Mel-o-drama

Apparently there has been a major gas leak in Catford. My bus, the 171, terminated, short, in Brockley Rise. The bus stop advised taking the 122 to Forest Hill for the 185. If I was walking I'd be a bit annoyed that it didn't say that the 185 stop was just a few hundred meters away.

Anyway, we get there and see two 185 buses together in traffic. A pair of west Indian ladies infront of me start some melodrama in that amusing way it's done in the Caribbean. It turns out that there is a slow walker in the group. Maybe she won't make it, better hold the bus.

No need though. The traffic is slow and heavy. She makes it but her daughter doesn't get on. Mild panic. Stop her, she's got the cream bag, they travel togetther. Open this door!

But she's on the phone. Going to a shop to top up her Oyster? She should have just got on the bus!

Whoosh!

A bike jets by, LEDs strobing the cycle lane. That's the way to travel.

The driver comes out of his cab and tells us: this bus is terminating in Catford, I'm not driving to Lewisham.

Cast-away

So the plastercast was removed today. I arrived at 9:20 and was seen by the plastercast guy at about 10. I was a little annoyed at the wait as other patients were arriving later and being seen sooner, but there were multiple surgeries running so I couldn't complain.

I went in a laid on the recliner. He took out his circular saw and told me that it would tickle and vibrate, which it did. I was a bit concerned as he cut over the pin holding my toe bones, but he missed it. It was quite tough over the middle of my foot but spreader, scissors and more sawing made quick work of it. No pain.

With the dressings removed, I remarked that the pin was bigger than last time. He explained that it was due to the bones being sinury, or grisly, I can't remember his exact words, but there were more bits of bone to hold together. He said he would show me on the x-ray and I asked him to take a picture.


It's camera-phone blurry but you can see some parts of the bone are lighter than others. That's what he meant.

About 5 minutes later the consultant came in to make an examination. Was I happy with it? Yes. He told me I need to take it easy, stick with the crutches for 2-3 weeks and nothing stenuous for 2 months. The bones had reattached but they would take many months to heal. Well that's true. My left foot is still not completly healed a year later, but it gets better all the time.

Walking vs the bus

Before my operation I went to East Dulwich to buy some hand soap. The bus there went around the South Circular and I noticed, as ever, heavy traffic into Catford eastbound. Coming back we got to the jam at Brockley Rise which is 2.6km from home.

I decided to walk and see if it made any difference to my journey time. It was a little bit 'cat and mouse' but I got back to Lewisham Town Hall in Catford at exactly the same time as the bus.

So that's useful to know. If only more Lomdoners thought about this. I'm amazed at the number of people I observe taking very short journies by bus, just 1 or 2 stops. Why do they do it?

Fancy that!

While I was off work (first day back today), I planned a short holiday in France, cycling from London to Paris. Looking at what to do in Paris, I decided on a long desired visit to the Bibliotheque national de France, and something else. I picked Quai Branly over the Cite de sciences and what a surprise to find an advert for just that at my bus stop this morning!


Foot update: it is good. Almost all the pain from the pin is gone. I can crutch a short distance without swelling. Crutching far however e.g over 500m needs a bit of foot up and toe wiggling!

A real bonus:

Fruit Compote

Based on Delia's recipe.

Mouse

Balls! I was in the kitchen tonight and when I turned the light on a mouse bolted across my work top and behind the fridge. I yelped and cleaned the work top. It wasn't filthy, I did the washing up yesterday, but there was still some flour and a few crumbs of pastry. About a minute later I saw the mouse again, dart out of the kitchen to the mouse place. All the mice I've had stay in the same place, in the corner of my living room behind an old door and various planks of wood. There is some old mouse/rat poison crumbs at the entrances to the space, but we'll see. Bah!

Gocycle

Golly, I didn't think they were going to make this! £800 apparently.

Pear Pie!

Several days worth! 2 bags of pears (peeled, cored, quartered); flour; butter; water; salt; a spoon of brown sugar and a good squirt of honey.

Owwww!

I hobbled back from hospital yesterday. I am still hobbling.

Yesterday was my two week(ish) appointment to change the dressing and remove the stitches. Outpatients was either working at peak efficiency or in chaos, hard to tell, but the calmness of the staff suggested the former. The waiting area was standing room only, with several people standing, and the queue I joined for reception went out the door into the main hospital corridor.

