Marcus Bankes

…Is not off sick – I phoned Guys hospital today and he’s back
and not looking at all poorly!! ….HURRAH!

although according to a fellow hobbler Mr Bankes  is unavailable till mid March for new consults. Thank goodness I got in there!  As an alternative there’s a fella called Johan Witt who’s based at University College Hospital in London his website is pretty informative too;  hip-joints.co.uk

Hx

Eeeekkkkk!

I just found out that my surgeon, Marcus Bankes, is rumoured to be on long term sick…….anyone out there know anything?!! (this is the site with the relevant comment on;  www.injuryupdate.com.au)

Ok, it’s only just over a week til I have my Pre-op and I can find out then, and it could be a big mix up….or it might be true….aaarrghhhh!

A New OUCH!

I’ve discovered a new type of hip related ouch, one that I’d only heard of before, but have now discovered the joy of!  It’s all in the groin and it smarts a bit.  Most of the pain I get from dodgy hips is right in the joint a sort of sore achey scratchness, occasionally I have a flamingo moment too. This is when it feels like I’ve trapped a nerve and its a sharp shooting pain right inside my hip, so I have to stand like a flamingo for a bit.  Anywho the new groin pain is like a pulled muscle that twinges every now and again, I guess that’s just what it might be, my wimpy muscles are fighting back to keep my joints in the sockets!

How did I discover this new pain you may ask…. through taking part in a Tag Rugby coaching course…which is BRILLIANT!  We did all sorts of running, dodging, weaving, stopping suddenly and a whole lot of other stuff that ailing hips don’t enjoy. It’s my bloody mindedness and competitive streak that is causing my hips the most problems these days – you think I’d learn by now!

Questions and more questions….

Countdown is progressing and my mind won’t switch off to the plethora of questions regarding surgery, some of these are repeated from my previous list as they go unanswered, however here’s what I have so far;

1. To wax or not to wax? – apparently there needs to be some bikini line trimming prior to surgery, and quite frankly I’m not ready for anyone to give me a nice razor rash, so I’m banking on being prepared and waxing away anything necessary!
2. How soon after the Op will I start physio, and will it be at my local hospital or will they do home visits?
3. How long approximately will I need crutches for? (this will be a fairly individual thing, but a rough idea is what I’m after)
4. If I need a Femoral Osteotomy as well how will this affect the timescales for staying in hospital and overall recovery?
5. How ‘with it’ will I be during the days in hospital?
6. Can I borrow the crutches early to practice with before I need to use them for real?
7. I will be travelling home in a car, but how restrictive should I be on car journeys after this?
8. When will I be able to use public transport? (I’ve been told that this could be about 6-8 weeks, which is the time for driving too. Now the restriction on driving I can understand, but I’m a bit befuddled about public transport, unless it’s the potential for being barged in the stampede on and off the bus/train!)
9. Are there any aids I need to have at home?
10. Will I be sedated before having the epidural? (As far as I’m concerned my spine and a needle should never meet it’s just wrong, so this be scares the living crap outta me. Friends who’ve had children tell me it’s the best thing ever, but they were already in pain when the needle went in, I won’t be in pain until afterwards…. maybe if I stub my toe really badly I’ll be less stressed about it!)
11. How long does the surgery usually take for just the PAO and the PAO plus FO?
12. Will I be in a mixed ward and will it be old folks who’ve had a hip replacement?!
13. What are the restrictions on my movement of the joint in terms of flexion and extension, for example will I be able to put my own socks and shoes on?
14. When will I be allowed to go to the gym/swim?- again very individual but a rough idea would be nice.
15. Will you need to cut my tattoo? –  It’s only a little one, but I like it so am not looking forward to it being sliced.

That’s all for now but I’m sure there’ll be a million more to come, plus I’m working on a list of things to get sorted the week before I go in;

1. Any necessary waxing done
2. Hair dyed (sadly I’m going a bit grey)
3. Hair cut
4. Feet loved and looked after by a Podiatrist
5. Lots of dinners made and frozen
6. House to be cleared of any obstacles – this is a bigger job than you’d expect as we’re in the middle of DIY, so there’s stuff everywhere!

again there’ll be plenty more to add, and if any spring to mind that aren’t here then please fill me in!

Oh crumbs it’s real…..

Countdown is progressing … Pre op assessment due the 9th February, Op provisionally scheduled for 30th March.

YIKES!!

time to start thinking of all those questions I need answering

Back to the hips…

After my little rant (see below) I’m back onto the main subject now… the dodgy hips.

Since my last hip related entry my poor joints have been through a fair bit; a panto performance at Uni (very silly and lots of fun) for which I chose, not very sensibly to be one of the dancers.  Of course wonky hips are so well suited to an 80’s style dance complete with leg warmers!  Then there was walking round town doing Christmas shopping – walking seems to pose my hips considerable problems. Then a coupla days relaxing with family, followed by a bracing walk one afternoon. The terrain was flat, only rabbit holes provided any contours, but still the right hip groaned after about half an hour…. HURUMPH!  Then a couple of days later the laminate flooring job was in hand, my boyfriend and I worked like trojans  to get the rooms done, which we have suceeded at, but my hips paid the price for couple of days. I walked like a 90 year old in need of a hip replacement and a zimmer frame after sitting for any more than 10 minutes. Well at least I know I really do need the op… which is looming ever closer. Still no date yet, but fingers crossed for the beginning of April.

