Good news (I think….)

I have just got back from physio and I have been discharged – “never darken my door again”, she said - or something like that; it might have been "come back if you have any problems" – but hey, they’re almost the same – it’s easy to get confused…

Anyway, in a nutshell she is really pleased with my progress and feels that we have reached a point about as far as we are going to get together. She feels that anything else we could do would just be “trying to get back nerves that you haven’t got” (quote unquote!). She has a point too! I have instructions to carry on walking with the two sticks when outside, since my posture and walking ability is vastly improved with the extra feedback that I get through my hands. I have no doubt that it not only makes me faster, but also much safer! (No more grabbing hold of complete strangers for me as I keel over backwards!) I have also had instructions to use the wheelchair for anything involving distance and not to be stubborn about it – partly because if I am to walk I am supposed to do so properly. If I am tired or in pain then I will not walk well so I am to be a good girl (like always, of course, what did you think?!) . At least it gives me a nice comfy chair in which to have a rest (not that you get a lot of rest when your wheelchair doesn’t have any handles!). If I wish to progress to one stick for short distances then I am allowed – especially for practical things like carrying stuff – but – I must use it in my left hand – eeek! That’ll take some getting used to! There’s a practical reason though – I still have a right hand curve in my spine so don’t want to end up leaning into it and affecting my unfused section, now do I?

Apart from that, I am to continue with all the excercises which help my balance and stuff. More than that, I may have to get extra specialist physio in particular areas, but for now, her work is done here…..

I keep looking at that picture

Do you know, ever since I posted my last update, I keep looking at those before and after photos. I really can’t believe that I was stood up as straight as I could in each one. It looks so artificial to be leaning over in the one and also to be so straight upright in the other. It’s hard to believe that either of them is me! What’s even odder is that when I first decided to have the operation, I seemed to be the only person who wasn’t completely convinced that I needed it. All my friends were, my family was, hubby seemed to be and even the cats blinked at me meaningfully when I asked them the question! Now, looking at those photos, I can see exactly why they were all convinced and I’m just surprised I couldn’t see it myself. I mean, sure, when I looked in the mirror I knew I was crooked, but I just didn’t know how far off ‘normal’ I was. Of course now, when everyone else thinks I am straight, I can look in the mirror and easily see that I still have 30something curves in my spine – but that’s fine, after all, I'm just being picky –and I mean just look at those photos……

4 months today.....

Wow! Can you believe that! In some ways, this last 4 months has been the whizziest time ever and in others it seems to have taken forever!

Anyway, to the business of catching up with things – where do I start? I think I’ll work from the top down just to be interesting so here we go.

My popping neck / top of spine is still gently popping – it doesn’t hurt at all and I believe it to be a continual realigning of my neck as it spent so many years tipped to one side just so that I could look at the horizon in a straight line. In fact, when I left hospital I was still putting it on one side just ‘cos that was what I was used to, even though it made the horizon all squiffy! I couldn’t seem to find a happy medium either – I’d realise that I was tilting it, so I’d tilt it the other way and then it would still be wrong. The world didn’t half look wierd for a bit! You will be pleased to know that I now ‘have my head on straight’ which is a big improvement!

Still working down, my scar is really nicely healed. The pink is starting to fade out of it already (I know, I’ve been surprised too!) – the only thing wrong with it is a little wide bit under my arm – but it’s nicely hidden by the bra strap so that’s OK too! The chest drain scar – despite the infection - is also starting to fade. Some of the feeling is coming back around the scar but the nerves lost in my thigh are still doing nothing – it’s very odd scratching your leg when you can’t feel it! (Very philosophical stuff comes to mind here – you can see yourself scratching but have no idea if your leg is really there or if you’re in bed asleep and dreaming your leg isn’t there – or something or other.....)!
Pain from around the scar area is OK but where they took my ribs out still gets pretty sore – I call it ‘the phantom rib’ as I have heard stories about people keeping feeling in their missing bits of anatomy after amputation etc. Never mind the phantom rib, sometimes its more like the phantom raspberry blower in that the pain will sneak up on me and stab me one before running away!. (You just don’t want to be in a car and go over a big dip, I can tell you!) The preggo belly is gone (hurrah!) but I still have some swelling around my side. I was told that this was fluid and could take months to go – looks like they’re right. If I do too much it grows which is no fun at all….unless you’re some kind of a sadist of course…

Anyway, back pain is now mostly limited to the bottom of my back (as long as I don’t do too many stupid things) and that bit of my pain is just the same as before surgery which is a bummer. I was really hoping for a magic wand to put everything right in one go, but it looks like sprinklings of fairy dust didn’t quite hit that bit. Still, on the bright side I am in much less pain from muscle spasms than before surgery (touch wood etc) and I’m very happy to settle for the great improvement in pain that I seem to have got. On the subject of pain, I am still on some pills – the nerve pain pills are still at full strength (sigh!) but I am down to 3 or 4 a day of the others. Its fine – after all, I’m still only at 4 months so I think I’m about where my surgeon expected me to be.

