Now I have to confess to being rather tardy, and I have been asked by several people why I have not updated my blog for a month.  So what news?

I am off crutches!  Yes really!  Okay I am currently a very slow walker and am not allowed to be up for more than 20 minutes at a time, but I am improving.  I can almost hear the round of applause from here – thank you.

Physio has also started for me, which means that I am doing wonderful things to strengthen my knee, which is leading to all manner of new aches and pains currently, but it is so good to see improvements day by day.

One of the best things I saw over Christmas was Dara O’Brian doing a show at the Hammersmith thingy.  It was an amazing show, and Peter and I laughed ourselves till it.  hurt watching it.  One bit that really got us was his description of Dr Bear, employed to rip open patients in theatre because the NCT had told him and his wife, who he says is a surgeon, that a tear is better than a cut!  The reason we found this so funny is because my knee looks a little like it has been clawed because of the number and placement of the surgical cuts.  I know little things please little minds…

So apart from watching Dara, we also had the family over, Simon and family on Christmas Eve and Jude and family on Christmas day.  Such lovely happy, friendly content times.  We have discovered that mr 9/12 favourite thing was the red balls on the tree in a string, which he can grab and shake.  He could go far as a tree needle tester in the future! He has also  learnt to walk recently, so can now be found pushing his walker round.  Yes he really is only nine months old.  He can also climb, which his mother is finding to be far more of a trial. Mr 2.8 loved his scooter, so he is busy falling off it regularly currently.  I am glad to note that Jude just lets him get on with it, instead of acknowledging every bump.  We understand miss 2.5 is also enjoying her scooter, we have pictures to prove it, although we still have to see her ride it. Yet.

So what will 2012 hold for me?

1. I am hoping for a full return to use of my knee, I know I have been told 80% but why should I limit myself?
2. I am also thinking about being able to return to work, obviously living on the edge of a village, and not being able to drive, plus the fact my leg has to frequently be up all count against this happening, but I may be able to work from home.  watch this space…
3. I have ordered the seeds and planned the kitchen garden, so I also have the start of the growing season to look forward to as well.

This should see me through the next 3-4 months while my knee continues to heal and get stronger.  Then the brace will hopefully be able to come off and life should be more like it was before I popped upstairs for a pair of socks for my walking boots.  Golly that seems so very long ago now.

Anyway can’t sign off without wishing Graham Henry best wishes on the news of his Knighthood, very well deserved – having managed the All Blacks to winning the Rugby World Cup.  Still makes me smile to think about that. YIPPEE!!

Happy New Year all.

As an added bonus, as yet I have not been dragged around by my left knee, although it is definitely getting stronger and is much more secure than prior to surgery.  Plus I have not started speaking with an american accent either, so I am assuming that the tissue I have been so lucky to receive is just doing what it is supposed to be doing.  :)

Saturday saw the closure of the final wound, finally, it just did not want to close and not to bleed, but at last it has finally repaired itself enough to become closed.  Today my knee looks revolting as the op site spray is wearing off, so looks to be covered with dead, peeling skin, except it is not! As I have promised my wonderful surgeon, I will not pick, I assume this also refers to I will not peel, so I am leaving it all well alone.  No way do I want to disturb the  healing.  For those wondering: op site is a spray form of second skin, which enables a cover to wounds without a dressing, although my knee has been dressed as well almost throughout.  It has meant that while not all wounds were closed off it has been fine to allow the knee out to breathe without a risk of infection.

I see my wonderful surgeon on Friday evening, when I will hopefully be told I can put some more weight on my leg, currently my arms and shoulders are constantly aching as a result of not putting weight on my leg.  Stair climbing is still a nightmare, but I have not missed a night in bed upstairs, a fact I am very proud of.  Okay more than once I have needed time to recover from the climb, before I could consider sleep, but I have made it upstairs every night I have been home.  Likewise I can now make it downstairs on my own, which means I do not have to be  downstairs before 07:00 when Peter leaves for work.

