Racing

...after a fashion.

At one of my bi-weekly visits to my physiotherapist today, she finished the session by getting me to use an exercise bike. I very nearly welled up, such was the emotion of being able to do something that approximated to normal exercise, and actually use my legs properly. I pedalled it round (with minimal resistance) for 10 minutes, and it was fine, so my physio (the simply lovely Louise) has recommended I try and get one for home.

Anyone got one they can lend me?

OK, so I know that x-rays of broken bones are a fairly important part of this story, and they've been sadly lacking so far. But I've finally got a CD from the hospital. Apparently the medical world has its own format for images (DICOM, if you're interested), so I had to do a bit of screen grabbing and cut'n'pasting to get them into jpegs for here, but now I've managed to load them.

There's six of them, but only one is really the money shot, so here it is:

And that was six weeks after the surgery. I don't know about you, but that still looks like a pretty big gap to me. For ref, the 'nail' down the middle is 10mm in diameter, which means some of the gaps are at least 10mm, if not more.

Links for the full set are here:
Femur 1.jpg
Femur 2.jpg
Femur 3.jpg
Femur 4.jpg
Tibia 1.jpg
Tibia 2.jpg

In other news I saw Louise my lovely physio today, and she measured the various facets of movement in my right hand, and was jolly pleased - virtually every articulation has gone up 10 or 15 degrees.

Wheelchair wheels :-(

Today was my 'big' appointment with the leg doctor (as opposed to the hand doctor, jaw doctor, etc). Six weeks and two days after the operations on my legs, I was hoping for the left leg (tibial plateau fracture) to be signed off, and thus to be allowed onto crutches (still supporting the right femur), opening the way to me moving home, driving my car, and generally re-engaging with the world.

But it didn't turn out quite so well.

Firstly the good news - the tibia looks great. The two screws holding the broken bits together look frankly huge on the x-ray, but there's been no movement - the break isn't actually visible now, and the whole thing is good. Which is the way it feels - I can easily support my weight on it, and there's no pain.

The femur is a little different. The x-rays show some rather large gaps (at least 10mm!) where there's no bone yet at all, just the pin holding things together. If I put any serious weight on this, the results could be extremely negative, and the risk of that happening when using crutches is too high. So, 'six more weeks' in the wheelchair was the prescription. On further discussion (and probably the pricking of tears of disappointment clearly visible on my face) the next appointment was set at four weeks. I'm very cheesed off with this, but I must admit those huge gaps on the x-ray have pulled me up a bit short.

The other good news is that, if I do what I'm told (as if!) the prognosis is for 100% recovery i.e. I shouldn't have any residual issues from my leg injuries. Which, given their severity (really, you want to see that x-ray) is something to feel quite happy about.

I'm still cheesed off tho.

I've agreed with my folks that I'm going to move home anyway - I can get about my flat ok in the chair, and I think I can look after myself. All I'll need is someone to do some shopping, and if desperate I can get Tesco etc to deliver. Of course, I can't get out of the building alone, but I can't get out of their house alone either; if there's a fire I'll just bloody burn. But I need to be back in my own space, with my own stuff around me, my own music and TV, not to mention my own decent internet connection (rather than this 460Kb mobile phone connection) so that I can dial into work properly, and at least try and keep my brain a bit alive.

I also met a lovely new physio today (Louise), who gave me loads of exercises, for hand (which is comning along nicely) and legs (to try and prevent muscle loss while I'm forced to sit on my arse). I'm seeing her twice a week, so that'll give me something to focus on, I suppose.

Now, excuse me while I try and find a cat to kick.