Speaking of improvements, check this out for a picture!

It's almost unbelievable isn't it????!!!!!^*1

As to yet more improvements, my walking is getting better all the time. I’m still walking with two sticks outside (safety first) but can get around with one (or none sometimes) in the house. I actually think in many ways my walking is way better than it was before surgery – then I used to lurch from side to side and now I feel like I am positively gliding around – you could almost put a book on my head as I do so (well, almost!). I think it’s really incredible! I am using the wheelchair for long trips outside (or where there would be a lot of standing) and I am going to be sensible over my future use of it. It has been an incredibly enabling tool for me recently and has allowed me to do things that I haven’t been able to do for many years.

I can now do loads of things around the house from getting dressed without my helping hand (although there is still a large amount of fishing for feet off the edge of the bed) to doing a large amount of the cooking (which my physio reckons is really good for me since I can grab hold of the kitchen worktop if I start to fall over!) My physio is really pleased with my progress so I think all in all everything is going well. I do still have all my restrictions in place (no swimming lifting bending driving etc etc) and the no driving is starting to pall a bit now. What am I saying – it sucks!!!! I can’t wait to get behind the wheel again (see, I knew I’d miss it!) – especially since one of the real downsides is that hubby has to give up most of a day every weekend just running me around or running errands for me – I bet he can’t wait for me to be able to drive either. Hubby is still being great and doing all the household stuff – some of the fairies have come back to help out in some small way but he’s doing the lion’s share still. So – thanks hubby!!!

Well, think that’s about it for an update – there’ll be more after the 22nd June when I next see my surgeon and find out what his next evil plans are for me……..

^*1 Yes - I really was standing as straight as I could for both the photos!!

Just a few days more…

Just a couple of days to go and I will be 4 months post op and you can all have an exciting update and some spiffy pictures…..

The mammoth posting ....added to....

A few days ago I had a mammoth posting session about our interesting trip home after a weekend away but I did forget to mention something else weird that happened.

Not long before the ‘big jam’ we had to go through a section of road works – the inside lane of the motorway was coned off and there was a 50 limit in the remaining two lanes. Well, hubby drove along, keeping strictly to the speed limit and pulled out to overtake a vehicle that was indicating left and slowing down. The guy stopped the car in the middle of the inside lane (the left one of the two open ones), got out of his car and walked through the cones to the hard shoulder. It was at this point that he got his wanger out and started watering the sparse grass that grows at the roadside (no doubt even sparser now). He left his car, with no hazard lights and just his indicators on, completely stopped, stationary, not moving, sitting as a target for unsuspecting twonks who aren’t paying attention, on the motorway. What kind of a wazzock does that – even if he was desperate he could have eased his way through the cones to pull off – they ain’t concrete after all. I’m wondering if he was in some way related to the mad alien bag lady ………..

<------distant relations----->

Linking to the world….

I am going to start adding a few non-scoliosis/back links in the other links section. They are blogs that I follow (or at least dip into from time to time). The first two I am adding are about as far from each other in terms of content as they could be but there you go – I know the people that write them and they’re not quite the same as each other either – I mean one of them is taller than the other to start with (and oh yes, don’t be clever, of course they are both taller than me!)

Anyway, “Getting the Words Out” is by a budding new author who writes excellent stuff – historical, but there you go – learn something while you read a novel, it might help your brain tick over! It contains links through to their own web page too, where you can find details about the latest publication and (most importantly) where you will be able to buy it. The second one is “50+ and proud of it”. Allegedly this is about being an executor of a will and how to deal with all the red tape that goes with it. Secretly I think it’s just a way to vent and provide a outlet for this guy’s dry wit – well, it amuses me anyway….

It’s a police conspiracy I tell you….

We went away last weekend to see my best friend who has been poorly. It was great to see her and to catch up although, as usual, our time together was much too short. I mean, how can you say what you want to (which would take at least a fortnight) in just a couple of days…anyway, she’s going to be having some time off work so we have promised each other some great girly days out and a weekend away in a foreign city trying to pick up some hunky continentals (honest hubbies, we’re only joking!). I bet you’re wondering now where the police conspiracy comes in – are the police conspiring to get us together, or to keep us apart even (which would make much more sense, given the way we behave when we’re together) – nope none of that, it just had to do with our journey home….