As yet I have not ventured out, it has been just too hard up until now, but I am am beginning to feel that I might consider a short journey over the weekend.  Plus I assume I will be starting physiotherapy soon, which will mean travel to somewhere for this.

As a little aside, I want to thank the staff at the BMI Runnymede hospital.  The nursing staff have been wonderful during all three of my stays, and the catering, and housekeeping staff are also all very good.  I cannot understand why BUPA have decided that they will no longer allow members to use the hospital or its services from January 2012 it is a very silly move because the Runnymede has a secure corridor which links it to St Peter’s Hospital and I understand that several surgeons operate in the BMI hospital, transfer patients into St Peters for ICU for which they are contracted and then back to the Runnymede when well enough to be out of ICU.  Plus the opportunity to be in a hospital just a corridor away from the district general hospital if needed during/after my surgery was an aspect in choosing the Runnymede for me.

BUPA need to think more clearly and put their customers first instead of cutting costs and reducing their customer’s choice.

What a welcome, my world stopped.  Planets stopped turning and stars forgot to shine, while I absorbed the fact that my beautiful top loading Fisher Paykel washing machine was broken, possibly in bits and not going and they do not import to the UK.  Okay that was it the final straw, I cannot go on.

“What on earth did you do to my beautiful machine I sobbed?”   Peter response was along the lines of “Well it was doing its thing and then stopped and there was an error code, 136 I think, which I looked on-line and could be mechanical or electrical.  I thought I might take the top and side off and see if I can find the issue.” I was by now thinking my life could not, just could never get any worse than this, we had paid heaps of money to change the utility room to have a top loader, and now he had broken the machine.  Worse he had decided to delve into the beautiful thing and try to fix it himself!  ”What a stupid error code, what else could it be but mechanical or electrical? why did you not check the F&P book for the washing machine I asked? Do not do anything but call an engineer I stated”  But I looked on line, Peter said.  There are a couple of companies who sell top loaders here in the UK he said, but they do not look up to much.  I very politely asked him to get someone in to fix it, and went back to my pain and new misery.

Only when I arrived home did it really hit me I am without my amazing washing machine, what should I be doing?  So when next seen I asked Peter if he had sorted someone to look at it, “I have not had time”, he spat between gritted teeth and again said there are some top loaders available here in the UK.  After a couple more days, he did phone F&P here in the UK and they gave us the name and number of a company to try, who might just might be able to help.

Once the appointment was made, I sat watching the calendar then the door awaiting the arrival of the angel who would solve my issues.  Please, sort the machine out!  Wednesday finally dawned, the earliest time he might be here passed, my watching of the back door became almost a fixation, would he be able to sort my washing machine out?  40 minutes into the two hour period he arrived!  Horray!

I told him where the utility room was and off he wandered, Peter stuck his head round the door to tell his sorry tale.  This was the first time I had heard it.  Towels were what he had been washing, and instead of just washing those in use, he decided to wash others too, yes he added to what is usually a full load by washing clean towels too.  No, you ask him why!  I might just kill him with my phrasing if I try!

The chap ran the machine, spun it dry and said all that had happened was that he had got so much in the machine that the towels had wrapped themselves round the spindle so tightly they had caused the motor to stall, and the nut beneath the machine – holding the spindle in place which is 40 turns to unwind had come lose a couple of turns.  No damage done, my machine would live to work another day, just needed to tighten it up and away she went.

So why did Fisher Paykel lie I hear you wondering.  When we first arrived in NZ, they were selling a machine which they said was so simple even a man could use it.  I bought it on the strength of this, a man tried to use it, and well, HE FAILED!

Thanks to all the lovely people who have been washing for me since the “incident”.  I am very glad to report life with my lovely washing machine is back to normal now.

