My legs have turned to water ... and it had nothing to do with the beer. I only had two pints. it's quite hard to to keep my false leg on the pedal, and most of my forward motion came from my left leg. I'll need to look into a way of keeping my right foot on the pedal; maybe a toe clip, or some velcro.
Posted from moBlog – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile
23 July, 2008
22 July, 2008
19 July, 2008
The collection grows
Denise's medal collection has outgrown the kitchen notice-board, so she's nicked my unused one (at my suggestion, actually) from upstairs.
18 July, 2008
16 July, 2008
Hooray! It works!
This means I don't have to go and fire up the PC if I think of something I want to say. I can just write it on my hand- held and upload it when I'm ready and in wireless (or strong phone signal) range.
Posted from moBlog – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile
Posted from moBlog – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile
Testing Mobile Blogger
This is just a quick test of a new piece of software I've just got for my Pocket PC, which allows me to compose blog entries on my PPC and then upload it to my blog later. Let's see if it works ...
Posted from moBlog – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile
Posted from moBlog – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile
11 July, 2008
Yet another new leg
After the first week, the new leg seems to be OK. It's not so tight, so I can get a thick terry sock on for more cushioning. In fact, I'm wearing one thick and one thin. I went out for a walk today, following my usual one-mile route. At the end, I was pretty tired and aching quite a bit, but there was no stump pain, and what aches there were in my hip soon went away.
I find it hard to remember that I was doing that route without any difficulties a couple of months ago, before I got that infection in my stump. I'm sort of back to square one, but things are looking very promising. The new leg has a much thinner cup because of a new moulding technique. Well, they had this system before my accident, but it's been out of use between then and now. Anyhoo, instead of a plastic moulding, it has a carbon-fibre laminate, which is lighter as well as thinner. The inner cup is also thinner and lighter, so the whole assembly looks much slimmer, enabling me to wear my jeans - as long as I don't need to check my leg: the cuff on my jeans is too narrow to allow me to roll the leg up for inspection purposes. Otherwise, it's fine, and it's nice to be able to wear something other than combats. Here, you thought I'd gone all Xtreme Sport culture didn't you?
09 July, 2008
Mum's plaque 30/6/08
James organised a marker plaque for Mum's burial plot at Mowthorpe so we could find which tree her ashes were buried under. I visited Dad's plot as well, on what would have been his birthday, as it happens. It was a bit of a somber journey home.
02 July, 2008
Hull, China (some quite personal bits)
I'm not sure who I'm writing this for, as the people most likely to read this, if any, were present for a lot of the time I am about to write about (well, I actually wrote it before this, and added this bit afterwards, but you'd never have known that if I hadn't said ... )
Denise ran the Humber Bridge half marathon last weekend, and managed to knock two and a half minutes off her last year’s time: not bad considering she was doubting whether she’d run it at all! We stayed in the same B&B she’d used last year when I was in hospital, and it was very nice with a large room and a large en-suite, about three times the size of the one we’d had in Nairn. It was very close to the Humber foreshore, and spectacular views of the Humber Bridge, which was, for about eighteen years, the longest single-span suspension bridge in the world (until the pesky Japanese got on the case with their Akashi-Kaikyō Bridge) (thank you Wikipedia).
It was great to see all my siblings at lunch on the Sunday. We had a nice laugh, despite Simon having been brought low by a dodgy bacon-and-sausage-and-mushroom-and-salmonella sandwich. James seems to be having some regrets over having taken the South Teeside job, as commuting form Market Weighton is making his days very long indeed. The hard thing is that he doesn't get so much time with Tom as he would would like. I feel for him, but he did need to do this to stay on his career track. He'd been very dedicated to that, and his tenacity and determination are admirable to a frightening degree. I am so proud of him and what he's achieved.
I did a lot more walking and standing around over the course of the weekend, for which I paid the price. By Sunday, the day of Denise’s run, the skin on the end of my stump was incredibly sore again. It was like walking on the edge of a knife all the time, but I think it was partly down to the socks I was wearing. Stupidly, I’d not made sure I had plenty for the weekend, and was down to the bottom of my sock drawer, and having to use the ones I normally didn’t wear because they weren’t particularly comfortable. The manufacturer had apparently changed the way they finished the ‘toes’, and there had been complaints about the seams not being flat, which had caused sores for some users. The hospital had stopped issuing them, but I think I got a batch of the rejects before they did. I’ve got some of the earlier style ones, which are much more comfortable, so I’m OK, but I’m going to have to blag some more from the hospital when I go tomorrow. I’m being very careful in the meantime, and yet again pinning all my hopes on a new leg.
