Bees in a lift.

You think you've heard it all, fish in the sea, birds in the sky, snakes on a plane...and then it happens, you've guessed it, you get bees in a lift!

There I was, minding my own business (I actually do this quite a lot - it's often safer) and was following my normal pattern of heading for my physio's office which is on the first floor. It's actually well into the bowels of the building too, and quite a long way to walk, so I tend to take my chair. Actually it's almost always simpler to do that anyway, because since they moved to the new treatment centre on the second floor, you have to go through the sports science department to get to the treatment room and so there's no waiting room. I just know that if I sit down to rest on one of those fancy exercise machines in that rehab gym, someone will probably shout at me and tell me to 'work harder' and 'stretch it out'! Waiting by simply standing around not really being an option (standing is just about the worst thing for my back), I take my chair - and all of this is just a complicated way of telling you why I always take the lift instead of the stairs!

So, this day, I got to the institute, went inside and found the lift had an out of order sign on it so went back to reception to find a member of staff to take me up in the service lift. Now, the service lift really is in the bowels of the building, it's dark, scary and full of spiders. The doors open on both sides but I've only ever seen the one side open - I think if they ever open the other side it will lead to a dark and gloomy land full of scary monsters where giant crabs roam the countryside and humans are hunted for their sweet meat...

Ugh!

Sorry - I'm back with you...

Anyway, the nice man (let's call him Bob^*1), who took me up in the service lift told me that the other lift was out of order because it was full of bees. I don't think Bob really meant full - like crammed in, like how many students you can get in a telephone box or 'tell me sir, for first prize, how many bees can you fit in this lift?'- not that kind of full! I did wonder though, how the bees got there - I mean - did they form themselves into a man shaped mass to fool the automatic door opener and then follow the sign that says 'Bees this way' to get into the lift (pressing the button to call it with many little furry legs)? Or did they come down the lift shaft and if so, how? Is the shaft open at the top? And that's another thing, why were the bees there? I am assuming that it was not to see how many they could fit in there, and for sure, they weren't trying to find a quick way to the second floor, as that lift is the slowest lift in the whole world. It was donated for the use of the disabled, and everyone knows by now that disabled people can't go fast in lifts...or their eyeballs will explode....or something... Anyway, before I ask any more questions and ramble any more, the short story is that there had been a swarm and Bob said that they had to call in the fumigators to deal with it.

I thought this was actually quite sad, the fact that they killed them, but it reminded me of the FIL who had bees in his chimney. FIL and MIL called the council, who sent a man, who killed that swarm too. I wonder if this is why the bee population is declining? Are bees trying to set up home in completely inappropriate places all around the world and then getting murdered for their efforts?

^*1 This name was MBHG's idea (Maybe blue haired girl). I expect her to heavily feature in my blog over the months to come...

Template Designer.

Now, I hit a few buttons and pressed save when I meant to cancel so my blog now looks like this...

...when I have chance I will see if I can do something better - I was getting bored with the old design anyway - at least that's what I am now telling myself after I saw all my hours of coding sliding away into the ether!

Yes...before you say it, I do have a backup ...its on an external HDD - I just don't know where that is right now...

By the way - to all of you who think I am the most organised person in the whole wide world - here is the proof of what goes on behind the scenes. I am like a little duck...serene in view - legs paddling furiously below the waterline!

55 Yellow Flower Street

I recently had to go to someones house to collect a wooden stand which they had made and wouldn't fit in their car. We are lucky enough to own an estate (station wagon!) and so I volunteered to get it and was given a scrap of paper with the guys address on it.

Now, I was feeling in a very brave mood that day and decided to venture out without much idea of where I was going - after all, he only lived about 5 miles from me so how hard could it be to find his house? Of course, I did have a sat nav in the glove compartment of the car but I was soon to find out that this wasn't too much use when driving along in heavy traffic with no way to pull over....

Anyway, not being completely stupid, I had checked the map on my phone before I'd left the house and I actually had quite a good idea of where I was going before I set out. In fact, I had actually set the phone to give me directions, but I started to disbelieve it quite quickly, when it kept asking me to turn left when I knew that was going to take me somewhere else entirely from where I wanted to be. I've heard those stories about sat navs, the ones where you end up in the river or something and that wasn't going to be me - no siree!

I guess, after a little while, of the phone saying turn left and me realising that actually 5 miles from my house may as well be 105 miles for all the familiarity of the area that I had, I thought that I maybe should admit defeat, stop the car and either ask for directions or turn on the real Tom Tom who (so far) has never let me down. I pulled into a side road, only to notice that it was Heather Street and Clover Street was directly opposite. Now I took notice of this, because I was looking for Daffodil street and I was starting to notice some kind of a flower trend going on here and much like Reggie Perrin's poets estate it seemed that I was certainly in the vicinity. I pulled back out of the junction, headed on up the road and there it was, the street I was looking for. I found the house number, spotted some timber in the front yard (which seemed promising given what I was collecting) and knocked on the door.

It was at this point that the trip started to get rather bizarre as a small child (SC) answered the door, rather than the 6ft something chap that I was expecting and a strange conversation ensued:

Me: "Is your dad in?"
SC: "No"
Me: "Are you sure?"
SC: "Yes.."
Me: "Oh, I'm supposed to meet him. Are you sure you are sure?"
SC: (Looks at me as if I am stupid and nods)
Me: (Thinking maybe I made a mistake - after all, I was supposed to meet the guy) "Um,is his name Mark?"
SC: "No"
Me: "Are you sure?" (don't ask me why I asked this, thinking back it was a a stupid thingto say!)
SC: "Yes" (again looking at me as if I am stupid)

He then turned on his heel and shut the door in my face - presumably having decided that I was actually a loony...
I started to head back to the car but was stopped by the sound of a woman's voice behind me - it sounded cross, in the way that only a mother who feels her child is being terrorised, can sound. I turned slowly, expecting the worst...as she demanded to know what I wanted. I started to explain and almost immediately was struck by a thought...

....I bashed my forehead with the heel of my hand...

"B*gger" This is Buttercup Street, isn't it? I wanted Daffodil!"

If you can slink, getting into a car, I did it and headed off round the corner to find Daffodil Street and Mark - who was there, as arranged.

