Racing

Yesterday I removed the dressings, and treated myself to a proper shower, and then went to physio. My physio was pretty pleased with the way the incisions have all healed, and gave me a bunch of exercises to do to improve the range of movement I have, with the warning that I 'shouldn't over do it'.

I also told her of the old line 'pain fades, glory lasts for ever, chicks dig scars'. She looked at my scars and suggested that chicks might in fact run screaming from the room. Perhaps I have overdone it a bit - judge for yourselves:

Yesterday I went in for some more x-rays, and to have the 'staples' removed (they use staples rather than stiches nowadays). The nurse said she'd never removed so many in one go before, so she counted them - 73 in total. Some of them came out with hardly any sensation at all, others really made me yelp a bit.

As for the x-rays - well, things look different, but, to my layman's eyes, not that much better. But the consultant explained to me that the bone graft material hardly shows up in the x-ray, just as a bit of grey shadow, as it's a lot less dense than the femur itself. Comparing with the previous x-ray, the gaps are smaller, and there is a load of graft 'shadow' in places.

You can also see the row of staples along my thigh!

The pic from the other angle is here

Anyway, the surgeon is happy enough, and the next x-ray is in 8 weeks. This will be the really important one, I think...