Crap, dangerous pavements

Today we've been out to do a lil bit of shopping in and around Chorlton's main shoppingy bit.  This is something I like doing cos it doesn't involve driving and worrying about where to park and I get fresh air, get to see people milling about and basically watch the world go by, which is always a good thing.

But I need to have a major moan about the state of the pavements round here!
The street which we live on is, quite frankly a bloody nightmare, but the rest in Chorlton are just as bad.
The main problem occurs where the local council has allowed companies to plough dirty great channels out down the middle of pavements to lay cables galore.  Then, the companies just fill the channels back in willy-nilly with no thought for the safety of people using the pavements let alone the aesthetic-ness of the street.

So usually I come back from a much needed push around town and instead of feeling relaxed & refreshed, I end up tense and on edge from having to concentrate so much on directing Hari on which bits coming up to avoid incase he hasn't spotted them.  I can't imagine it's much of a picnic for him either as he has a huge degree of responsibility for helping me get out and about.
There is a section right at the end of Corkland Road on the corner where it meets Wilbraham Road, where one of these channels is so worn on one side that there is literally a step up in the middle of the tarmac and next to this sits a manhole type thingy who's 4 edges are also not level with the pavement and they too cause major problems.  The wheelchair wheels hit them and the chair and the person pushing it comes to a sudden, shuddering halt which shakes me up, shakes the person pushing me up and can result in me coming out of the chair and landing in a heap on the pavement.

In fact we did come a cropper last year along Barlow Moor Road outside a barbers shop where some paving slabs moved as the chair was pushed onto them, one suddenly jutted up and hitting it was unavoidable.  On that occasion I was thrown from the chair with considerable force and landed on my right knee (this is one of the falls which 'could have' caused the dislocation of my right knee which was discovered a couple of months later).
The look of worry and panic on my husbands face (he was pushing the chair at the time) was upsetting to me as was the pain and humiliation of being thrown on the pavement in an ungracious heap!  Out of all badness usually comes a little ray of goodness and this was no exception.  So many people stopped what they were doing and rushed to our aid to see if there was anything they could do, one woman even offered to get me a brandy, something I really should have accepted!  And once I was back in the chair and we were about to set off again and car came to a screeching stop next to us and the driver was most concerned I was ok as he'd been passing in the other direction, had seen what had occurred and had turned round and come back to check.  Bless.

My chair has a lap-strap fitted but after another near miss before this particular one I found the lapstrap was in danger of damaging my urostomy in the event of a such a yank as being thrown forward in the chair causes so I can't wear it.  Damage to my urostomy is something I don't want to experience at all.

So Manchester City Council, have a thought for the safety of your pedestrians and all pavement users and get ya pavements sorted before someone is serious hurt, as its bound to happen, if it hasn't already!!!

Bionicness!!

I've said before (and no doubt I will say it again!) that I am absolutely in awe of surgeons and doctors.  Of anyone who can take out a body part and replace it with a new one but not only that but rewire everything so it all works as perfectly as in most cases better than it worked before.  I'm also fascinated by it.  I like to see and ask about x-rays, know what exactly they're looking at and see how things function.

I have ultrasounds every now and again on my heart (I have a heart murmur or a 'hole in the heart') and love to watch the sketchy picture on their monitor and see where my dizzy blood goes the wrong way through the hole.  The image is usually black and white but that little spurt of confused blood shows up as a blue flash and it great to see my own heart, which I can feel beating away while I'm watching it.

