse you.”

The 18 month update

So, it’s come round at last – 18 months. Can you believe it? Nope, nor me, time just seems to whiz by the older you get (although of course there’s a theory for this) as the BBC have said.

The interesting thing that I have found about getting to the 18month mark is the whole anniversary thing. At 12 months post op, anniversaries were just sort of weird. The anniversary of your surgery is celebrating a new beginning which you were unconscious for! The anniversary of leaving hospital is the anniversary of a real hard slog where you couldn’t walk without a zimmer frame and just getting dressed was some kind of hour long marathon. Hardly celebratory stuff…

Well, at 18 months that all changes because you can remember and celebrate anniversaries. When you are 6 months post op things start happening (I was allowed to swim and drive for example^*1) and last July I went away for the first time with the BMB on a trip with friends (which is pretty much an annual event). We did the same trip again this year and I realised just how little I had really recovered from the surgery at that stage (last year) – even though at the time I thought I was doing really well! I look back at the amount of help that the BMB gave me and see that I had such a long way to go in my recovery and I really had no idea how long it was all going to take.

So, am I fully recovered now? Well, I’d say yes. I feel fit and healthy and although my back still hurts and gets stiff, I don’t think from here it is likely to change very much at all (at least that’s the hope and the main reason I had the op after all)!

Yes I still take painkillers (think that’s a permanent thing) and yes I am still taking the nerve pain pills for my leg. I am still trying to decrease those and am now on a quarter of the dose I was when I left hospital but it’s a slow process and I don’t know whether I will have to just live with them or not. I guess we’ll have to wait for the 2 year update on that one, as my surgeon said that if it hadn’t settled down by two years I’d just have to stick with the pills. The reflux and digestive problems are much improved but I still have some trouble. Had they extended my fusion just that little bit higher as they originally intended, then I might be better off but now I have a choice – more spinal surgery or Gaviscon….hmmm difficult one that (not!). On the subject of the more surgery too, we are still waiting and seeing. My next hospital appointment should be in January so watch this space.

Some unexpected (and not pleasant) side effect of the surgery is that I have had problems with my wrists. The problem originates with nerves in my neck being stretched and compressed in ways that they are not used to. Add to that the fact that so much of my spine no longer bends or twists and my neck and is having to do a lot more work – and its trying to do it without being tipped on one side (which it had done for years) ^*2. Of course, it wouldn’t be so bad if I weren’t involved in sport, but there you go – can’t be helped. I didn’t come across anything like that though on the forums so it’s been interesting!

Gosh, this is a long post and I haven’t finished yet….

I still walk with the sticks but get around the house fine without them. My balance is a lot better (although I can still fall over without warning which is quite unsettling for folks around me) and I can carry things like cups of coffee without spilling half of it on the lounge carpet. Of course I’ve still got a limp but then again I always did have and at least I don’t have the Igor-like lurch any longer…

Now, for all of you scoilio people out there who are facing surgery and think that your phantom ribs will be different – forget it. Everyone who’s been there is right – the ribs are the worst bit and even now the area around them swells if I do too much. I’m guessing that in time I’ll be able to predict the weather or something just by the tweak in my side. I have to say that I didn’t believe what I read about them – after all, this is spinal surgery we’re talking about and the ribs aren’t there any longer either.^*3 Why should they cause any trouble at all?

On a final note, and this is for all you people who are going through this whole process. Be brave as this is the most astounding surgery that you can have. This surgery can give you the kind of future you might never have otherwise and that just has to be worth all the time it takes to get back to normal…

…For everyone who has been there, just think about how amazing it is to be able to tell the story of your scar. A doctor friend of mine recently said that this is one of the most complicated surgical things that can be done to your body. They have to collapse your lungs, move all your internal organs and then operate on the very middle of your body using rods and screws in an area just millimetres from your spinal cord. It’s no wonder it takes time to recover, but recover we do – so here’s to the future eh?!

^*1But not both at the same time obviously.
^*2I still get friends who haven’t seen me for a while tipping their heads to one side to talk to me as I don’t ‘look right’ without being squiffy!
^*3Of course this is not true – I do still have my ribs. It’s just that I don’t think they still count as ribs if you grind them up and stick them in your spine!

How DG got her name

DG is a very good driver (or so she tells us) but I did get a little concerned when she told me that she had run over a man.

“Why did you do that?” I asked.
“Well”, she said, “He was stood in front of my car so I ran him over”

This was not really the answer that I wanted when she had just offered me a lift….