Some time later at home, I told hubby the story of my trip and he howled with laughter. He made the point though that my head seems to be wired up in a fairly wonky fashion. After all, he said, it's not like there was a picture on the street sign to show that they were both yellow flowers - you just knew they were both yellow and so your brain made the connection without even seeing the wording on the sign - that's just weird that is!

I am dead..

This isn't about me....but it made me laugh anyway...

A more mature couple awoke from a really good nights sleep...

He takes her hand and she responds:

"Don't touch me."

He asked:

"Why not?"

She answered,

"Because I'm dead"'

The husband asked...

"What are you talking about? We're both lying here in bed together and talking to one another!"

She said,

"No...

... I'm definitely dead.. "

He insisted:

"You are not dead. What in the world makes you think you're dead?"

"Because I woke up this morning and nothing hurts."

Testing with jam...

I've been using computers for a very long time now - in fact I've actually been using a personal computer at home since a time when I had no idea how to use it at all! Hubby persuaded me that having a computer would be a great idea and so we spent a big chunk of my severance pay on something which was extremely whizz bang and up to the minute at the time. It really was something - it came with 3 disk drives - a 3.5, a 5.25 and a 20Mb hard drive - and yes, you read that right, it was 20 megabytes, not gigabytes ^*1. For the techies amongst you, the drive wasn't SATA, it wasn't even IDE, in fact, it was something called RLL which I think (since this was such an archaic device) probably stood for 'revolves lots and lots'. When we bought it, we also bought a copy of a new operating system called Windows, which we had seen demonstrated and a copy of Dos, which had to be installed before anything could be done at all. I famously rang hubby up in work (yes, there were phones at that time) and asked how I could get the Dos OS onto the computer, because it came with no instructions at all. Anyway, hubby said "put the disk in the drive and then type 'copy a twinkle dot twinkle c twinkle dot twinkle" - which just meant nothing at all to me! Anyway, after a bit of explaining, I managed it and after these first small steps things progressed pretty rapidly. They had to really, because the damn thing didn't work (twinkle or no twinkle) and I ended up on the phone to help desk - before I knew it I was thrust into the bowels of Edlin and on a really steep learning curve. Eventually, with our new copy of DR-Dos (not MS-Dos!) working, I installed Windows only to find that it was Windows 2 - not 3 (which was what had been demonstrated) and it mostly wasn't even in colour and so ensued another long story...

All of this is rather a long way from where I started with this entry, but you know me, never known to ramble ;-)

Its strange really, the way that your mind bunny hops from one thing to another, because all these memories came flooding back because of the new iPad. I know, I know, there's hardly any link at all between the iPad and our first PC apart from the fact that they are both a kind of computer but there you go - you are about to find out why my mind did the hopping:

I read a review recently on the iPad and about how robust it is with it's aluminium back and scratch resistant screen - heck, it even said you could spread it with jam and it would still work! Well, that reminded me of when they first started producing CDs (which was not that long before the time that we had that first PC) and I heard an interview on the news on Radio1 which was saying how amazing these new fangled shiny music discs were. It was said they were so amazing that you could even spread them with jam and they would still play. I mean, what it is with jam? Is there a special department in every new technology company where they test new things out with foodstuffs? Does some little guy with a clipboard and a white coat (with a row of pens in his top pocket of course) approach the boss and go "Mr Jobs, it's OK, you can release this one, it's withstood mashed potato and apple crumble - as soon as it's passed the jam test we're good to go!"

If you happen to work for a new technology company, please let me know why you don't use marmalade? Is it, as I suspect, that the coefficient of stickiness to lumps of peel doesn't produce precisely calculable results - or is it just that Stephen Fry only puts strawberry jam on his toast?


^*1 Huge, when most were only 10Mb!

Reading Meme

This is a meme on reading which I got from arbitraryconstant (who got it from normblog and More Than Mind Games) . I haven’t done one for so long and I always think they are interesting and/or fun. If you'd like to fill it out, please do and leave a link to your blog in the comments.

Do you snack while reading? > I don't normally, but I did fancy a nibble when reading Silence of the Lambs.

What is your favourite drink while reading? > At the risk of sounding fixated on Thomas Harris, I am partial to a glass of red wine (although my real preference lies with Merlot, not Chianti).

Do you tend to mark your books while you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you? > I have occasionally pencilled marks in textbooks, but even with a pencil I feel guilty. I favour scraps of paper with added notes tucked in at the appropriate place.

How do you keep your place? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book open flat? > I love bookmarks but always seem to forget them and either use any old receipt or scrap of paper handy or (sharp intake of breath), turn the corner over. I do have bookmark with '50 books to read before you die' on it and before I die, am determined to read them all!

Fiction, non-fiction or both? > I've read both but I am a trash fiction reader first and foremost. I'm not ashamed to say that it's escapism all the way for me (as long as it's not romantic (phtew - spit!)) trash!

Do you tend to read to the end of a chapter or can you stop anywhere? > I love to read to the end of a chapter - it satisfies the 'completer finisher' in me but due to the nature of some of my reading time (and the type of books I read), it's not always possible.

Are you the type of person to throw a book across the room or on the floor if the author irritates you? > Gosh no, um, does anyone?

If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop and look it up right away? > Um, actually the kinds of things I normally read don't have long words! Seriously, if I can't figure it out from context or derivation then I will mostly gloss over it until later. Occasionally it's unavoidable and you have to stop, in which case I'll ask hubby (who's good at words) or (if I have to), look it up.

What are you currently reading? > I just started reading The Final Reckoning by Sam Bourne only to discover I'd already read it and had forgotten it because it wasn't that great. His book The Righteous Men was superb though.

What is the last book you bought? > Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett - haven't read it yet. I've always loved his books because they are just about the only ones I've ever read that have made me laugh out loud. On the Terry P subject, I thought his Dimbleby lecture was superb ...

Do you have a favourite time/place to read? > My favourite is in my armchair - at night but I actually do most of my reading outside while waiting for other people.

Do you prefer series books or stand-alones? > I like both and can't decide.

Is there a specific book or author you find yourself recommending over and over? > Not really, just about everyone I know has different taste from me; I have recommended individual books when I felt someone else would enjoy them.

How do you organize your books (by genre, title, author’s last name, etc.)? > I group by Author on the whole but I have 3 'reading shelves' which contain a mix of books I haven't read yet but want to get round to. They are organised in the order in which I'd like to read them. If they weren't in any order at all I would feel pretty unnerved, but that's just me. I have so far resisted the temptation to make a list...

