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[02 Jul 2009|12:33am] |
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[11 Jun 2009|12:21am] |
Consensus from physio yesterday and nurse this morning is that I need to work on the inflammation or I'll get fluid in my knee and it's inhibiting muscles and making circulation fail, bad. Not sure what more I can do because I ice and elevate lots and take maximum ibuprofen strong power good and fancy herbal anti-inflammatories but don't think I can do more ice/elevation bceause I also don't want a blood clot thank you no. TRICKSY.
I had my stitches out this morning, which was annoying because swollen so lots of yanking and nicking with the little slicy contraption, and blotting too hard on bruises so hurting more now. Student nurse was present for comedy relief. Tomorrow Mepore comes off and I am free and breezy from now on. Maybe exercises will be easier. Nurse told me to come back if the wounds hurt, but surely they are bound to hurt? Why is it bad? And what level and form of pain constitutes 'hurt'? There are many. I suppose if it gets worse I will call.
Also I am sleeping sinfully badly, so I must now try.
This is awfully tedious.
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[08 Jun 2009|10:10pm] |
Easy GP appointment today, with new person who is actually not new but who I hadn't seen in some time because the old one seemed to be more familiar with my situation but then turned out to be crap which is why I'm back with the new one, if that makes sense.
I've now got some stronger painkillers (Tramadol) to take as well as the regulars for a couple of weeks (just that, then weaned off before I get addicted) to take before bedtime, so hopefully I'll have more luck sleeping. I took one this morning and it seemed to help with exercises and general pain (less like I'm being constantly whacked in the funnybone with a mell), and I'm going to take one before physio tomorrow in anticipation of poking and prodding.
And he offered to renew the medical certificates without me having to plead for it, which is a lot better than the old GP with her humfing and complaining that she's not supposed to give sick people medical certificates when the DWP wave their magic wand to declare them fit for work.
Stitches come out on Wednesday. Changed the mepore again today and it still looks clean, the one bruise is already clearing up, swelling's down a bit (can just about make out where the kneecap is). Maybe physio will tell me to start swimming again, that would be exciting. I expect she'll give me a whole bunch more exercises to do, anyway.
Also found a good, cheap taxi company that uses regular cars. No more black cabs, thank feck.
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[06 Jun 2009|06:55pm] |
Urgh, I am having a painful day, and I feel a bit ill (fuzzy head, sore throat). Changed the mepore today and the stitches still look clean, which is good. There's a bit more bruising than 2 days ago, but nothing too major. Still very swollen, walking and exercises are very difficult.
I have physio on Tuesday, and I'll try to get to a GP on Monday morning and see about stronger painkillers and maybe anti-inflammatories. At the moment I'm not able to do all of my exercises and stay mobile, and that's a problem.
My parents have been cooking and looking after me, which is very good. They are cooking healthy things for me, which makes a most welcome change from frozen shite and is no doubt super good for me.
Not long now.
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[01 Jun 2009|04:15pm] |
The pre-assessment was very good.
I wasn't expecting to see the surgeon today but see her I did, and she made sure I knew exactly what was going to happen. Or rather, what they will look for, because it's still a bit up in the air. Basically, she's going to check everything including menisci even though they didn't show up damaged on the MRI, and hopefully fix it all. If there's cartilage damage under the kneecap I might have to go back another time because they have transplant it from elsewhere and do magical things in the lab, but it sounds like they would get me back in within a couple of weeks. I won't be staying overnight, I can eat all of today and keep taking painkillers, and will probably be back home sometime between 5pm and 8pm. And they will give me whatever painkillers I end up taking. I am probably going to be very sore but should get back on my feet immediately as I'll heal better. Then saw the nurse, peed in a cup, answered questions, blood pressure, done.
Eeeee I getting fixed. :D
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[27 May 2009|02:22am] |
Here's what I made today. It's a coaster made of woven grass. It smells really nice.