I've also had a few GFR & Renograms as I have CKD2 (chronic kidney disease stage 2), the tests tend to be done at the same time, well on the same day anyway.  These are to test kidney function and apart from the needles and the waiting around, these tests also fascinate me.
GFR stands for Glomerular filtration rate-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renal_function and one of the best aspects is I get to be scanned with a geiger counter (at least I think that's what it is!) and it beeps as it goes up my arm where the radioactive liquid has been injected.  Its quite a surreal experience but fun all the same.  Blood is then taken every hour for 4 hours to monitor how the liquid is being filtered (I think) and that's the not do fun part.
The Renogram is similar but only lasts about half an hour.  A liquid is injected which moved through quite quickly and makes you wee for England, there is just soooo much.  I have to sit with my back rigid up against an x-ray machine without moving for half an hour while the liquid is traced working its way through.  But on the screen I can see both kidneys, my left is enormous and my right is little and a bit shriveled up, and I can see the liquid trickling; honestly its quite fascinating and watching it makes sitting still (for a fidget like me) fairly easy.

But yesterday, best of all, I saw my specialist at the hospital for my 6 weekly post op appointment.  I had to have a few more x-rays done and then I got to purchase a disc from x-ray with all my knee x-rays on, including the MRI scan.  I don't profess to know what the MRI ones mean but they're interesting to look at!

This is my knee as it was back in October last year, very, very dislocated and very, very ouchy!

This is one from the MRI scan.  It looks like I've got a pony tail hanging over my leg (honestly, they're not that hairy)

And this looks like a bone you've give a dog to gnaw on.....it's my leg!!

And this shows the amazing bit of kit I now have in my right leg.  It goes half way up my thigh and half way down my lower leg.
This pic was taken 3 days after the op, you can still see the metal staples!!

And this one was taken yesterday, 21st May 2013, showing my sexy bent knee.


Fascinating pictures.  For me anyway, I feel.

And now I know you can get a disc for a small cost, I shall be doing that in future for everything I have done.



There was one not so good point about the appointment yesterday though.  Previous to it becoming dislocated I had planned on doing a charity parachute jump for breast cancer awareness.  My consultant, although he didn't say I couldn't do a jump, he did strongly advise against doing it as a slightly dodgy landing or a sudden gust of wind at the right time could cause problems and ultimately could shatter the bone where the rods are.

I wish I'd done it sooner now.  Hey ho.  So now I have to just wait a few years til this knee is proper fucked and then when there's nothing left to break or damage, I'll jump from a plane then.  I am determined to do it one day!!!

You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear...

This Thursday it will be 7 weeks since my knee was replaced.  Sometimes I get quite frustrated with the way things are going but then I remember its only 7 weeks.  My consultant told me when I saw him just 2 weeks & 1 day post op that it takes a 'normal' person 6 weeks to get back to normal but it might take me somewhat longer given my pre existing medical problems.  So 7 weeks later, I think I'm doing fine.

The scar is looking a lot better since all the nasty scabby bits have fallen off.  I think it looks a lot better from my angle (from above) than it probably does from the angle of someone looking at me.  Every time I take a photo the flash makes it look a little more severe that it is too.  Here's the latest piccie taken today....

Last Tuesday I went off to physio at the hospital again.  I'm not sure what happened on the way there but I began the day in a positive, cheerful mood but along the way my mood went down a bit.  I hate being snappy and my mood dragging me down but shit happens I guess.  I think it might have been the parking, or lack of at the hospital.  MRI has an excellent ground level disabled car park with tons of spaces and usually I have no problems parking but that day, gahhhhh, it was awful and I had to drive round 5 or 6 times before finally finding a space.  All that extra stress gets to me and by the time we arrived at the gym (10 mins late) I was feeling tearful and very, very down.  My knee also felt very tight and I had trouble getting it to do the rotation on the pedals, bending enough on the 'slide down the door' exercise and the chair standing/sitting one I only did twice.  Natalie measured my bend on the steps and sadly it was only 92 degrees again, same as last week.  So no improvement in a 2 week gap between classes.  I felt frustrated and even more teary.  She had me lunging forward even more and everything was hurting so much so that I didn't really care how many degrees there were, I just wanted to go home and have a good cry.  I got it to 94 degrees however and then did the plinth exercises (these ones I find easy - yayy).  Shaun did some pushing my leg back movements on me while I sat to get it moving a bit and Natalie advised me to moisture the skin now the scar had healed which she insisted would not only help with the dry skin issue but would also help make the skin all around my knee much more pliable as I'd noticed how 'stuck' it felt.