We (foolishly) picked a bank holiday weekend to get together – it all made perfect sense when we planned it – hubby with time off, me apparently recovering well from my op and things just slotting into place reasonably neatly around hospital appointments and the like. We decided not to travel on Friday night (too much bank holiday traffic we thought) so headed off on Saturday morning. The first interesting (hah!) thing happened on the one stop we had to make. I needed to pick up an invoice from a shop but we managed to arrive 5 minutes after the most irritating man in the world. He wasn’t just annoying, he was worse than me on getting off the point and managed to occupy 2 shop assistants and the manager whilst he whittered and rabbitted for a whole hour about stuff that I found increasingly annoying. (An hour on a hard chair does that to you if you have a bad back and need to be somewhere else AND all you came in for is a piece of paper!) Eventually I got my invoice and we got in the car and headed for England in lovely May sunshine and light traffic (actually, I’m lying here on both counts – it was heavy traffic and driving rain but the world always seems much nicer when you’re off to visit a friend!). I was highly amused at car full after car full of parents with small children in the back, several bikes (often one pink with stringy bits hanging limply off the handlebars in the rain) perched over the rear windows and either towing a caravan or with roof racks piled high with (now very soggy) stuff for their lovely weekend away (in the rain) by the seaside. Oh gosh, I remember weekends like that from when I was a kid, wet car, wet dog, wet tent and plenty of joy and good cheer to go round! (Sarcasm fully intended here).

But, back to the police – on the journey home. Sorry to disappoint you – but there were no police on the way there – just speed cameras (and hubby slowed down for every one – good man!)! We headed back late Sunday (to avoid bank holiday Monday traffic) and about halfway home saw the big information signs saying that the motorway was closed at Junction 17 with queues after 16. That was it – out with the map and we left the motorway at 16 taking an A road that runs parallel to the motorway though a small town. We headed into the town to discover temporary traffic lights at the high street with a “road closed no entry ahead” – a diversion indicated turning right – which we did. We followed the road round only to discover that we were in Sainsbury’s car park (a dead end) and that 4 cars, 2 MPV’s, a Range-rover and a large coach full of holidaymakers had followed us! (Foolish people – didn’t they know we were lost?) So, we turned around (as did our convoyGB) and went back the way we came heading back towards the motorway as there were only 2 roads in town (the one that was shut and the one to Sainsbury’s car park). Now we were heading in this direction, we could see diversion signs and – guess what – they took us to the motorway. Aaaargh! We decided to get back onto the motorway (fresh out of other choices) and take our chances. Luckily it was plain sailing all the way to J17 where we headed for the exit. Others were not so sensible and J17 had turned into a scene from hell – the air was full of the smell of burning rubber and the sounds of squealing brakes and loud bangs as all those people who couldn’t read*¹ hurtled down the outside lane and stopped within inches (or not – hence the bangs) of the car in front. Interestingly (for them) and hilarious (for us) they were just yards past the junction and therefore STUCK! Serves ‘em right for not paying attention! Gawd knows why the police didn’t cone off the motorway to stop that happening, but they didn’t, and it was ‘total gridlock mon’ *² as far as the eye could see. Well, we got off the motorway without incident and decided to ignore the direction the diversion signs pointed as that looked gridlocked too. Some other people (hopefully) with maps headed off in the same direction as us (including part of our earlier convoy I think) and we crawled up the road away from the motorway in a long queue of traffic until I had a flash of inspiration (could have been impatience actually as I was getting quite cheesed and painful by this time
) and decided to chance the country lanes. It was all going really well, when we came across a sign- it said - “road closed no entry ahead” and (deja vue here) a diversion indicated turning right! Thankfully we were out in the country so they hadn’t managed to cut off our escape route by building Sainsbury’s car park and we managed (despite running out of diversion signs) to negotiate our way through the lanes and back to the motorway past the section that was closed.

I fell to wondering (as I do) on the remainder of the journey - how did all that happen – a Bank Holiday on half term with the heaviest traffic of the year and there were more road closed signs and diversions than I’ve ever seen n my life. Well, I think I know the answer – it’s definitely a police conspiracy. I think, sometime around last Thursday, a bunch of policemen had an evening out on the pop^*3 and hatched a plan for closing as many routes as they could with road closed signs between the east and west of the country. They then drove around planting as many diversion signs as they could lay their hands on and used a series of random dice rolls to decide which junctions they would go on and in which direction they would point. They could then send up their ‘eye in the sky’ to transmit telly pictures back to their sports and social club for weeks and weeks worth of entertainment. Of course, I have no proof yet, but it’s only a matter of time until I unearth the plans somewhere on the Internet…..