I have the potential to be the worst patient in the world ever… both at hospital and at home. I get bored very easily, specially left all day in my own company.  Today has been a fine example of this, with the exception of some bank staff (see the entry below for a very long winded explaination) I haven’t really spoken to anyone today, and feel all the grumpier for it.   My man is a teacher and therefore spends an in-ordinate amount of time doing work at home (yes really to all those who think it’s a 9-3 job).  Imagine what it’ll be like when I struggle to make it out of the house for more than a hobble down the road to give me a change in scenery. My other half and family all work full time… what the heck am I going to do? I think I’ll be calling up the speaking clock just to hear another voice, maybe I’ll even strike up a conversation with it to keep me sane. Oh dear, I need to enlist friends and family on a telephoning rota to keep us all sane!

Ahhhhhhh and Grrrrrrrrr….

This entry is most ranting after the first paragraph so feel free to skip it and watch paint dry which is more interesting by far, but give a girl a blog and she’ll whinge! You have been warned.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have some time off over Christmas, what with being a student an all. Not that it’s been entirely relaxing – a note to all fellow hobblers out there, DO NOT lay laminate flooring unless you are willing to be a super-limper for the following week! Evidently kneeling on the floor and getting up and down while shifting across the room is not good for unhappy hips!  To be fair I could have seen the hobbles coming had I been bothered to think about it, but as usual I launched myself into it with not a thought for my poor knackered joints. Anyway I’m back to the normal level of hobbles again now, so the order of the universe has been restored.

So why the Ahhhh and Grrrrrrr? This is representative of my last two days. Having extra time off from my man means I’ve had the last two days pretty much to myself. Yesterday – the Ahhhh day, was lovely. I got up when I wanted, pottered around, did useful stuff, my Auntie popped over, then it was off to kick boxing after taking down the Crimble decs (boo hiss – the room looks bare now, fairy lights should up be all year round).  So yesterday was most pleasant.

Today on the other hand….. well I woke up before my other half  -who had to work, then, as is the want of my frazzled brain, proceeded to think of all the millions of jobs I needed to do today, so I got up before 8 to escape the monotony of my inner conscience.  Needless to say it followed me around all day – I’ve yet to find the off switch.  A few jobs were sorted then I had a brief visit to town the main purpose of which was to close a bank account. 2 hours for parking was more than enough, or so I thought…                  

 This is where the Grrrrrr comes in; I have wasted nearly one hour of my life sitting in the chuffing bank trying to close my account.  I have plenty of things to do besides waiting for some doughnut to close my account. To be fair the staff were all pretty friendly, just not very quick about doing anything, and when you’ve been waiting for half an hour and at least 4 staff are milling around together chatting it makes you a little peeved (plus one was chewing gum the whole time he was chatting to a customer, how rude! – I realise pointing this out makes me sound like my mum, but she’s a fab lady so I’m good with that). Then some fella tries to jump in front of me in the queue, so I approach one of the staff, kindly pointing out to them that “I am slowly loosing the will to live, is anyone going to see me today?” At this point a stream of about 5 different customers have arrived, queued for about 10 seconds then been seen (apparently there are 2 queues and I happen to be in the slow one.. would help if they were visible queues rather than people milling about,  then I could have adopted a supermarket style strategy to the situation – see Eddie Izzard ‘The Definite Article’ for further info!)  These lucky few customers are by now skipping their merry way down the high street whilst I’m loosing my grip on reality staring at bloody Express cash machines! You see this particular bank has replaced the normal counter service with express machines. Now I’m all for express machines as an addition to a counter service, specially when you’re on your lunch break and tearing round like a looney to get everything done in half an hour.  You head to the bank and in the time honoured fashion politely and quietly join the end of the counter queue; which is made up mostly of old ladies with a blue rinse, as well as the local ‘character’ who isn’t sure whether to talk to you or the voices in their head and some hoodie skiving school to cash his brothers income support in return for fags and a can of Hofmeister; you slowly snake your way round the queue resisiting the urge to shout at no one in particular “What is it with retired people, they have all day to visit the bank, ALL DAY… yet they wait til lunch time when the working world is travelling at warp speed to get some food down their necks and pay in the cheque from Aunt Maude before heading back to their desks to surreptiously study facebook and poke their friends?!!” …                              Any way express machines are very useful in this situation; you can sneak in amongst the the blue rinse brigade and be off in a flash, BUT they are not a replacement for humans or being able to pay exact change in over the counter just so you can zero your balance to close your account and hot foot it out of the hell hole that is apparently ‘The World’s local Bank’ or some crap like that.  So I’m now 40 minutes into waiting and some bright spark of a staff member suddenly realises that I need to pay an exact amount in (which I told um when I first got in there), £5.94 to be precise, in order to close my account…. well then I get sent to the business account counter – where they actually have people, a whole two real people that speak and breath and you can pay money in, whooo hhooooo! However being a personal banking customer I wasn’t greeted entirely with glee by the business banking lady, though she was friendly and effecient enough.  So as the aforementioned bright spark realises the exact change issue my name finally gets called to sit with the Ice Maiden who will close my account….but not until I’ve paid in the cash.       Oh Lordy Lordy.                   So business counter, change paid in, then to the Ice Maiden.  Apparently my signature has changed since I opened my account….No Sh*t Sherlock, I was about 16 when I opened the account.. and lets just say I can remember the BBC Micro computer and Button Moon with fondness – needless to say I’m a way off 16. So a scowl and interrogation later I finally get what I came in for about 57 minutes ago and my parking is nearly up…….GGGRRRRRRRR.

So why am I whinging on here?  well that particular bank won’t give a monkey’s about my complaint, after all I’m not a customer any more…. thank goodness, so I’ve vented on here – hence the warning at the top of the page, and the second post with todays date that is actually linked to hips!

For all those that have suffered this rant, I hope you’ll pull through, please seek medical attention if required, failing that a walk or hobble in the cold air should revive you.