The thing is, that the pain I got myself into wasn’t entirely down to the socks, and I have had to think very hard about whether I would be up to our China tour. I phoned the travel agents yesterday to check how much walking was actually involved. I was hoping that the warning that they had put against the tour, that it was not suitable for people with walking difficulties, was to put off 30 stone Americans who couldn’t walk 5 yards without breaking into a sweat. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case. It did involve walking quite long distances each day, and there were quite a number of internal flights involved. There was no getting around it: we would have to postpone once again.
This had been something for both of us to look forward to this year, so making this decision has been very upsetting. Once again I did the self-pity thing, saying it was all my fault, etc., etc., so it’s not been a good couple of days. Denise wants me to phone a helpline and talk to someone else, instead of dumping on her, which I understand; but I don’t know where to begin. It’s basically down to how I’m feeling physically, and I don’t how ‘talking about my feelings’ can help. I don’t have ‘feelings’ about this: once the pain stops, I’m fine. If I could just get to a stage where I can walk whenever I want to, and can get back to work, Mr. Grumpy will disappear. Well, not entirely, because I’ve never been an entirely cheery person, and I have always had bad moods, all my life. Nothing to do with this.
So that’s it. The China Tour is off, and we’ve a week in the Isle of Wight to look forward to instead. Great. Not. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck … maybe I should tell someone how I feel. Oh, I just did. Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends …
It was great to see all my siblings at lunch on the Sunday. We had a nice laugh, despite Simon having been brought low by a dodgy bacon-and-sausage-and-mushroom-and-salmonella sandwich. James seems to be having some regrets over having taken the South Teeside job, as commuting form Market Weighton is making his days very long indeed. The hard thing is that he doesn't get so much time with Tom as he would would like. I feel for him, but he did need to do this to stay on his career track. He'd been very dedicated to that, and his tenacity and determination are admirable to a frightening degree. I am so proud of him and what he's achieved.
I did a lot more walking and standing around over the course of the weekend, for which I paid the price. By Sunday, the day of Denise’s run, the skin on the end of my stump was incredibly sore again. It was like walking on the edge of a knife all the time, but I think it was partly down to the socks I was wearing. Stupidly, I’d not made sure I had plenty for the weekend, and was down to the bottom of my sock drawer, and having to use the ones I normally didn’t wear because they weren’t particularly comfortable. The manufacturer had apparently changed the way they finished the ‘toes’, and there had been complaints about the seams not being flat, which had caused sores for some users. The hospital had stopped issuing them, but I think I got a batch of the rejects before they did. I’ve got some of the earlier style ones, which are much more comfortable, so I’m OK, but I’m going to have to blag some more from the hospital when I go tomorrow. I’m being very careful in the meantime, and yet again pinning all my hopes on a new leg.
The thing is, that the pain I got myself into wasn’t entirely down to the socks, and I have had to think very hard about whether I would be up to our China tour. I phoned the travel agents yesterday to check how much walking was actually involved. I was hoping that the warning that they had put against the tour, that it was not suitable for people with walking difficulties, was to put off 30 stone Americans who couldn’t walk 5 yards without breaking into a sweat. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case. It did involve walking quite long distances each day, and there were quite a number of internal flights involved. There was no getting around it: we would have to postpone once again.
This had been something for both of us to look forward to this year, so making this decision has been very upsetting. Once again I did the self-pity thing, saying it was all my fault, etc., etc., so it’s not been a good couple of days. Denise wants me to phone a helpline and talk to someone else, instead of dumping on her, which I understand; but I don’t know where to begin. It’s basically down to how I’m feeling physically, and I don’t how ‘talking about my feelings’ can help. I don’t have ‘feelings’ about this: once the pain stops, I’m fine. If I could just get to a stage where I can walk whenever I want to, and can get back to work, Mr. Grumpy will disappear. Well, not entirely, because I’ve never been an entirely cheery person, and I have always had bad moods, all my life. Nothing to do with this.
So that’s it. The China Tour is off, and we’ve a week in the Isle of Wight to look forward to instead. Great. Not. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck … maybe I should tell someone how I feel. Oh, I just did. Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends …
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