Is equality that simple?

Using a wheelchair is an odd thing - on the one hand, it is perceived by many to be disabling, hideous and the sign of an ended life but to others it is an enabling tool that leads to a measure of equality in an unequal world. In my mind, there is no doubt that it's an unequal world and by this I don't mean simply in terms of disability - let's face it, some people are born rich and some poor - so, that's not very equal, is it? Anyway, there's lots of talk about making society more equal and disability rights (along with such things as women's rights) are among those that are high on the agenda for some people. I suspect that part of the reason for this is that these are among the more visible and measurable ways for people to express their acceptance of all those in society- for example, you can count disabled spaces, or number of female employees.

It's interesting, this idea of equality (and I will stick to being disability specific here as it's what I have most experience with), as I was brought up to try and do my very best to be just like everyone else. Funnily, this did not mean that my life was in any way equal to anyone else at all, even though that's what my parents were striving for. I went to a mainstream school and did pretty much all the things that other kids did (except ballet!) but in fact the 'equality' came at a cost. In fact, to look equal and achieve as much as others did, I had to just work harder to be as good as them. Things took longer for me and they were much more tiring and/or painful, but on the face of it, it looked like stuff was just as normal for me as the rest of the world.

It's also interesting therefore, that over the years I have come to think that equality shouldn't necessarily look the same for all - women do not has to wear men's suits to be good in business and disabled people can have an equally useful life as anyone else regardless of their differences. We all know this, it's old hat, but I was thinking about it recently when I was reading a blog entry by Bad Cripple about a recent visit to Home Depot where an employee told them to "stop speeding" in the store. BC was really upset that the employee felt that they could just chip in, bringing attention to the wheelchair and make a joke at his expense (you can read the entry here) but I wondered if there was more to it than that. In these instances, firstly, would the employee be making a joke with any of the other shoppers, the old ones or the red haired ones; in other words are they in fact just a bit socially inept? OK, maybe not, but in my experience, there are lots of very well meaning people who have no idea how to approach the disabled, but who want to connect with them in order to help, or who just want to chat to them in an equal way. They try to make jokes, offer if they can help in the oddest of situations (I once had someone offer to push me on a railway platform when I was talking to the BMB who was walking beside me!) and sometimes seem as though they have no concept of equality at all.

I wonder if they behave in this way because the alternative might be to completely ignore you - and down this route lies the whole 'does he take sugar^1*' aspect of disability. I guess the fact of it all is that you don't wish to be ignored too, as it just makes an already difficult life even harder, so human contact, if well meaning, (regardless of how clumsily it is handled), is the preferable circumstance. I have recently been in a situation where it is going to be hard for me to attend an important event because it is assumed that I will cope, because no one is talking about my disability and my personal situation is being ignored. Part of me (the well meaning part) thinks this may be that those concerned think that it is equality to treat me the same as all the other attendees when in fact it has the opposite effect on my ability to attend. I wanted to be asked if I had any needs, I didn't want to have to phone anyone or make a big fuss or insist on anything at all, I just wanted to be contacted and I wouldn't have cared if someone used the wrong language.

The fact of it all is that it's a horribly complicated life in which none of us are in any way equal to anyone else. We all look different, have different levels of intelligence and standards of education, we have different levels of ability in sport, art and practicality and some of us have disabilities. There's nothing we can do about all of this, we are all different and that's just the way it is. When society talks about equality it should be about making it easier for those whose differences make it more difficult to do the same as everyone else (if that makes sense). Drop kerbs are a simple case in point - they make it easier to get a wheelchair or kid's pushchair across the street - making it just like it is for anyone else - thus generating equality. Action needs to be taken to create equal circumstances and for action to be taken the people need to make contact with each other - however poorly...

By the way, if any of this entry seems rather rambling, then forgive me. I have been interrupted every 5 minutes by hubby who is trying to do something new on his laptop. He assumes that I know how to do what he wants to do (when all I would do it point and click and keep my fingers crossed!) and in between those 5 minutes he has been talking to himself and muttering - I've just had a few issues in keeping concentrated...!

^1* "Does He Take Sugar" was a programme (or at least part of a programme) that was first broadcast on the radio 30 or more years ago. I attempted to find out some more info on it when I wrote this entry, but despite the fact that the phrase has found it's way into society as a guide to how not to treat disabled people, there is remarkably little out there on it. If anyone can enlighten me further, I'd be grateful as this programme had a real impact on my family as I was growing up.

On plumbing and cats, sealant and printing

A little while ago we had a leak from the toilet and I called the plumber. It was odd really, because (in the way of such things) I decided that it would be a good idea to make extra use of him while he was there and so I asked him to fit a new sink. I did actually have a sink that needed fitting - not something I always have just lying around, but this time I did. We had, after all, intended fitting a new sink in the downstairs cloakroom, but it had turned into one of those more complicated jobs and so we had bought the sink and taps and then had them sitting around until we got round to doing the job. I'm sure everyone knows how it goes - we need a new sink, so we need a new countertop. We couldn't get one the right depth and so we had to take the cupboard to pieces and cut it down so that the countertop would fit. The new sink was a very slightly different size to the old one so that meant new tiles for the splashback and then the new tiles looked so nice that a spot of redecoration was called for. To make matters worse, the toilet leak turned out to be a faulty cistern and so we decided to replace it with the one we took out of the upstairs bathroom when we replaced the suite up there which we hadn't got round to getting rid of and which was in perfect condition. In fact, the bathroom suite had to be replaced because the bath went and ....well, oh gosh, I think I'm getting all rather distracted here! The thing is, I was going to say, quite simply, that the plumber came to call (not on a Monday morning!).