So one week on from that physio, I have pulled myself together and given myself a stern talking to (even with finger wagging).  The moisturising regime is going well.  When I get out of the bath after a soak I have Nivea for my face, Dove for my legs and Flexitol foot balm for me trotters (ahem, feet).  I must not get them mixed up!
Anyway back to the Dove moisturiser.  I am remembering to apply it every day and as instructed I am not smoothing it on neatly but I am proper rubbing it in all over the scar and sure enough the skin is much more (is pliable the right word?), it moves more and when I do exercise it the skin doesn't feel as tight which makes exercise much easier, and I am all for easy exercise!
Anyhoooo, it got a bit of ahhemm.... shall we just say unexpected exercise last night and doesn't appear any the worse for wear.  Nudge nudge, wink wink, say n'more.... ;)

This evening, having had a recent trip to the chiropodist, I decided to paint my toenails.  This is not something I do very often as I don't flash my toenails off for reasons of not wanting to scare small children, animals and anyone with an ounce of taste.  However I was doing my fingernails (which also doesn't happen that often) and thought basically 'why not'.  There are only 4 nails on my left foot and 3 on the right so it doesn't take long!!

You can't see the beautifully polished nails very well I'm afraid but trust me, they are awesome! (unlike my feet - lol)




I have what I call Minnie Mouse syndrome when I have shoes on.
You know Minnie Mouse when she's wearing shoes has a ring
of leg/foot/ankle round the top of the shoe?
I have that!!  It's not very attractive at all but it is what it is

Do you see what I mean??!!



Anyway I bet Minnie's toenails aren't as good as mine.  That's if mouse even have toenails....

Woohooo! I'm home!

So, I arrived home on Tuesday 9th April and plonked myself in the big, comfy brown leather armchair where I more or less stayed for the next 3 weeks.  Only joking.  It did become my base though, I had everything I needed on my trolley (given to me by the occupational therapist pre-op).  On the bottom shelf were puzzle books, a book to read and a cross-stitch kit.  On the top was a pint of water and a bag of mint humbugs and the occasional cat (as my cats are lazy articles, they like sitting and riding on the trolley)...

This picture shows Daisy on the lower shelf and Jelhi-Tot on the top shelf pre my hospital visit...

Hari looked after me well.  Especially when I decided that I couldn't inject myself with the Dalteparin syringes on that first afternoon and every afternoon that followed for 10 days, he did them all for me without moaning or being squeamish, in fact he seemed to enjoy it!

As promised (or threatened) the 2 lovely physio boys turned up the following afternoon and I had to go through my exercises with them again as well as going up and down the stairs.  We hit on a slight problem at the top of the stairs with the final (top) step as the handrail ran out before it so there was nothing to push off but between the 3 of us we came to a safe solution that we were all happy with.

A couple of days later the district nurse came and changed my dressing for me.  I may have mentioned it before but I am incredibly squeamish and couldn't bring myself to change my dressings because it would have meant having to look, actually look at my scar and it resembled a bit of freshly carved up meat to me so no way could I look at it.  Thank heavens for district nurses!

On my discharge letter from the hospital it stated that the staples would be coming out of my knee at my surgeons clinic on 16th April but when I rang to query the time of said appointment I discovered no appointment had been made.  Soooo I had to rely on the lovely district nurses again.  One of them came out the day of Maggie Thatcher's epic funeral to take my staples out which was definitely preferable to watching all the brown nosing & simpering on the telly over Maggie.  My squeamishness kicked in again as she started prising the little metal staples out with a torture implement especially designed for the job and I had my eyes closed firmly and a cushion up against my face, a bit like you do (or I do) when watching a horror film!  It wasn't as bad as I'd imagined it would be and it was soon over and a new dressing was put on.  With squeam levels at critical I didn't move for about an hour as I had visions of the scar splitting open and bits of metal clanging to the ground.