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[26 May 2009|10:42am] |
I need to change GPs. Just went to pick up some more co-codamol and a sick line and press her again for a letter for the appeal, and she was very reluctant to write a sick line let alone a letter, and that's only for 4 weeks so I'll need to go back a couple of weeks after surgery even though she said it would take a while longer than that to recover. Apparently the private surgeon wrote her a letter saying he was concerned that I'd been on crutches for so long and that means it'll probably take longer to recover, and she told me this in a sort of "look what you've done" kind of way. If I'd been able to walk properly, I would have. It's not like I haven't been doing all my exercises pretty much constantly and worn myself out going to the gym every day and tried to walk without the crutches as much as possible. If I'd been treated sooner, I wouldn't be relying on crutches for such a long time. GRR.
COMPLAIN COMPLAIN COMPLAIN that is all I do.
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[24 May 2009|04:21pm] |
Ignore my last post. I've been doing some epic google stalking and it sounds like this new surgeon is perfectly well qualified, if not as experienced as the first one. Maybe it would help to have someone with newer ideas or something. But anyway, I'm feeling a lot more confident about it, I think I was just thrown by not knowing what to expect. I don't like surprises. Holy crap surgery a week on Tuesday!
edit: And my mum's going to see if she can fly out earlier.
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[24 May 2009|12:07pm] |
As some people know, I got my surgery date yesterday, and it's for much sooner than expected: 2nd June. I should be overjoyed, but for various reasons I'm scared and anxious.
For starters, it's not with the original surgeon, it's with someone I've never met. The surgeon I saw was a bit of a twat personally but is one of the top knee specialists in Edinburgh, and I'd emailed him with some questions and he was going to discuss everything with me before the surgery in the pre-assessment. I am confident that he's seen a zillion knees like mine and will do a good job. I have no idea who this new surgeon is, and from google stalking it appears she's either just out of training or still training and of the couple of papers I have found by her, one is a case study about nicking a nerve during an arthroscopy. She's not listed on the orthopaedic specialists site, the hospital list of consultants, or the university's faculty list. AND the person I'm having the pre-assessment with is someone entirely different again so I wouldn't even get to discuss it with her beforehand.
People have been saying how hard can it be, she'll have the notes and know what to do, one surgeon is like another, but given it's taken this bloody long to make a diagnosis I am worried that there might be something unexpected and if an inexperienced surgeon does it she'll just leave it, patch me back up, and put me back on the waiting list. This surgery *HAS* to go well. It may not be my life, but it's my mobility and it's my sanity, and I don't think I can cope with this not being the end of this stupid episode. It may seem stupid, but I'd prefer to wait a little while to have surgery with an experienced surgeon who knows what he's doing than have it now with someone who might botch it up or leave it unfinished.
And my mum won't be here until the 10th. I would really like her to be here for just after the surgery, because I'm expecting for a little while I'll need a lot of help. I find it hard to ask other people for help because I read a lot of resentment into people's faces, and I feel bad for asking for things. And other people are just not as good at it - of course people want to go off and enjoy the sun or go shopping or just do their own thing. But my mother doesn't seem to resent it at all, I really think she loves being my mum and helping out as much as she can. It seems to make her happy. I really miss having her close by at the moment, and it would be a huge relief for her to be here after surgery. And nobody else would be as comforting if something goes wrong.
And then I'm just scared about having surgery in general. I've never even had *stitches* before. Being put under anaesthetic, being in a hospital, having someone cut bits of me, that's all pretty scary stuff. I made the mistake of looking at lateral release videos on YouTube, because the chondral defect ones were actually pretty interesting. Lateral release looks much worse - they just slice through a bit of tissue willy-nilly and off you go. It's like carving a turkey. And the surgery itself is 70% likely to work anyway. A lot hinges on this surgery, and I am scared to death that I'm going to be that 30% or that something's going to go wrong, and that I'm going to be stuck like this. I am very anxious that it goes well.
Anyway. The plan of action is to call them up and find out why I've been given a different surgeon, find out how much experience she's had, and find out when Wade's next opening is. If I can be seen by Wade say a couple of weeks later, I would feel much more comfortable doing that. I did try calling yesterday but I guess they're not there for the weekend which probably means bank holiday too, which leaves Tuesday, which is a week from the surgery date ...