Our plumber is a real treasure and does good quality work and so when he fitted the sink, he also applied sealant all around the outside edge as a finishing touch. He cleaned the nozzle off on his sealant with a tissue of some kind (he's very neat) and was chatting to me as he tidied away his tools. Unbeknownst to both of, the cat was sniffing around (that would be Clumsy) and (because he is clumsy) managed to trip over the tissue as he passed it. I guess this wouldn't have been a problem if only he had then gone to lie somewhere quietly out of the way but he didn't. The thing is you see, that Clumsy has an obsession with my computer printer (as I know I have mentioned before) and although it seems unrelated to plumbing, I am sure that those of you who know me will gather that you are about to discover some kind of link. The plumber needed to go on to a new customer after me - somewhere he'd never been before and so he asked me (innocently enough) if I knew where it was and I didn't but I said "I know a man who does" (or who can) …Now of course, that’s a bit of a fib as I know a machine that does, but the 'knowing a man who…' expression became rooted in our household in much the way that 'it does what it says on the tin' or even 'simples'…. In fact (at the risk of digressing), that is a constant source of amazement to me - the fact that we absorb good advertising slogans - over the years we have asked Sid (I don't know who he was or anything, I just know we should ask him), famously almost everything these days does (or doesn't) do what it says on the tin (or box or bag...) , we work rest and play and many other things too - all crept into our lives from the back of some advertising executives head. These days we have 'its only a fur wound' to go with 'simples' and that's just from one campaign. Mind some are a bit odd - I distinctly remember from my childhood 'there are two men in my life, one is my husband, the other is my wife'…but maybe I misheard it or something? That's like those records you hear isn't it - the ones that go something like 'four hundred children and a dog in the field'…? I think I'm getting distracted here..I shall go back to the plumber…

So, where was I? Ah yes, the plumber wanted directions to his next job and so I went to the AA website (a very nice man, a very, very nice man…) and typed in the address for him. It gave me directions and I pressed the print button to give a copy to the plumber. It's at this point that Clumsy comes hurtling into the room as he hears the valves warming up in our printer - he leaps up onto the desk and thrusts his arm, complete with tissue attached to it by a large gob of sealant, straight into the slot in the printer. I had visions of the sealant acting like superglue and him being glued permanently in place, completely ruining any chances of photocopying anything ever again…

…well, as it happens, we got lucky (or he did) as he timed it perfectly - thrusting his arm in as the printer thrust the paper out. The two met with a rustling tearing sound (this often happens when he meets our printer and usually involves yet another copy being done (sigh!)) - but then, there was a distinct schlopppp sound as he withdrew his arm, minus tissue and sealant and the paper emerged with the offending article firmly attached. OK so I did have to reprint, but hey, the print head was clean, the paper slot was clean and the cat was clean …you couldn't have planned for a better outcome…even my language was clean and it surely wouldn't have been with any of the other possible outcomes...

A Scoliosis surprise...

I suddenly realised that I have been a little remiss in keeping you all up to date with news - instead favouring men in tutus and disability wonderings and so, I thought, since this blog started its life as some extension of the Scoliosis support forums, that I really ought to mention bendy backs from time to time. In fact, I really ought to talk about my bendy back, since this blog was supposed to be about my experiences, wasn't it?

My bendy back, despite its 30-odd degree curves, (well hidden inside my straight exterior) and held together with scaffolding and screws, serves me well. There are some who would say that I don't treat it too kindly, especially when they see how I wince when I drive over speed bumps, but there you go. Actually, I don't wince that much when I drive over speed bumps, despite the fact that I possibly drive everywhere faster than just about anyone else I know, but at least when I drive I have the steering wheel to hang on to. It's an odd thing being a passenger in a car - you have nothing to hang on to, every bump and you are tossed around like a little rag doll - to be fair, its not the getting thrown in the air I care about, it’s the coming down on the end of the rod that does the damage... in fact, several of my friends are now saying "well, you try doing that with a rod up your ar*e", before I manage to do so. Cars are kind of OK, at least my feet normally touch the floor, which helps and being able to see out the front (thus getting some advance warning) also helps, as you can boost yourself up from the seat so that the springs don't hit you in the rear end quite so hard when you land! Nope, cars are alright, its coaches and busses that are the killers. You have no idea what is coming, my little legs have no way of reaching the floor and just dangle in space until I am hurled upwards at maximum velocity, only to experience a tiny 'oh no!' moment (just like Wile.E Coyote) just before I come down to earth with a, very much unwanted, bang. This is usually followed by a string of expletives (mostly expressing the term 'ow!') and then a chorus of voices saying …"you try doing that…"!

Anyway, I digress a bit, except that speed bumps are some of the more uncomfortable (nay painful) things that go on with my back. Those of you who follow my back know that I am not pain free, but I am in a so much better place than I was when my head was increasingly moving sideways as if planning on driving with my head permanently stuck out the window ^*1. I feel that I cope with my back pretty fine, I am happy with my results and well, that's about it really. My only concern really has been that I am supposed to get an annual checkup with my consultant and I have been waiting for my latest follow up since 2007. Yes, you heard me right, 2007. To be truthful, I have actually seen my consultant once since then, but only because I paid to see him privately over a concern that my physio had! I have not seen him at his NHS clinic, even though he told me that he 'wanted to keep a close eye on me'. If this is a close eye, I hate to think what happens when you slip below his radar!

It's not like I haven't been chasing for an appointment either - oh no, every 6 months or so, I phone up and speak to the Bureaucratic monster lady and she fobs me off for a bit and so on and so on. This year I decided to create just a teeny bit more and told her that I would phone her every week until I had some news and lo and behold, she discovered, while I was on the phone(!) that she did have an appointment after all. Well, fancy that….! Hmm, if anyone else ever tells me what a wonderful healthcare system we have in this country, I shall, I shall….well, do I shall something…!

Anyway, back to the beginning, having rambled off topic for much too long. I did actually get to the clinic and after an hour and 20 minutes wait (good old NHS again!) I got to see my consultant. To be fair, he is a really nice guy and probably majorly overworked, but all the same it's still not a great system. Anyway, he had a little look at me and a chat and then gave me some news I really wasn't expecting. He said, you know how you only have one joint that moves at the bottom of your back (L5), well, I fear that it is unstable …and by the way, where do you get your pain? I pointed to there (there and there) and he went Oh. Mmm. Ah. All fairly closely followed by 'we may have to look at extending your fusion - top and bottom'. I think my eyes opened wide, and my mouth went into a little tiny O shape, and it was my time to say Oh. Mmm. Ah. It was all rather unexpected really…

Next he decided to check when I last had a full scoliogram and CT scan and discovered it was in 2006. Yes, really in 2006, the year that I had the surgery done - that 2006! That really is a 'close eye' isn't it? Anyway, that's where we are now, my appointment came through yesterday for the CT and he gave me the number of his private secretary instead of me having to contact that BML again. This is so that once the scan is done, I might hope to see him before the end of the year - maybe even before the end of the summer. I actually find all the waiting quite frightening really - what if I had had to wait for my achalasia operation (which I had done privately) - there I was diagnosis to surgery in 3 months (and would have been quicker if it was easier to diagnose) - if I had had to wait 3 year, and on a good week only lost a 1lb in weight throughout that time, well, it doesn't really bear thinking about. Anyway, watch this space for more news - I promise to be a good blog mama and write often ;-)

^*1 For you all across the pond, please remember the driver sits in the right hand side of the car …and yes I know that seems odd!