I was visited by the physio boys once more at home and they were happy with my progress and an appointment was made for me to attend physio classes at the gym at the hospital from then on.  Fancy me going in a gym!  That has happened since I was at school.  Lol.  So far I have been to 3 sessions and have a 92 degree bend in that right knee now, although that only seems to happen when I am in the gym; at home its slightly less....

I have had one follow up appointment with the consultant and that all went well, he was happy with my progress but I see him again in 2 weeks.

Today I finally managed to get a bath!  Woohooo, this may not seem like a big deal but that last soak I had in a hot bubble bath was approximately 6 weeks ago - yukkk.  Since then I have been shuffling along a bath board put across our bath, my right leg jutting out over the edge of the bath, left leg bent in the bath and using a jug to douse myself in water in order to wash.  Not ideal.  But it would have helped had the shower worked but it didn't so that was the solution I came up with.  But today I could stand bath boards and tepid water no more so bit the bullet and had a fairly swift dip in a hot bubbly bath and it was awesomeness of all kinds :)  My scar seemed to look a lot better afterwards too, probably because its the first proper wash its had!

This is how it looked about 1 week ago

All these little landmarks don't really seem like a big deal, I'm sure.  But considering I was in so much pain up until I had this op and wore a brace holding that leg straight since October, just to be pain free and able to move about myself is a big deal, trust me.  Yesterday I even went and did some shopping in Aldi on my own, a pain free walk round a supermarket, something I haven't done for almost a year!!

Physio, physio and yet more physio...

Friday was the day after my op, the day I was put on the ward and the day the physio team arrived at the side of my bed.  The section of ward where my bed was, was right opposite a small room which the Physios and Occupational Therapists used so I'd been watching them coming and going for a while.  So when I lost concentration and got distracted I was very startled to suddenly see 2 of them at my bed side with big smiles on their faces.  With the curtains pulled round the bed, they both (I can't remember their names, sadly) had a good look at my leg which was quite swollen, very hot and very red but it didn't hurt which was all I was worried about.  They soon had me sitting on the edge of the bed, the right leg didn't bend very well at all and they helped me to the comfy chair next to the bed.  A walking frame was bought for me which I was told I would be trying out later.  After a bit of a sit in the chair and a chat about an exercise regime I was helped back into bed and we went through my exercises.  Pushing the back of my knee down into the bed wasn't a problem as my thigh muscles were still as awesomely strong as they'd always been.  After all those thigh muscles had been holding me up for 45 years which meant they were quite sturdy, operated on or not operated on.
There were more exercises, lifting the leg, bending the leg etc and I think I did alright with them all except the bending ones, bending it seemed would be my nemesis and although it was not painfully painful to try and bend it, it did feel uncomfortable.

Later that day, the physios arrived again and we went for a wander up the corridor with the frame.  It was a very slow and very unsteady wobble rather than a walk but the frame afforded me quite a bit of confidence and at least I could get to the bathroom now on my own (more or less).

The following day (Saturday) a lovely & bubbly little female physio was with me bright and early (I'd only just finished my morning cuppa & painkillers) and she was putting my slippers on me and helping me stand before I could protest.  She grabbed all my toiletries etc and we headed off to the bathroom at the end of the corridor where she left me to have a wash.  It was good to be able to wash alone and not be fussed over and I was soon sorted and ready to head back.  I again had to go through my exercises on the bed and this time a male physio was trying to get me to bend the knee upwards but I was again finding it very difficult; it just would not move.  There was a bit of a discussion about the redness and heat emanating from the knee so someone brought a cryo-cuff, which was a fabulous ice therapy/cryotherapy device, which was wrapped around my knee to provide compression which apparently minimized the swelling, I didn't care what it was supposed to do; it felt lovely and gave me a bit of relief from the heat.