Okay not terribly interesting but for me important to be home, again.  Cannot believe I landed up back in hospital after only three nights in my own bed.  Yes I admit it was the safest place for me to be, and yes the room was again okay – with the exception of the TV wars going on across the corridor.  Let me explain.  The ward is long and turns a corner, rooms for patients are set off this with a nursing station on the corner, then 2/3rds of the way up the second leg of the ward.

When I was rushed back into hospital on the Thursday evening, the available room was on the stretch between the corner and the second nurses’ station, all I wanted to do was try and sleep as I was in so much pain, Receiving antibiotics was such a routine for me by now that staff told me later they came in and I just raised the relevant hand for the cannula for this drug, I seemed to know better than them, even if mostly trying to be asleep or dozing.  Opposite my room was a noisy person who I called Mrs Hyacinth Bucket, after the sitcom, if you do not know her see here ==> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyacinth_Bucket  always noisy, always demanding and loads of noisy visitors who did heaps of air kissing by the sound from across the corridor mixed with the sound of corks forced out of bubbles bottles.  This person had a very strange view on how the sound works from a TV.

I distinctly remember her saying to a friend at one point, who had opened her door -exposing the rest of us to the huge wall of sound that fell out from behind it.-  ”oh you are here, how lovely, let me turn the TV up so you can here it too.”  That was Saturday morning, I know this because I was remotely listening – even though I did not want to – to the Lord Mayor’s show.   During Saturday an old chap was admitted to the room next to her, being an older chap he had the TV up a bit, and as it was remembrance weekend, he watched every documentary about anything to do with the wars of the 20th century.

All the rooms were quite well sound insulated, especially with the door shut but not liking confined spaces this was a huge sacrifice by me to make to agree to have my door shut firmly. By Saturday evening  I had asked staff to turn down their TVs, offer them headphones or move me somewhere else.

By Saturday evening with the sounds of machine gun fire and explosions mixed with the screaming torment of the x-factor I had passed my limit. I was shut in my room, with these awful sounds ringing round the room, and amplified up and down the corridor outside. It was about now that Mrs B called the nurses and shouted that she could not bare the other person’s TV any longer, and demanded that he be forced to turn it down or off!  I nearly choked  on that, yes even through all of it I found that very funny.  The nurses negotiated for both of them to reduce the volume again, but within 10 minutes the volumes were again increasing.

I rang again for a nurse and in tears asked to be moved immediately to the broom closet or allowed to go home.  I even offered to be be put in a lift with the doors locked open if that would save me from the noise. I was told they could not move me.  Night staff came on a while later, and the first task completed was by the senior nurse – who is not someone to cross or argue with -was to turn both TVs off and told them if they insisted on acting in this way they could not have them on at all.  Pointing out there are other people on the ward and many of them were fed up with the noise.

SILENCE

Broken only by Mrs B loudly complaining to all the numbers in her mobile phone one by one about the way she was treated by the staff, “as if she were a slip of a girl”.  Thankfully she eventually slept.  First thing in the morning it started again, yes even before breakfast had been served so not long after 06:00 both were up (suffering from withdrawal symptoms?) with the TVs on ready to do battle for another day.  I rang for a nurse and said enough either find me somewhere else or call the hospital senior executive into work immediately, I was not going to stand another minute of this torture.

I was moved within an hour to the top end of the ward beyond the second nurses station and only one room from the end of the ward.  yes people had their TVs on around me but it was quieter, more peaceful and therefore at last conducive to healing. Occasionally the noise from Mrs B and her neighbour spilled out, but by now the nurses seem to have got back in charge of volume controls.

What has left me puzzled about this was that I understand Mrs B had been on the ward for some time and that there were frequent complaints about the noise from her, her visitors and the TV in her room.  Why in all this time had they not given her headphones or addressed the issues in some other way?

Why do people not realise that yes, you are lucky enough to be either on insurance or rich enough to afford a room, but however many doors and rooms there are it is still really communal living, and the key to communal living is respect for other people.