BTW, I know there are a ton of broken smiley links in the BML post, but hey, I only have so many hours today, so please ignore the pictures. Would you have time to examine all your oldest blog entries to make sure that they are all 100% intact? No? So - please give me a break!

Athletes and Dancers

I often read WCD's blog and it makes me wonder about stuff. In fact I read lots of blog entries that make me wonder about stuff (as well as smile, laugh, cry and empathise and generally provoke all kinds of emotional response!) but she's amongst my favourites. Anyway she was talking about dance and injury and it made me think how true this was for athletes too. I get physio every two weeks and my physio is in the sports science department of a large sports training centre. The treatment benches are always full of athletes from table tennis players, runners, weight lifters, archers, badminton player and judo guys. Occasionally you see big rugby players and rowers - in fact, you name it - most sports have probably been represented. The nearest we get to dance I think would be the gymnasts and I don't know how many disabled ones of them that there are - is there disabled gymnastics? There should be if there is dance, surely?

Anyway injury in sport seems to be pretty common - people are trying to run faster, jump higher, lift more or push harder. All these athletes work so close to the edge so much of the time that you really get to see people who are pushing their bodies to the limit and still expect them to work perfectly. This is especially true in disability sport (and dance I guess) where those who choose not to accept their limitations require and expect their bodies to perform at their peak without question. Often, they expect them to perform at the peak performance of their able bodied counterparts which is amazing when you come to really think about it. People like Oscar Pistorius and Jody Cundy are trying to qualify for able bodied teams and they are not alone in this desire . I wonder what it is that drives people like us - is it that we are just stupid and cannot recognise that our bodies were not designed to do all of this stuff? But then what of runners like Kelly Holmes or cyclists like Chris Hoy? Are their bodies doing what they were born to do or did they get to the top by gritting their teeth and pushing through the pain. I wonder if the injuries they picked up along the way were a warning to them that their bodies were not designed to be abused in that way. In fact , do you ever wonder if pushing your body to out perform itself, and everyone else, is just another form of abuse like cigarettes alcohol or drugs. Plainly no one who looks at a top athlete sees someone who is abusing their body in any way, but day in day out, these guys are pushing and pushing, running faster, harder and longer, swimming until their lungs burst, pushing until their fingers bleed... and along the way picking up small niggles, an injury here, a fall there all of which land them back on the physio bench. All pretty deep questions eh? and ones I don't have any real answers to either.

The only thing I know for sure, is that I don't know that any of these people were born to do what they do - sure, they plainly have some kind of basic talent for what they do, but what pushes them forward is their mental approach. They see no limits to what they can try to do and they set themselves up to just try harder in pursuit of their dreams . They judge that the risk to their bodies in pushing ever onwards is an acceptable one. They are prepared to put up with the pain of injury as well as the pain of training. They see the reward (whether that be perfection of the move, accolade from an audience or a gold medal) and they decide that it is worth whatever it takes to get it.

So, there's all this talk of dancers and athletes and I guess quite a few readers out there are wondering just how an entry like this relates to them. Well maybe it doesn't at all but I think it's true that we are all faced from time to time with fairly debilitating stuff -pain, colds and flu, arthritis, stomach ache, migraine - you name it we all struggle with stuff. Sometimes we really are too ill to do anything and sometimes we just don't want to go to work and are favouring a duvet day and I guess these represent the extremes of the things that we are faced with not being able (or not wanting) to do. Assuming though that you fall somewhere in between those 2 extremes, you often find that how ill you feel depends on what you are faced with doing - i.e. what your 'reward' is. If you are going out with your friends to do something you booked tickets for ages ago and are really looking forward to then you are more inclined to push yourself to do it, compared to, say, yet another boring day in the office. Risk and reward - it's true right through life - we all have that capacity to push ourselves a little bit harder if it's for the 'right' outcome. Those disabled people who push themselves to out perform their able bodied counterparts are just the same - it's just that they are prepared to take the greater risk - even if it does mean injury along the way. You see, mentally, for them the reward is worth the risk, worth all the pain, worth all the potential for injury and worth all the time on the physio bench. I guess that it all just equates to the fact that they just figure it's always worth going in to the office (if humanly possible) if there's a pay check at the end of the month.

Emotion on show.

I was at the hospital the other day and because the NHS is a slow lumbering beast I was sat for ages and ages in the waiting room. Waiting rooms generally are quite strange places, usually full of old copies of National Geographic, Hello magazine and Hamster Breeders Weekly and even if they're not, then there is often a TV to watch. Most people stare gormlessly at the TV if its on, regardless of what it is showing - that's no reflection on the type of clinic people are waiting for, its just that TV can be hypnotic like that (even if it is showing some wild daytime programme like Celebrity In The Attic Tells All To An Audience Before Auctioning It). Anyway, unusually, on this day, the TV was off and there were no magazines to sit and read and I was amazed to note that people actually started to talk to each other.

There were a couple of clinics on that afternoon and about half the waiting room (its a big room) was full of (mostly women) waiting for the breast clinic. Its an awful wonderful clinic, full of many, many people whose emotions are so close to the surface and to me, that made it even more unusual that they had started chatting. It was so busy as well, not a seat to spare and I noticed that several of the people were looking around, and it seemed to me that they were wondering who was with who. Some were obvious - the lady with the very flat chest and the wig and two friends (they looked more like friends than relatives) - each one holding a hand, like two bodyguards, one for each side. Close to her was a lady with a headscarf with a gentleman (husband?) who dropped off to sleep while she read the paper (taken out of her own handbag) and generally looked very unconcerned. I wondered about the headscarf - more people seemed to look at her, than the bald lady in the row behind who was sat next to two men who came in together. One of them was in full army fatigues and his friend was casually dressed in shorts and a t-shirt - they just didn't seem to go together at all , but they went in to the clinic together (and came out smiling). There was a family- mum, daughter, husband, child (mum and daughter looked so alike) - they also went in - en masse, and also came out smiling. That wasn't true for everyone - as I said, it was both wonderful (for those who came out smiling) and awful (for those who didn't) - so many people, so many emotions...