Later that afternoon a porter arrived at the side of my bed with a wheelchair and whisked me (very speedily I might add - I wish I'd put a cardi on!) down through the corridors of the hospital to the x-ray department where I had 2 x-rays taken of my operated knee.  The radiologist remarked on the 'huge piece of metal' I'd got in there.

Sunday morning dawned the same as all the others, blood pressure, oxygen levels, painkillers, blood test, cuppa tea and physio - Yayyy!
This time the 2 guys, Adrian and Olly, were wielding crutches which I did not fancy having a play with at all.  I'd sort of got used to the relative safety of my frame although I felt like an old lady using it!  They coaxed me into having a go with the crutches and I didn't like it at all, not one little bit.  I kept feeling like I was falling to the right, I felt unsteady even when just standing with them let alone moving.  I think I did about 4 steps and gave up, which put me in a bit of a downer of a mood for a while as I pictured not being able to progress but I gave myself a bit of a talking to and bucked my ideas up vowing to have a more positive attitude the following morning.
I was cheered up a bit later when Mum, my sister Rachel, her husband Dave and my niece Georgia all came to visit bringing Get Well cards and some sweets & butties, which was lovely.  And during evening visiting, as Sunday was his day off, Hari visited, I hadn't had any evening visitors thus far.

Monday morning Olly & Adrian were back and with my new positive attitude (as if!) we set off again with the crutches and this time, having had the height of them adjusted slightly and mastering the technique of not getting ahead of them and a couple of other things I was soon feeling a lot more confident on them and the 2 guys seemed happy too.  I was also visited by a doctor and we discussed me going home, it was decided that it would probably be tomorrow now as my oxygen levels had risen and my kidney function was in better shape (although still not good) than it was previously, but it would depend on what the physios said ultimately.

Later on the Monday evening, 2 lovely female physios walked me down the corridor slowly with my crutches, in the other direction (how exciting; somewhere new!) which turned out to be quite a long walk.  At the end was a comical staircase which consisted of 3 steps up and 3 steps down and I spent a bit of time practising on how to climb and descend stairs safely.  The motto to remember was 'good leg to heaven, bad leg to hell', meaning when going up stairs lead with your good leg and when coming back down lead with the bad.
I think I did quite well, it didn't seem to feel too difficult.  Although the bend in the right leg was still proper bobbins I had never really bent it enormously to climb stairs, I had always sort of dragged it around.  Walking back to my bay & bed was a bit tiring so they whisked me back up the corridor in a chair and insisted I sat in the so-called comfy chair by my bed for a while rather than in the definitely comfy bed.

Tuesday morning the boys were back, standing there by my bed crutches in hand and smiling, I swear these physios are masochists.  Hmmmphhh, anyway I was up and out of bed and in a wheelchair to be taken to a full set of stairs outside the ward.  The stairs were quite shallow and the staircase was wide which was a good job as there were lots of people using it, rushing up and down going about their daily routines.  I took it slowly, with Adrian in front of me walking backwards up the stairs watching what I was doing and Olly behind me with his hands on my hips also watching what I was doing, all I was worrying about was farting in poor Olly's face (well the hospital 'food' by Sodexho was enough to make anyone's innards twist and squirm in disgust).  They both seemed pleased with my progress, they said I'd done really well & they were happy for me to go home from a physio point of view.
I hadn't been back at my bed long when one of Mr Ellis's team visited to say he was also happy for me to go home so that was that decision made.  Smiley Gill :)
Olly told me they'd be out to see me at home the following day and after the pharmacist had delivered all my medication, I'd had a chat with the nurse and Hari had arrived, I got dressed, packed my huge bag and left the ward.  I did actually feel quite sad but mostly I felt very unsure about the rest of my recovery being at home and not in the safety of the little ward with the amazing nurses.