I went to bed and apart from thinking it was strange that my knee seemed to be very sore I just assumed I had over used it. During the night – huge unending pain, I cannot describe quite how awful it was. Thursday morning it was as bad, maybe a little worse, so I had a treat of breakfast in bed. Thank you Peter.

Spoke to Jude who told me to phone the surgeon’s secretary immediately. I did, having just finished my breakfast I discovered that I was not allowed anything else and had to be at the hospital to see the surgeon just before six.

The great unwrapping of the knee occurred, and then a flurry of nurses and I was admitted, had a Doffler scan to check if it was a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) no that was not the issue, so it was either just the swelling giving me a high temperature and nausea or an infection in the surgery wounds. Nothing visible, so was whisked to the ward, and settled in bed. Heaps of blood tests, intravenous antibiotics and at last some pain killers. Plus discovered my temperature had gone up In the previous half an hour.

Heaps of ice to cool the leg plus the end of the bed is raised as high as possible, plus now the top of the bed is elevated too as my blood oxygen sats are low. So oxygen is now flowing into my nose too. I am allowed nothing now in case they decide to take me to theatre first thing to flush out the op sites, both the surgeon and I would prefer he did not have to do this, but if it does need to be done I will sign the form. it didn’t but I am on a 04:30 breakfast on Monday in case they need to take me down then.

My wonderful surgeon also told me I could be in for up to a week, so that my leg can heal well with iv antibiotics and with him checking it and if any pus is seen I will be going immediately to theatre. Could be a very long week with no food!

Comments to cheer me up very welcome, sorry this is a long and very boring post.

So how am I recovering? Not quite as fast as I would like, but as has been pointed out to me by both staff and Peter some days are better than others and today has not been great. Pain control has been my biggest issue, in fact my surgeon phoned me Friday evening to tell me that the reason they give morphine to most people having similar surgeries is that it puts them in a happy place and dulls the pain. Unfortunately we discovered 15 weeks ago that I am allergic to morphine. Therefore he said my journey to recovery was going to be quite painful. I can testify that he did not lie!

Apart from that I am allowed and can bend my knee between 10 and 80 degrees I cannot take it flat due to the PCL nor bend it further due to the ACL so for the next wee while I am partial weight baring with a limited range. This is not a problem to me because I am still in awe of the fact that I have someone else’s tissue in my knee. I am very fortunate to be in this position and I will be forever grateful to the donor and their family for my amazing gift, which will enable me to walk without crutches and a brace eventually.

Today I managed to struggle up and down a flight of stairs, I thought I had done really well but the physio decided I was not yet safe to go home, so am staying an extra night in hospital, which will hopefully be enough to give me a boost over the pain and be able to manage stairs without sobbing.

Thanks for reading and as ever happy to take comments or questions

My thoughts at this time are very much on the family who made the brave decision to donate the body of their loved one. I will be the recipient of ligaments which over time will grow into my bones and make my knee strong and usable once more. not a hundred percent but 80%. Since falling down stairs back in July I have to wear a full leg brace and use crutches to get around. This means I will be able to walk and hopefully run around with my children and grandchildren. I will be able to drive and get about on my own. Currently I am totally dependant on others for such tasks as my knee is very susceptible to moving out of alignment when it gets moved and that hurts!

Other people will benefit from the person’s organs and other tissues, that life however lived will not be wasted as other people will be able to continue to live in more ease and with less pain. Whatever their circumstances and all I know is that the tissues is coming from the USA, it cannot be an easy time for the family, but I cannot explain my enormous gratitude to them in their generosity of giving their loved one to be used for a better life for so many others.

The reason for tissue from the USA is because there is not enough quality tissue available here in the UK. If you have not signed up please consider it, using this link ==> http://www.uktransplant.org.uk/ukt/how_to_become_a_donor/how_to_become_a_donor.jsp

I have been on the donor register since Anthony Nolan so needed a transplant, but apart from my blood nothing has ever been requested of me. Conversely I never for a second expected to be a recipient either. So if you have never considered becoming a donor please do. It could make such a difference to so many others.