When people started to talk, it wasn't about the emotions though, it wasn't about their lumps and bumps or their fear, or that very British subject of the weather, no, it was about the waiting times...! Now, I know this is the NHS and so this shouldn't have been an unexpected subject, but I guess I have never been in any hospital where there seemed to be so much discussion around the room. I was with someone who had a 2pm appointment and we were sat next to a lady whose appointment was 1.35 and as the waiting room was heaving and we were all packed in like sardines, somehow the subject seemed to spread outwards in a kind of ripple. I think it was the 1.35 lady who started it all, because she had been there for a while (she was early for her appointment) and at around 2.10 she pointed out the consultant and his minions who were just crossing the waiting room having apparently just arrived (or just come from lunch). I just couldn't believe that they (there were about 4 doctors/consultants and various nurses) would ever manage to get through all the ladies (and gents) who were waiting, there were just so many patients. Its the incredible thing about the NHS targets from both a patient and doctor perspective - I mean OK they started late, but maybe they finished morning clinic late - which would have been inevitable if they had a similar number of people to see. The thing is, that targets say you have to be seen within 2 weeks if you have a lump, but the clinic is only held one day a week and there are only a finite number of doctors to go round - just how is the system supposed to cope? The way it copes we discovered, as the conversation ripple spread outwards, is that they make lots of appointments all for the same time - there were three "1.35's" that were in our immediate vicinity and four "2pms". Now if there were 4 doctors then that might have been OK, but that was just the people sitting close to us, so I'm guessing that there were more than that number of patients for each slot. I am also guessing that the 8 (yes eight!) receptionists behind the main desk were in charge of meeting the NHS targets (or at least their managers are) and they can fit all these patients in by just magically booking more and more appointments all for the same time. It all makes you wonder though - if they had fewer managers and receptionists, maybe they could afford a couple of extra doctors and the waiting room wouldn't be so crowded. But then hey, if it wasn't, then we wouldn't have started by talking about waiting times and somehow ended up talking about baby sleep patterns and politics. At the moment politics has been a hot topic in the UK so that wasn't too surprising but I can't say I really expected baby behaviour - even when we are talking emotion…after all, no one threw a tantrum because they had to wait!

What an odd place...

I recently had to drive to the far side of the country and I think I encountered what is possibly the oddest stretch of road anywhere in the world (or in Britain at least). Now, it may just be that I was in a funny sort of mood and so I noticed some of these things in a bit of a different light to the way that I would another time, but all the same - wondering didn't begin to describe the way my mind was working after I saw all of this stuff.

It all started innocently enough as I saw 3 magpies on the side of the road. That was it, I thought, three for a girl, I thought...that'll be me - I'm a girl (well I used to be one anyway...I guess I'm a bit more womanly these days...) I must admit, I wonder about magpies as well. I think when I was a child (about 100 years ago) there really weren't that many magpies about and I've often thought that that was why the one for sorrow verse was invented. The strange thing is that these days, there seem to be lots and lots of magpies about -of course, plenty of single ones but also lots of 2's, 3's and more and I think if they were really so common when the verse was written, why would anyone bother to write it. Surely the point of poems like that, is because seeing five magpies (for silver) is a rarity... Or am I missing something here?

...Anyway, here I am, digressing and waffling again (I don't do that often, do I?) LOL! Anyway (I don't say that much either, do I?), shortly after that, I saw three wood pigeons together and that I really did think was odd. I mean, we get wood pigeons in our garden, but only either singly or in pairs...in fact, our pair, really looks like "a couple" - like they were married or something, but I don't think I've ever seen 3 at the same time. I guess they could have been gearing up for a menage a trois or something but its still odd. So, anyway as in the great tradition of things happening in threes, I then saw 3 long tailed tits together and I thought they were pretty rare too. So there you go, all quite a strange start to my journey really, but it didn't end there...oh no...I told you I saw a lot of odd stuff and so it carried on....and on...

It was not long past the magpies that I came across a sign indicating a layby 1 mile ahead - nothing strange there you might think except the sign said:

"Layby 1 mile. For Emergencies only" !

(They did not add the exclamation mark!)

I fell to wondering, am I going to have a breakdown in exactly one mile - is anyone going to have a breakdown in exactly one mile? How do you know you are going to break down in one mile's time - do you hear a strange noise coming from under the car and think 'Hey, I think my car is just about to break - I'll wait a mile and see what happens' - maybe you feel sick - 'Ew, yuck, I feel sick, I'll just hang on from hurling my breakfast for another 60 seconds until I get to that layby'.... Now, I know I'm labouring the point here, but I'm sure you know where I am coming from...it was kind of a strange sign to see...

It got even more surreal and bizarre after that as the next sign I was an overhead gantry sign which simply said "Animals in the road" - just that - no more information than that, even though these new matrix signs allow way more space than just for that. They could have said "Warning Animals in Road" or "Warning Cows in Road" or anything like that but just animals in road sounded like it could be anything - I wasn't far from a safari park - maybe it was lions (or tigers or bears) I even idly wondered if it was an instruction - was it compulsory? If I had a dog in the back of my car, should I put him in the road? Should animals be on the road and not in cars? Maybe it meant that only animals should be in the road - maybe it was me that was in the wrong in my little car - do humans classify as animals??.... OK OK so, you can tell, I was really rambling by this point but in my defence, I had had a late night the night before and I'd had to get up early to drive across the country - anyone's mind would be wandering...

It was about this point, when my mind had gone off on a tangent and I was thinking that I really did need to stop at the next services and as a bare minimum get caffeine inside me (and hopefully chocolate too) that I saw an even odder sight. In fact, I couldn't quite grasp it with my befuddled mind and when I did get my head around what I was looking at I really started to rue the lack of a camera. I saw ...wait for it... a man on a motorbike...not just any man though, this one was wearing a tutu....yes, a tutu....the kind of thing ballerinas wear...that kind of tutu. Hairy legs, motorbike boots, ape-hanger bars on the bike, Harley Davidson sticker on the tank and a tutu (like this one)...and in pink (of course!). OK, now get this when I say it didn't end there...he was wearing a proper bike jacket with this - black leather (no fringes though) and attached to the back of the jacket was a pair of wings. These were not the kind of typical Hell's Angel type wings you might see on such jackets - but I guess they did go with the tutu as they were pink and looked like they were a fine net stretched over a coat hanger - very fetching as they flapped around behind him in the breeze. To this day I'm not really sure if the lack of coffee was making me hallucinate but all in all, it added to quite one of the weirdest trips I have ever been on....