^*1 Of course, I am just assuming they can’t read – they may of course be blind and their seeing eye dog (please give generously) is doing the steering and he can’t read, or maybe they’re aliens who are just trying to blend in by driving cars (and can only read Vogon^*4 or something)…..anyway you get the idea ….
^*2 is that one of the best ads ever??
^*3 Beer
^*4 Great Poetry – you should try it….here

I have an appointment (at last)

I have had a date for my check-up to see how my bones are growing. It is in late June as expected. Actually, it wasn’t going to be in June as I discovered when I called the hospital having heard nothing from them. The call went something like this:

Me : “I wondered if you could tell me when my appointment is likely to be?”
Bureaucratic monster lady (BML): “Due to your consultant’s holiday, rounds of golf and dinner out with friends the earliest it will be is 8th July”*

Me : “Can I put 8th July in my diary then?”
BML : “Oh no, 8th July is the earliest it will be – it will probably be later but I can’t turn that many pages in my diary or my fingers will get sore”**
Me : “Look, I don’t want to be a nuisance***, but I’m due an x-ray at my next appointment and until I get that x-ray I’m not allowed to do anything.
BML : “Due to your consultant’s busy schedule of long lunches, foreign holidays and having to make time for his mistress as well as his wife and kids****, there’s really nothing I can do, you’ll have to wait until we send you a letter”
Me : “Look, I really, really don’t want to be a nuisance*****, but when I say I can’t do anything, I mean anything – that includes bending stretching twisting driving lifting carrying laundry hoovering dusting (at this point I draw breath)… ******
BML : “Oh!” (sounds like riffling paper which could easily equally be knitting needles) – “I can fit you in on the 22nd June if you like”*******

Ah, the joys of having a National Health Service……

*I can’t remember the exact excuses she gave but I am certain these are the accurate ones…
**She didn’t tell me about here fingers either – I guessed that from her inability to check…
***Like heck I didn’t, but I have learnt that screaming “Listen here you fat cow” (or something else equally insulting, after all, I have no idea if she is a)fat or b)a cow!) , down the phone gets you nowhere …very fast!
****Again, I can’t remember the exact excuses but surely they must be something like this?
*****Ditto my last comment about being a nuisance (which I really, really want to be whatever I say down the phone), only now I am getting mad enough that ‘fat cow’ is starting to sound nice compared to some of the things I can think of…

*******And believe me I don’t do that often!
*******Well, why the heck didn’t she say so in the first place?

The mad alien lady (or “keep watching the skids”)

Recently I was in town, sitting outside the bank waiting for hubby when I saw something quite odd. It was an old lady who I am sure was quite insane. She had a shopping trolley with her (as many old ladies do) – you know one of those fetching items in a perfect shade of grubby tartan - a bit like this, only more careworn. That in itself, does not make her mad, far from it – to be laden down with 16 shopping bags full of bricks rather than using a trolley, now that really would be mad, but I digress. Actually, at the risk of digressing some more, I don’t think you could put many bricks in a shopping bag and she was much too skinny to carry 16 of them anyway, but I’m just trying to illustrate a point here*.

So – and here’s the odd bit – the trolley was upside down – not handle downwards, but stand downwards and wheels pointing skywards. She walked and dragged it behind her and it scraped along on the stand over every bump in the street making quite a racket. I wondered if she was deaf or simply mad. Maybe she was trying to get her daily exercise and wheels would have made it too easy. Perhaps she was an alien who had only ever seen shopping trolleys in pictures and had no idea how they were used, but was trying to blend in with the local population – who can tell…

So, what do you think I did? Did I stop her and say excuse me please madam, you are mad? Or perhaps I should have just tapped her on the shoulder and tried to politely point out the error of her ways. Maybe I should have just kicked the trolley deftly so that it flipped over onto the wheels and made her journey that much easier. In the end I did none of these things. I was so flabbergasted by the whole thing that she was round the corner before I could comprehend what I had seen. At least that’s my excuse, but really it was just that I was too scared that she was going to turn into a real life character from a ‘Men in Black’ film!

*Please note I have already been told a million times not to exaggerate!

The lights in the sky

Did I ever mention that we have two cats and that one of them is completely nuts whilst the other is just a bit barking? !!! No, don’t be silly, they miaow, not bark, but I mean just that she’s just a bit mad as opposed to totally loopy like the other one. Actually, he, the lunatic doesn’t go miaow either (or at least not often), mostly he just chirrups and burbles, but now I am getting completely off the point….

One day, whilst lying in bed reading, the bedside light reflected off my nice shiny metal bookmark onto the ceiling and ever since, he spends a large amount of his time in the bedroom looking upwards waiting for it to reappear. One the one occasion when it did so close to the wall, he leapt upwards off the chest of drawers hurling himself without thought in pursuit of his new alien pal. He hit the wall and slid downwards into the gap between the chest of drawers and the wall – this was a shame for him, as the gap is actually slightly less than cat sized and he ended up like a cork in a bottle! You see – he’s definitely completely mad! Anyway, I now hide my bookmark under the bedclothes when I read, but he still keeps looking upwards!