I got to the front and the reception guy asked me if I had had my x-rays yet. No. He told me to get them done upstairs, and I asked, do I need a form for that? No, they should be expecting me. Now, if that was the case, my appointment letter should have told me to go straight to x-ray rather than queueing for reception, and when I went up the x-ray reception, they said, 'do you have a form, you're not on our system, go back to outpatients!' So, back down I went, and I explained what happened, and this time I got a form, went back upstairs (by lift, it wasn't onerous) and was told that there is a 2-hour queue for the x-ray. Well, I didn't have anything else to do that day, and I had my iPhone so I took a seat, but I thought I would be pushing it close, because I recalled last year with my other foot that the Outpatients was a morning surgery and it was already 10:30.

It turned out that 2-hours was wildly conservative. I had a waiting ticket numbered 95 and the screen showed 91. After 15 minutes 92, 93 and 94 were called. Then 15 minutes later I was called with two others. In my time waiting, the little banks of seats I was sitting in had filled up and I was in the corner hemmed in, so it took a few seconds on my crutches to get out to the nurse who had called us. By the time I got out the nurse and the other patients were gone! Good thing I knew where I was going! LOL.

I had my x-ray done by a trainee radiographer. I think he must have been fairly new because the full radiographer basically changed everything he did, but in a very friendly way, e.g "it works better like this." As the last time I had x-rays, they were zapped down to Outpatients electronically. Back in Outpatients, I reported my return and took a seat in the now only 3/4s full waiting room, and a few minutes later I was called in to see, I think, the house officer (the doctor standing in for my Consultant). He was very friendly, looked at the x-rays, expressed approval, asked how I was, I was fine, but I could feel the metal pin in my foot.

I asked about the x-ray, it looked freakish to me (I should have taken a picture), with 4 toes in line and then the big toe splayed over to the right. No, that's normal, so long as the foot looks like a foot. I also asked about insoles, and I've been referred to 'surgical appliances' to correct my flat-foot. Then I asked about my sick note, which said 6 weeks. The plaster cast is coming off in 5 weeks, 6 weeks seemed at bit..."excessive?", the house officer said; "yes", I said. He then tipped toed around asking if I was being pressured back to work, no no, quite the opposite, I explained. Before going to the hospital that morning my foot felt quite good. I didn't need to complete the course of Diclofenac painkillers and I was able to toe-heel about easily at home. However, after using the crutches to get to the bus stop and sitting on the bus, and then I misjudged the bus stop, and missed the nearest stop for the hospital, and had to crutch back from the Lewisham Centre(!), and then up and down and up and down for the x-ray, my foot had basically had enough and felt swollen. So, we agreed on 3 weeks. Actually I think he'd have written me a sick note based on what I felt, so I'll decide next weekend on how it feels, but I suspect I'll be back the next Monday.

At least I was sure of that before I got the bandages removed. Rather than slitting a plaster over and around the metal pin, the surgeons had placed a small round one directly over it. It was very difficult to remove without pulling the pin and cutting into my skin. Indeed, they were not able to remove it without pulling on the pin and cutting into my skin! Ow, ow ow. :-( Not screaming pain, but the pin stays in for 3 weeks, so any movement of it re-cuts the skin. When I saw it, finally, it was really big! Despite the pain, I was amazed at how clean and fresh it looked:

And also swollen. I know from the other foot that when the pin comes out the big toe will move back close to the other toes, but straighter. The other difference is where the pin is. Last time the pin came out at the top between my big and little toe, also the wire was a smaller diameter.

The pin was about half a centimetre proud of the skin. The skin around it was very sensitive to touch. And then the sutures (stitches) came out. Unlike last time, that hurt too. The sutures were very tight, I was told. There were two drops of blood once they came out. Then it was all bandaged up. It was quite a marvel to watch the plasters and bandages going on so precisely. But this was done in the room across from the plastering room, so I had to hop over there to have the warm fabric cast applied. I had to hop out and wait half-an-hour for it to dry and harden, before dropping off my referral to the surgical appliances department. I was warned that the foot would feel different in the cast and indeed it was quite bad, not least because of the trauma from the pin cutting my skin. Holding my foot in the wrong way, hurt, banging my foot hurt, shaking my foot definitely hurt. Actually standing on my heel did not hurt, so standing is OK. Moving on crutches however was slow and painful. Getting to surgical appliances was a chore, getting down the road to the bus stop left my hands sore and hurting, my upper body stressed and my foot just about coping. I definitely need that third week off I think. I'm sort of back to square one mobility wise.

Numeric Keypad

LOL. Well that's one additional use for the iPhone!




(it is a numeric keypad styled to match Apple keyboards, like my one, which doesn't have a numeric keypad. It works over Wifi and it works very well).

Tent

I erected my new tent (2008 model TN Laser) in the spare room last night to see if it had enough headroom. It does. Just.