Warning light - the clue's in the name!

Warning: "a) a sign or signal designed to instill caution in its recipient"
but also
b) an amazing album by the oh-so-talented band green day. second only to their most recent album, american idiot.

Sorry, just got a bit distracted! Anyway, I was in the car the other day and I started wondering about the oddness of some of the (many) warning lights that are on (mostly modern) cars.

A few days ago I was in the car listening to the directions that my sat nav was giving me and therefore I had to turn around in a gateway - as everyone does, eventually! Anyway, it was a gateway to a field and the ground was a little muddy, it being the time of year when tractors are pulled out of the shed and go off roaming the fields, trying to earn their supper. In the mud, I suffered a weeny bit of wheel spin and a little light lit up on the dashboard of my car - 'Warning' it flashed at me - 'your wheels are spinning'…Well no sh*t Sherlock, like I couldn't tell that from the whizzy sound they were making as I was going nowhere and the amount of mud that was flying past my rear view mirror…

Anyway, after a few seconds of whizzing, I got a bit of traction, I moved back onto the road and the light went out, but it made me wonder about all the other superfluous warning lights that there are, especially those on cars, you see... we've had a few…(warning lights and cars!)

Once, we had a Renault 5 and it didn't have a temperature gauge (as was the custom at the time) - instead it had a warning light on the dashboard for the temperature of your engine. I actually thought this was pretty nifty to have such an uncluttered display panel until one day when I was in the car waiting for hubby to come out of the dentist's. Now I know you're wondering what changed my mind at exactly that point in time, but because I was a) in the car and b) bored, I decided to read the instruction book for the car ("First find your car…") - anyway, in there I discovered that the little water warning light was intended to come on if your car boiled over - not 'you are overheating, please stop your vehicle and find liquid to pour into the engine', nope it was more along the lines of 'Caution, you have overheated, your engine is about to seize at any second, if you do not stop this car 5 minutes ago, it will go bang very loudly and your con rod will disappear out through a hole in your front wing that you didn't previously own…' Well, you get the gist…

You see once you get started on these things, there's no stopping the lunacy…and there's another one - brake warning lights. Our car has 2 of them, loosely labelled the stopped and the not stopping lights (or something like that). The one indicates that your handbrake is still on - which I always find is also indicated by the fact that I am going nowhere fast while the engine whines very VERY loudly and smoke emanates from the wheels. The other one is the one that tells you your brakes have worn away - which is also indicated by a complete lack of stopping power and of course, the noise warning of the sound of tortured metal on metal…

I wonder too about fog light warning lights - I mean, fancy labelling most of these in such a similar colour to the dashboard display that few people can actually see it. Hmmm (am I grumbling here…?)

The latest thing appears to be the engine management light that most cars nowadays seem to have. This is a little light that is set by the manufacturers to light up at a random rate in between services. Often this little light goes out by itself if you ignore it for long enough, especially if the car is giving no other signs of distress, such as not going, making grinding, drumming or bleating noises or juddering uncontrollably every time to take it out of the drive. If you are foolish enough to take hubby to the dentist (or any other family member) and therefore read the manual, it will tell you to take your car to the dealer if this little light lights up. The dealer will turn the light off for £40 and reset the random switch for you…

I suppose it could be worse as we did have one car which mysteriously used to cut out at 70mph in a random fashion (usually in the outside lane of the motorway) - which is a whole other story in fact. I'm thinking then that some kind of warning light might have been useful in that situation - one that would go 'warning, your engine is about to stop working completely, all functions will cease, you will not be assimilated, you will not pass go…' …or something…. At the very least it could have said 'Warning, let this be a reminder to you, never buy a second hand Fiat…'!

I think I should stop here, I'm getting all hot under the collar and I'm starting to wonder if I am reading way too much Jeremy Clarkson...

This should not be funny at all…

I know a guy (CWP)^*1 and he recently told me a story that should not have been funny at all, but the way he told it just had us all howling with laughter…I will leave you to make up your own minds, but please don't shoot the messenger - I'm only telling you what he told me!

CWP was in China and decided to take a day trip to the Great Wall. Of course, there's nothing funny about that at all, after all, it's what you do, isn't it - Great Wall, Forbidden City, other tourist sites - not funny, nope. Anyway, CWP uses a wheelchair and owing to the fact that he was on his own, he was allocated a Chinese guide by the tour operators that he booked with. He was really pleased about that and because the Chinese are helpful and polite he had a really good time - his guide wasn't a funny man, but that suited CWP just fine.

Now at the time, the Chinese authorities had installed a lift (elevator) to get people to the top of a section of the Great Wall (I think they may have actually removed it after the incident, to stop other insane wheelchair users up there) and CWP was really excited to go up and see the view. I guess it was after he got to the top that he realised that as a wheelchair user there were a few limitations with the top of the wall that he hadn't previously expected. First off, it wasn't flat and so a certain amount of pushing by both him (and his guide) was required - especially since although CWP is a big guy, due to his disability, he's not really that strong. Anyway, he struggled and pulled on his wheels and his little guide pushed and struggled and they got him to the highest point on that section of the wall. He stopped to draw breath and to take some photos and sent his guide back down to the bottom of the slope to wait for him. It was sometime around this point that things started to go wrong, when he encountered another of the limitations of the wall - you see, hundreds of years and thousands of feet have polished the stone surface to a slick sheen, if not a high gloss. Now all the wheelchair users out there are probably just a bit ahead of me here and are all anticipating what happened next, in exactly the way you do when you hear about Paddy and the bucket but for the rest of you I will explain…

CWP started down the slope - he gripped his wheel rims to help him brake - he continued to move - he gripped harder - he continued to move - he took a death grip on the wheels and looked down at the ground - his wheels were not going round at all, but the world was moving quicker and quicker as he started to slide down the highly polished slope - gathering pace all the while, he started to go into a panic and it was at this point that he looked up….

…only to see his little Chinese guide (did I say he was little?) in a crouch position with his arms outstretched directly in CWP's path.

"I catchee you…don' worry…I catchee you…!"