We can only hope that he improves in the future but in the meantime, as hubby says - “Keep watching the skis”

Our fairies are on holiday…

Our fairies have been on holiday for quite a while now and this is leading to some problems in our household. What do you mean, you don’t have fairies? We have lots of fairies in our house, but sadly, all our fairies either went on strike or on holiday when I went into hospital and left all the work around the house for hubby to do which was pretty unfair given the circumstances.

Anyway, just so you know, we have a laundry fairy, an ironing fairy, a kitchen cleaning fairy, hoovering fairy and a bathroom cleaning fairy, to name just a few. We don’t have a shopping fairy as most of our fairies are actually quite doddery and don’t do anything that involves heavy lifting, or walking too far from the car! I’m sure that many women out there are either nodding vigorously to this ‘outing’ of the household fairy population and related hubbies are scratching their heads in complete ignorance – it’s either that or you are all shaking your heads sadly thinking ‘she’s completely lost it now’ – I can’t quite tell from here…

Well, to the household problems. You see, with the laundry fairy away, we have had quite an influx of hatless gnomes and it is getting increasingly difficult to find a pair of matching socks. Sadly, sock goblins are not indigenous to the UK (I think they only live in North America) so we are getting no help with this crisis. In the end, I decided to do some serious research into this problem to see if I could track down where the hatless gnomes might be living, but have had no luck as to where their normal habitat might be. My Googling actually led me to many other theories on the absence of single socks but many of them, like dark magic or wormholes are just completely batty!* (Unlike hatless gnomes of course…)

Anyway, I have tried to get hubby to do the traditional ‘fairy calling ritual’ which involves using a washing machine, laundry basket and washing line, but it simply hasn’t worked. Since hubby has followed pretty much the same rituals as me, with just slight variations as to the mix and quantity of machine contents, I can only come to the scientific conclusion that the calling only works when done by a woman. I guess in the end the only answer will be to get me completely fit and then hopefully I will be able to tempt the laundry fairies to come back…

*I was however quite surprised to find Schröedinger's Special Theory of Socks at Everything2.com. This stipulates that not only do socks in a washing machine exist in all possible states for socks, but they also exist in all possible states for other objects. Theoretically, you have Concorde , the remaining members of the Beach Boys AND Shergar riding Lord Lucan (or the other way round even), and God knows what else floating around in your washing machine. It's not really that difficult how to understand that if you suddenly leap into the kitchen and yell "Boo!", the laundry will suddenly have to resolve itself into socks. Which means that some of your socks will get it wrong, as the universe can be kind of slow on the uptake sometimes. So don't be surprised when in addition to suddenly missing socks, you also have three of some socks (of which you had two only a few hours previous) and some unidentifiable objects. This is why so many theoretical physicists are also raging alcoholics.

Umm, is not asking doing wrong?

I may as well ask whether omission is the same as telling lies really. The situation is this – I was asked to go away for the weekend but it involved a journey of about 130 miles (each way). Now I know at the moment that everything I have asked my surgeon if I can do or not, the answer has been “no you can’t do it” so I decided not to ask…and I wondered, well, umm, is this wrong of me? You see, right at the moment, I am starting to feel much better – much more like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s true that I’m not what I was, but regarding this I can do nothing more than breathe a huge sigh of relief (yes, I can really breathe!) and in many ways I’m more like a teenager than I have been since – well, since I was a teenager really! It’s only now when I am starting to recover enough to see the benefits, that I realise just how bad things had got and why everyone was telling me it was a good idea to get this op done. Anyway, I don’t mean to go rambling on about the op, I was gonna tell you about my weekend…

Hubby abandoned me to the care of Best Male Buddy (BMB) for the weekend and he took me in his car all the many miles. 50 miles down the road we had a short stop which turned into an hour and I took pain killers and wished I could add alcohol to them to face the rest of the trip! Anyway, at about 100 miles I asked to turn around and go home but since it was closer to get there than back, we pushed on. Gawd, the roads in this country are bumpy and they get bumpier the further you go – why is that? Anyway, we met up with a bunch of friends, some very good and a couple who I hardly knew. Conversation over dinner Saturday went something like this:

BMB: “Hey Warped Woman, you know B, don’t you?”
WW: “Yes, we met about 2 years ago but I don’t think we’ve ever chatted”
B: “Well, I know the name and I’m sure I’ve seen you before but I can’t place you at all.”
BMB: “She used to walk with a lurch like this”
(Grossly exaggerated imitation of major limp ensues)
B: “OH YES! I do remember you – I’ve seen you walking!”

BMB and I will have to have a serious chat…I was very hurt when I mentioned that it was all an exaggeration and he said it wasn’t!