Saw the GP yesterday who told me that she had received a letter from the surgeon, I had not seen it so she printed me a copy.  I love my GP so on the ball! The letter tells her/me that I have a significant tibial sag and gross medial opening to valgus stressing.  I know I am getting on but really should my bones be sagging?  The solution is to reconstruct the MCL and the PCL and he will do the ACL if  it is needed and time willing, as well as the Meniscus/cartilidge. If you are feeling brave you can read this ==> http://knol.google.com/k/knee-surgery#Ligament_Injuries

I will be asking him in the morning why the ACL will be done if he has time surely if it needs doing it should be done while I am out on his table and he has a knife in hand? Surely I will not have to go back again?  The reconstruction of my knee will give me about 80% use of my knee and after 4-6 months I will be able to get about without the brace and crutches.

Today, I am having a very quiet day here on my own. Jude and the boys are sick with a virus plus Mr 2 with a chest and throat infection, and on the other side of the family Miss 2 has Chicken Pox, so not going near any of the family and they are not visiting!  It is strange but according to the NHS on line you cannot catch shingles from a Chicken Pox sufferer. This means I took a huge amount of stick from my neighbours when Simon and Jude were suffering the pox and they got shingles.  Plus have heard of lots of other people who have said that they had shingles after visiting those with the pox or know of it happening.

This week I have tidied the kitchen garden for winter, still harvesting broccoli, cabbages red and white, and we have now reached almost the end of the runner beans. Very strangely I am still growing strawberries, they taste exquisite and are few, but it is really strange to have them this late in the year.  The shallots I planted last month are over six inches tall, and the sweet peas I have started in the greenhouse are also putting on leaves. Spring bulbs are also appearing, it just does not bode well for them when winter hits.  Also planted this week are: garlic, red and brown onions, plus the first broad beans. All had to go in now as I am not certain if I will be able to put my foot down after tomorrow for a week or two, so have cleaned the house and tidied the garden to reduce frustration at inability next week.

Anyway back to the point – twice this week a Sparrowhawk has visited and spent some time in the garden, mainly sitting on top of the bird feeder.  I should say that the item in question is a large fancy pole with feeders suspended from it.  I know it is easy to misunderstand phrases frequently used – look at me, I mistook a short break and am now 14 weeks later awaiting surgery, but really dear Sparrowhawk a bird feeder is not somewhere to go to feed on birds!

In other news today I go for my pre-op check, sitting here not filling in the many page form which I need to complete before the appointment.  Questions like:  In the past 12 months, have I had issues and needed help with walking, bathing, etc.  All so distressing to think back over the last three months. On the other side of this though is the thought that next week hopefully the surgery will be over and I will be starting to recover.  Yes I do mean this time next week, as I have to be at the hospital for 07:00 so am assuming a morning list, although I will hopefully find out later today.

Piri Weepu was amazing at bringing down almost the only possibility of a try  by the French, with an amazing heel tap  Although I fear many will remember him for not kicking the points we could have made, but not me, Piri has been a huge strength to the team for several games now.  So strange that he and other ‘Canes will not be playing for the team next year, but thanks to Ma’au Nonu, Andy Hore and Piri Weepu for being amazing for so long for the team.  The Canes fans will sorely miss you all!

Today has been amazing and it is only three pm!   Such a great way to get over the post rugby blues.   First a strawberry picked fresh from the garden – in October what has happened to the weather?  Then a visit from Sue, Emma and Leya, so good to catch up with friends and find out what they are doing now.  Go Emma!  Sad to see them go but hopefully they went to have lots of fun. Then lunch with old friends at the Onslow Arms, up the road in West Clandon, it is really our local – lots of scrummy food and good conversation what more could I want?