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[22 May 2009|04:09pm] |
The people at Work Directions are SO NICE. My interviewer was shocked about the benefits cut, offered to look over my appeal, and encouraged me to make a big stink about the whole thing to my MP and whoever else will listen, and told me not to worry because they'll take one look at the appeal and realise it's a mistake. Apparently it happens all the bloody time, so they're hoping enough complaints start flooding in that they'll change the system (at least so the doctor doing the work assessment is the one who adds up the points, which at the moment is not the case). And she cleared up that my GP cannot write a letter overturning the DWP assessment, but she *can* write a letter just detailing what's wrong and how it limits me. So I'll be going back on Monday/Tuesday, and if she's still being difficult it's time to change GPs.
Now for a bit more sun, as it's an utterly beautiful day. Sunscreen already applied.
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[22 May 2009|01:53pm] |
Good! I have just finished the first draft of my Appeal, and sent it to my mum for checking over. Went through all the points and explained why they were wrong, drawing as much as I could from the X Ray report, the MRI report, and their own doctor's report, and including the notification of addition to the orthopaedics waiting list for good measure. Now I need to get them photocopied because bugger do I trust them not to just lose them.
Mikey, would you be able to pass it on to your contact for checking too? If so, what is your email address?
And I have a meeting with Work Directions today, despite the ESA hiatus. I figured I'd better call them as I've heard of people getting their benefits cut due to missing one session, and it's just as well I did because the meeting is still on. Just more paperwork, to say I've been. On Monday or Tuesday I need to go back to the doctor anyway for more pills so I'll get the medical certificate then too and send that along with the appeal.
Egads. For some reason my circulation has been feeling really bad over the last couple of days, and exercises aren't helping. I don't like it, it feels like the leg is dying. I'm going to sit outside for a little while and hope the sun will warm me up before I have to bugger off.
And I discovered a way of basket coiling using just plastic bags, which is quite fun. My first attempt is a bit weedy and rubbish, but it's giving me ideas to adapt.
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[20 May 2009|01:07pm] |
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Bleuuuuggh I just found a mouse in the trap in the conservatory (fully dead, thankfully). I don't like mousetraps anymore. But is there a better alternative? I also don't like mouse droppings and piss all over my home and scratching noises at night. I know live traps exist, but what the hell are you supposed to do with the mice? Introducing a load of live mice into random fields doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Clearly we need a cat, at least then it's fair. For now I'll keep to the death traps and hope the mice spontaneously go away to be eaten by neighbourhood cats.
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[19 May 2009|12:32pm] |
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Two more Dreamwidth codes available. Comment if you want one.
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[18 May 2009|11:28pm] |
There was an entry semi-recently on Inhabitat about how there was some competition to design an amazing house on Second Life, and the winner would have their design built, so I foolishly thought "Hmm, that would be interesting, maybe I'll go have a look."
I had no idea Second Life was so insanely huge and utterly banal. Today I have been wasting an *awful* lot of time sending my mini-me rollerskating underwater, sailing, attempting to find out how in the hell you're supposed to make money, sleeping in random peoples' hammocks, and nosing around houses. I now have in my inventory: a sailboat, a million zillion items of revealing clothing, a beard, lots of drinks, a snake-charming flute, and the batmobile. I did not find any buildings marked for the Inhabitat competition, although I did trespass as much as possible and have come to the conclusion that people are mostly not very creative.
The only almost vaguely interesting thing I found was a set of tutorials about corals by Mitsubishi, which included some microscopes you look at and it shows you actual pictures of corals and some info, and an underwater scuba path which was quite pretty, if not actually worth the time.
Thankfully I just accidentally turned myself into a man so that's enough of that nonsense.
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[17 May 2009|05:44pm] |
:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D
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[17 May 2009|12:09pm] |
Right, let's try this crossposting malarky again now that I've remembered my password.
Hi. I have a Dreamwidth account under Dodont.
Tada.
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