I’m gonna knock on your door…

Do you know that record, the one that goes: “I'm gonna knock on your door, ring on your bell, Tap on your window too”?* Yep? Well, I want to tell you how I feel about it. It’s not actually that it ever made it onto my top ten list of records (not quite my era or taste), but I really didn’t have that many feelings about it until recently and as a result of recent events I have now decided that I hate it! I know, I know, these are strong words, but they have to be said. Do you want to know why I hate it? No? Well, I’m gonna tell you….

Early one morning when I was recovering from surgery (if you don’t know about that, why on earth are you reading this blog?) the doorbell rang. It was early enough that I was still in bed (no, not 10 o’clock it was 7.30 and stop interrupting!). I thought it must be a parcel delivery – I have no idea why, but the Post Office always does this to us – we get parcels really frakking early ** but they can’t get the regular post to us until lunchtime, but I digress (again hee hee!). Funny thing was that hubby leaves for work around that time so I was surprised that he and postie hadn’t bumped into each other on the front path. Anyway, I lay there and thought that there was no way I was going to try and run down the stairs with my crutches, just to get a parcel – they’d simply have to shove a card through the door and hubby could pick it up later. What happened next was odd – you see the parcel man usually rings the bell once, then he rings it again, then he bangs on the door and shouts “coo-ee” through the letterbox (well all but the last bit) – and is guaranteed to look all impatient when he has done all of that in the space of 30 seconds and you get to the door puffed out in your dressing gown with all your hair stood on end (a la Cherie Blair collecting her flowers the morning after the election). So… the doorbell rang, and then there was silence – no more ringing, no banging, no coo-ees. It was an odd enough situation that I hauled my fat a*se out of bed and went to the room at the front of the house overlooking the street. Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice would say, our car was outside. I decided since I was halfway there, I might as well limp my way down the stairs and open the front door – this I did, just to discover that the doorbell had rung because a member of our household had forgotten their keys! They collected them and that (as they say) was that.

You may be wondering what on earth all this has to do with hating records – well, I’m getting to that bit (although aficionados of the song may already know what’s coming). I crutched my way, slowly (and painfully ) back up the stairs and got back into my nice warm bed to relax a bit and listen to the radio. They were playing a song that was not on my top ten list (I will leave you to guess what it is) – I drowsily settled down and then I heard the doorbell again. “Oh &*$%”, I thought, “what now?” I heaved my bulk back out of bed and went back to the room at the front of the house and peered out. What did I see? Well, nothing – the street was completely empty – no car, no postie van. Odd I thought, maybe I dropped off for a second and dreamed it. I headed back into the bedroom and then I heard the bell again! By this stage I was having visions of faulty doorbells going off every few seconds through the day and wondered if I would have to call Señor Ding-Dong. It was then that I realised – it was that frakking** record. Every few seconds in the backing track someone rings our doorbell (or at least an identical one….).

So, now you know….

* I believe (after having Googled it) that the original was by Mark Clausing and if you are desperately interested you can find out more details including full lyrics (good grief!) here: http://www.ceder.net/recorddb/viewsingle.php4?RecordId=2990
**Do you watch BSG too?

I know I know…

…I’m back again but this is only brief (and nicked from another blog too) – I just thought it was an interesting way to waste time…

Here are the rules. (If that's what they are...)

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal/blog along with these instructions.

DON'T search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what's actually next to you. (I actually wonder what would happen if you did this with every book you own – if you put them together in the best possible order, could you get a sensible story? If you did, what about copyright?)

Anyway, mine came up with this:
“He’d scarcely dare hope that someone as wonderful as Christine Copperfield, someone as cool, confident and popular as the class Girl Most Likely had not got better things to do with her fabulous, exciting, fulfilling life than log on to Friend’s Reunited.” (Ben Elton ‘Past Mortem’ - which I am just about to start reading)

I considered this to be an odd coincidence as I have had very little at all to do with Friend’s Reunited (which is curious in itself as I now discover, turning the book over for the first time and reading the back, that it is actually all about Friend’s Reunited). Now before I head off digressing again, I know it is odd that I hadn’t read the back, but its not like I bought it or anything, Hubby bought it and it was just there sat on the shelf looking at me until yesterday when I finished my last book and was grubbing around for something new. Anyway, back to Friend’s Reunited and my limited contact. A whole ten years ago I tried to find Hubby’s best friend from college days as it was one of Hubby’s significant birthdays and I wanted a nice surprise. I also thought giving him a whole person would be a pretty cheap present as all I would have to pay out would be some minor rental charges to the friend’s wife or significant other! As it happened, I wrote to newspapers and did some research but the guy has the commonest surname on the planet (no not Wong, commonest British name!) and so I struck out and ended up having to spend a fortune buying hubby a stereo instead. He doesn’t still have said stereo, it having had an accident with a tin of paint quite early on in its life! Anyway, back to Friend’s Reunited. A few years later I was idly browsing their site looking for people from my own school and discovered the only person registered was the class swot who is now a high powered Hong Kong lawyer on an enormous salary (listed in her entry!) So, as you do, I decided to just check my brother’s school (and maybe spot a past boyfriend?) and Hubby’s college too. Would you believe it – there was hubby’s birthday present! So, what next – should I wait for the next significant birthday or should I just rush in headlong. Well, I e-mailed the guy without mentioning anything at all to hubby and we made plans in secret for us to meet him and his wife at their house. One weekend I packed up the car and gave hubby a map reference and asked him to navigate me there – You can just imagine the conversation:

“What’s this”.
“It’s where we’re going today”.
“It’s the other side of the country!!!!”
“I know, I thought it would make a change to take a nice long drive…”

It’s 3 months to the day and the “End of the Blog is Nigh”……….

Actually that’s a bit of a fib – I don’t actually intend finishing my blog completely – it’s just that my scoliosis surgery story is nearly over (I hope). I know that when I have avidly read other peoples blogs I found that they went through the same agonising before surgery as me, they went through surgery just like me and then they went back to their normal lives and never entered a single word in their blog again. Just like that! No goodbyes even! People the far side of the world get involved in your life (and you in theirs) you’re drawn together by a common interest (ok, ok a medical condition is hardly an interest - you wouldn’t actually decide to have scoliosis would you?). Anyway it seems a shame not to say goodbye - so I thought I’d like to say something in the best Oscar traditions.

I thought what I’d do is update you about my back, monthly and then maybe at 3 monthly intervals – I always want to know how people feel 3 months down the line or 6 months or a year or 2 years (5 years 10 years?) & so maybe you do too. I’ll put something in the blog each time to say when I’ll next be back with an update (and try and be a real organised bunny and at least get close to the right date) – maybe then you won’t feel as bereft as I did……(of course I’m probably typing this for my own benefit as you’re all fed up and went down the pub ages ago…)

.........................

I have to say that I did think of just doing these ‘back’ updates (err, that sounds odd - can you actually have back updates – I mean doesn’t that suggest something about behind you being in the future?) – oops there I am, digressing again – and in addition making no sense at all….! Anyway, just like it says in the title, I’ve been wondering about it and in the end I decided that I’ve had a load of fun doing this blog so will continue writing. I see no reason why, just ‘cos I’ve said goodbye, I can’t continue with the mindless drivel. Well, why shouldn’t I? - It’s my blog and I’ll write what I want to………

Next scoliosis only update will be at around the 8th June 2006.
- please note - this is a before and after shot!

Next non-scoliosis update will be – umm, well, it might even be tomorrow – who can tell in this crazy mixed up world…

This, that and the weekday blogger

Firstly down to business - I have added a few new links to the links page. There are a few more blogs (springing up like flies now) and something to do with aging with scoliosis which I didn’t read because I am so young –
please stop shrieking with laughter – isn’t it about how old you feel? Good job this is over the internet though and I don’t have a web-cam – I can’t have you seeing what a raddled old hag I really am!

To digress slightly (a rare event), I have no idea whether flies spring up or not. The one in our lounge yesterday didn’t for sure. One minute this poor defenceless bluebottle was buzzing against the window and the next it was leapt on and beaten up by my cat (the cute girlie one). She beat it up so hard (so much for cute then) that the poor thing died and it lay there with its legs in the air. Well, I just left it there on the floor (no bending allowed - remember?) to wait for hubby to come home. In wanders the other cat – he pokes the bluebottle with his paw to check that it really is dead and then chomp, chomp swallow, eats it. Yew – gross…I know he didn’t like his breakfast much and its extra protein and all that - but still…*

Finally, after two paragraphs, I get to the title of my posting! I wonder if you have ever noticed that I update almost every weekday and then am really, really quiet on a weekend? This is because I am not normally quiet on a weekend (assuming that I am not recovering from major surgery of course) and having a non quiet weekend usually means not using the PC much. Even now, weekends are the only time that I get to spend time with hubby so, (and I’m really sorry here) – I’d rather spend time with him at home than on-line with you. I think this must make me something like a fair weather golfer and wonder if bloggers are normally either weekend bloggers or weekday bloggers. Do you think it’s worth doing a survey?

* I have to say here that no flies were hurt in the making of this blog and that the bluebottle in question is now very happy in fly heaven.

OK, OK, I’ll own up to it...