What made it worse, was that later details revealed that she was in a car parking space at the time and he was on the pavement in front of her car…and yes this does mean that she should have been in reverse to get out of the space! ^*1

Anyway, that should have been that, but she turned up on Wednesday and said that she had run into a wall. The excuse was something about trying to get to a field though a gap that wasn’t quite wide enough for her car. Her dad was not best pleased about it either cos she (as a poor struggling student), didn’t have enough money for the £150 garage bill and he had to cough up.

“Never mind” I said “At least you have it back now”
“Yes” she said “but my dad’s still not at all pleased with me”.
“Why not?”, I asked, “ Isn’t it all over now?”
“Not exactly” she said, “2 days after I got the car back I tried to get through the gap again and hit the same bit of wall”.

Hmm, that car of hers obviously hadn’t gone on a strict enough diet whilst in that repair shop…

^*1No men were harmed in the writing of this blog. Ummm and yes I believe the man was actually OK. I don’t think she had quite reached 60 from a standing start by the time she had hit the pavement…

I cannot believe that we all speak the same language sometimes.

D’you know, I used to live in West Wales and all the signs in the Doctor’s surgery were in 2 languages – English and Welsh. Now, I have moved house and the signs in my doctors are in many different languages and some of those have a squiggly alphabet that I can’t read at all. Now, I don’t really expect to understand lots of other languages (especially those with a different alphabet) but sometimes am amazed by all the regional variations that we have in our teeny tiny country. I know a girl (DG^*1) who comes from Yorkshire and who wears ‘pants’ instead of trousers and who has never heard of a head being referred to as a bonce. Now, it may be that you too have no idea of bonces and also wear your ‘pants’ over your knickers, but that probably just illustrates that you too have a regional variation of your own.

Now, in addition to the simple regional variations, DG has a very broad Yorkshire accent so understanding her often results in lots of ‘pardon’, ‘sorry’, and ‘could you repeat that?’ – but all the same, we usually get there in the end and discover what each other actually really means. So, there we were on Saturday night and she was telling us about her ongoing university course:

DG: “I want to be a barrister now you know”
WW: “Oh yes? Why is that?”
DG: “Well, originally I wanted to be a corporate lawyer but I was telling someone that’s what I wanted to be and then they asked why I needed to do a degree to do that”
WW: “That’s a bit strange, what an odd thing to say…”
DG: “Yes, they wanted to know why you had to go to university to be a carpet layer….”<sup>*2

*1</sup>Disaster Girl
^*2 Please read this with a broad Yorkshire accent or you just won’t get it at all…

Speaking of Grey…

Do you know, I have an amazing t-shirt that I have now had for nearly 20 years and won’t wear out? I guess I’m lucky that I haven’t changed size much over the 20 years too, so I can still wear it but its one of those wonder items that you own that just refuses to wear out. Now normally it’s the things you really, really hate that refuse to wear out. Those things that are foul but are too good to throw away and you keep them in your wardrobe even though you loathe them - but this isn’t one of them at all. In fact, I have a theory about the non-wearoutable loathsome clothes. I reckon you take them out the wardrobe, put them on, look in the mirror and go “yeuch, I hate this”, so you take it off and put it back in the wardrobe – that’s why they won’t wear out – you never actually wear them for more than 3 minutes at a time! They do say (whoever they are) that if you haven’t worn something for 2 years and have nowhere to wear it booked for the next 6 months, then you should get rid of it. It’s a great theory, but in my experience the day after you throw out the ‘useful’ box that you’ve had for 2 years and never used, is the day that you need to post a china teapot to Aunty Anne in Japan and you’ll need a box of just that size and shape! The same principle probably applies to clothes but I seriously can’t think of any occasion for me to wear that pink shiny eighties style blouse with the puff sleeves any time soon…

Anyway, back to the t-shirt…It’s a great shirt and I love it. It’s black – in fact, it’s very black, and every time I wash it, more black comes out. It’s the kind of item that if it was red, would turn all your underwear pink (which you can of course live with) but since its black, it just turns everything a dirty grey colour.

So, for 20 years I have washed it regularly and more black dye washes out every time but the t-shirt itself has never apparently lost any colour. 20 years of washes and it hasn’t turned grey with losing all that dye every wash. 20 years, hundreds of washes, spin cycles and dripping black dye all over the lawn and it is still reassuringly, well, black. It’s both amazing and a little unsettling and slightly unnerving. Where is all the black coming from, why isn’t it a dish rag by now?

I wonder if the answer is in the design, as this is my Dark Side of the Moon t-shirt that I am talking about…<sup>*1

*1</sup>...and if you were really interested in that link, you should try this.