Did I mention quite how big CWP is? Well, he told me that in an instant it flashed through his head about how he would clearly flatten his poor guide if he carried on in his headlong slide and so he did the only thing he could think of and stuck his arm out sideways to grab something…anything…

…up to this point we were all roaring with laughter about the poor little guide insisting he could 'catchee' - right up until the second that CWP told us he managed to catch something with his hand and stopped very, very, very suddenly and dislocated his shoulder in the process. Ooops, that had to hurt…

Ever seen a large group of people (except one) go silent, in an almost guilty way, just after they hear the punch line of a joke they don't think they should laugh at? (Anything with Adam Hills springs to mind). Well, it was like that - the only person still laughing was CWP - having had his shoulder put back in, he is going on with his daily life and is now regaling people with this tale which looking back on it, he finds hilarious from start to finish…


He snorted and chortled, "… I know it doesn't sound funny, but "I catchee you…don' worry…I catchee you…!" - well, you can just imagine it…." he roared...

^*1 Canadian with pipe

Scientific stuff...

Queens University researchers have discovered the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element, Governmentium (symbol=Gv), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called pillocks. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact.

A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second, to take from 4 days to 4 years to complete. Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2 to 6 years. It does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.

In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration.

This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass. When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium (symbol=Ad), an element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium, since it has half as many pillocks but twice as many morons.

4 years just slipped by...

I just realised that I have missed a very important anniversary - that of my metalwork. Yes, that's right, my surgery was over 4 years ago and in fact, exactly 4 years ago today I was struggling to even breathe without huge doses of morphine and could hardly lift a thing. I distinctly remember that I couldn't figure out the controls on my Mp3 player, my brain was that addled by large doses of narcotics and the BMB was trying to encourage me to get enough brain cells all firing in the same direction to try and read a book. It all seems so long ago and so much like it's just a story that probably happened to someone else. Funnily enough, I actually do some public speaking these days and the more of it I do, the more like a 'story' it all seems.

There is no doubt that my scoliosis surgery changed a lot for me - some things have had their down sides, but other things are nothing more than amazingly good. You know, I recently found some photos taken over the 2 years before my surgery and it was noticeable how much my curve had progressed in that short a time. In fact, when I look back (with a seasoned eye) I realise how awful my life would have been if I didn't get the surgery done. I know that this isn't true for a lot of people with scoliosis - those with stable conditions, whose curves are not progressing, have no fears for their future and even those who do have progressive curves may not to need to worry too much. It all depends on the speed of progression, the location of your curves and whether you have any other complications with your spine. My major curve was in the lumbar area with a corresponding thoracic curve in the opposite direction - and both were rotating to the right. My lumbar curve was progressing at around 6 degrees a year and had reached 75 degrees and if that wasn't enough, my spinal cord was split lengthwise (still is) and was attached (tethered) at the top and bottom of my lumbar curve. It meant that my spinal cord was getting more and more stretched, the further my curve progressed - this wasn't really too good a good plan I don't think....

Anyway, all of that background (which I know all you long term readers of my blog already know) meant that the surgery was really a no-brainer, despite how much I tried to kid myself that I didn't really need it! These days, I guess I am as recovered as I ever will be and I have the chance to look back and see what it has meant to me and the impact that such surgery has had on my life .Now, those of you who know me, know that I am a pretty positive person, so you may be surprised that I am about to give you some of the negative things^*1, but hey, you can't list all the good things honestly, without some honesty on the bad stuff too. Bear with me on this though - there isn't much bad stuff at all, anyway - here goes:

Bad stuff Number 1 - I still have back pain. I wish I didn't, but I do. Some days its not too bad and some days its horrid, but then lots of people have back pain, so that keeps me within the bounds of normality, doesn't it?
Bad stuff Number 2 - My metalwork is weird in extreme temperature. I found out that it contracts in the cold at a different rate to your interior tissues and it is just not a nice feeling at all. Last summer, in 44 degrees, I also discovered that it expands at a different rate too and so that is especially odd. When it gets cold, it also takes an age to warm up - this winter has been way too long for me but I have become an expert in vests and thermal undergarments! I now have lots of new vests (sexy!) and even a battery powered heated waistcoat - I am now an expert in a subject I previously knew nothing about! LOL!
Bad stuff Number 3 - My left leg really doesn't work in the way I'd like it to, but I have learned some control of it. I no longer move my hip and thigh forward to walk but throw my left foot forward from my calf (which sound odd but believe me it works!) and in doing so I get by just fine. It's also enabled me to get an amazing collection of very funky walking sticks (mostly bought from SwitchSticks.com) which I wouldn't have previously done. It has also meant that I make much more use of my wheelchair which has given me so much independence its not true. I find it truly liberating to be able to go into town and spend all day shopping, never worrying about how far away from the shops I have to park. Compare that to the way I used to be - parking close to where I needed to go - going to just one or two places and then having to go home, too tired or in too much pain to continue...you see, even the bad stuff really has its compensations!

Of course, in the good tradition of this blog, I'm sure a list is coming on for the good stuff...forgive me if I don't bleat on for ever though - I don't want to type my fingers down to stumps! Anyway, here goes:

• I am alive !
• I am straight! (well I look it anyway even if I do still have 35/30 degree curves inside me still!)
• I can go to the cinema without leaning over so far that the seat arm digs in my side.
• I can walk (no sniggering now...)
• None of my internal organs is squashed any longer
• My muscle spasms are so reduced its not true
• I can breathe with both lungs!
• I can wear stripy jumpers without making onlookers tip their heads on one side.
• If I am on a boat the ocean no longer looks like it will all run off the right hand edge of the world.
  
• I have no fears for my future and what will happen to me

In fact, I feel that I have the kind of future that I never thought I would and that really is amazing but as in all the great Oscar traditions, I have to acknowledge that this really has very little to do with me. I have to thank my surgeon for doing a great job and have to thank hubby for being my greatest support. There are also so many other people who helped me through, from the scoliosis forums, to friends like PTV and the BMB. Sometimes I say I cannot imagine what my future would be like if I hadn't had this surgery, but in fact I can imagine that very well and I am exceedingly grateful for all those people who helped get me through it. 4 years is quite a long time, but even though it seems more like a story sometimes, I know it happened to me and I am so happy to have my metal rod, despite its little idiosyncrasies!

^*2

^*1 Although given my last rant, you may not...!
^*2 BTW, this has nothing to do with anything in this post...I just liked it!