Ok I own up. I am a bit fed up but probably not in the way that you’d expect. I am normally a pretty busy person and even now that I’m limited in what I can do, I am still keeping myself busy with various hobbies. It’s just a case of picking the right hobbies to get on with (I’ve got a lot to choose from!). So it’s not that. I am actually a bit fed up with the fact that I was a reasonably fit person before the surgery. Now not that I was ever going to be a marathon runner (), but I can swim just fine, and a long way, and pretty fast – in fact, I generally go (went pre-op) to the pool a couple of times a week to swim a long way. Well, not at the moment I don’t and my fitness level is going through my boots*. No swimming, no resistance work, no anything. Just sit around and watch your blood pressure go up and your stomach expand that’s what my surgeon said. Actually, I’m fibbing, he didn’t say the last bit, but that’s what it feels like and do you know what I am fed up with most? It’s the choice, that’s what. I would like t be able to choose what I can do, based on whether I feel up to it but nope, I’m not allowed until my fusion looks good ‘clinically and radiologically’. Nuts!

*Actually a friend of mine said to me “it’s OK, you don’t lose total fitness levels for 12 weeks”. I stop and ponder how long recovery is likely to be– “oh well that’s OK then!” (Sarcastic thanks ) – I am wondering how she ever got to be a friend at this point…..

Exactly 12 weeks

It is now exactly 12 weeks since I had my op – gosh, doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun (I must have said that before I’m sure). Anyway, time for an update on who I am what I have turned into and where all my marbles went over the last few weeks….

I have reached a pretty good point in my recovery I think (Lynne take note) and I am cutting all pain meds down steadily except the nerve ones. On the subject of the nerve pain pills, I intend going to the doctor when this lot runs out (about a month) and trying a lower dose of them too as if I am late with a dose I am getting nowhere near such severe symptoms. My scar is looking really good, very nicely healed and hardly red at all – I am pretty proud of it which, as those of you who know me well might be a surprise, considering how I feel about at least one of my other scars. Anyway, it is, as hubby puts it, very impressive – it’s still numb in a few places, but doesn’t stop it looking – well, impressive! My walking is getting better all the time. I am still using two sticks but mostly as a balance aid and find that I can get around most of the house without them (furniture is useful). Because balance is such a big issue, I still have to be really careful about falling – I always fell over a lot, but it didn’t really matter if I bruised my knees before – now, I cannot afford to displace my hardware, so falling is a big no-no. I wouldn’t dream of going out the house without the sticks and am still using the wheelchair a lot. We took a trip into the local big city last weekend and had Tapas in the old brewery courtyard, spent all afternoon in town and generally did something a bit more normal– it was fab! Most of my swelling has finally gone. I still have the nasty bit on my side but that is much smaller and my preggo belly is just about gone – I think pretty much everything else that’s left now is just flab!

Interestingly, with so much more of the swelling gone, I have found for sure that lots of my jeans don’t fit the way they used to. You don’t realise how much the shape of your back alters jeans - well, you just think of them as leg covering, don’t you? I expected to ‘gain more waist’ on the side where my ribcage touched my pelvis, when they stretched it out, but somehow I didn’t expect to get shorter on the other side as that was straightened! So, this means that where I used to wear jeans to fit the left side (they would be all squashed in on the right side) they now fit neither side. Shopping will be called for when I feel all the swelling has gone and as soon as I can get my jeans on without the grabber thingy. Now, that would be embarrassing – taking your grabber thingy into the changing room – imagine if it was one of those communal ones…*

*…actually that would be cool if you were trying on tops – you could own up to alien probing, shark attack, or all sorts of other things with such an awesome scar!

My daily moan...

Most people think hubby is a pretty straight guy, even when they’ve known him for some time, but altho’ he’s not in the same league as the cat, he does have his loopy side. In fact he can be quite mad at times – I would give details but it would be far too embarrassing (mostly to me!). I however do distinctly remember a ‘works do’ (his not mine) where he was truly on form
and one of his colleagues mentioned to me that she didn’t realise he was as much fun as he is. I think lots of my friends who don’t know us/him well think the same, as he does put on a very sensible face to the world - unlike me. After all, I’m sure it’s plain to the whole world that I am mad (or at least when I wear my tie died trousers (oh yes I do – and even with legs like mine…!!) Anyway, all this got me thinking to how we all put a ‘face’ on for the world. Take my surgery, just cos I’ve had a nice juicy blood transfusion, I am all pink and rosy cheeked (actually, I am pretty rosy cheeked most of the time although it may normally have something to do with a nice glass of red….) Then there’s the thing that I smile a lot – I do, I have a big cheesy grin on my face most of the time, especially when I am with people I like , so, given a combination of the two, I usually look in great health, even when I feel like sh*t! It’s not fair really – here I am, having gone through major surgery, and having been told that I can’t lead anything like a normal life for ages and ages and ages and I look like I’ve just come in from a gentle jog! Nah, that’s not true, that would mean I was all puffed out and sweaty, probably with grazed knees where I’d fallen over – umm think of something else where you look fit and healthy, please ….
....please note - I am not really moaning here - it's good to look healthy. I guess I was just a bit short on blogging ideas today and needed a good excuse for some cute smilies....