Later that same day

As I have said elsewhere/before, I am recovering from surgery.  Currently I must walk with one crutch, and I must not drive. My leg was sawn in several places, so it could be reset and straightened with plates and pins. Over 20 years ago I had a near death road accident, I was lucky to recover as I did, but I did it with bent rejoining of one leg to the hip/pelvic girdle and one arm. Medical knowledge and technology is much better now and it can be sorted out with a series of ops. I have had the first op done. The hip has been cleaned up with a chisel and plane, and the excess bone has been used to regraft over the breaks and assist reunion of the femur which has been reset with metal. Its more like carpentry and metalwork, and some horticulture!

Currently the leg has NOT united, and any excessive or sudden strain/pressure, would have serious consequences-this is not just standing and walking, but  even getting in and out of a chair-or car! My right leg operation is entirely dependant on my left elbow/arm giving the support with a crutch. I was expecting an operation on the arm-and am still due to have it-but the leg MUST be fully unified and consolidated before any elbow op. The estimate for a FULL united bond is usually 6 months-that takes us to the end of March 2011. I am making good progress against that but still feel a great urgency to progress faster and better-knowing I am generally fit in the blood, skin and bone quality areas with a good diet! I miss driving terribly and not being able to get out and about as I would normally does frustrate! I do get out but need reliable friends and a spacious car to do it!

So the elbow will be done in about 9 weeks-but this is the optimistic prognosis-nonetheless Kings College Hospital in London have been not only very good at the job but also very reliable and efficient so far in their predictions. Anyway predictions  are still unpredictable. I could put it off, and/or they may decide my leg has not united sufficiently!

The elbow will be a minor affair compared to the leg. Then another leg operation is anticipated-but not until the bond of calcification-and the FULL uniting of the breaks, with "good solidification" taking place-this possibly takes a year! Then they break the leg again, and reset it again with another pin that lengthens the leg. The last op just broke & straightened the leg, and it was a big op, it was 7 hours in surgery and technically it was 9 out of 10 on the surgical scale of intensity and seriousness-and risk!  It was also major trauma to skin, bone, blood etc with a massive cut and severe blood loss, anaesthesia etc. Thats what the "elbow" consultant said! As he said the elbow op will only be about 3 out of 10!   Yes I have a lower torso consultant-for the leg and hip, and an upper torso consultant for the arm. Its National health too and they are brilliant.But it took a private consultation to get there, after suffering so much pain in the last few years I used my private health scheme, and they told me the best people in the business-for me- was at Kings!

Anyway lets forget the medical stuff! I am surviving and pretty well considering. I get bored though, but I have not depended on daytime TV to do it. I have never watched the Jeremy Kyle show! I have seen bits of it though-its awful! I do tend to switch on the TV for some News events and move through the channels and see this utter rubbish for a few seconds. As long as I do not finish up watching this sort of TV I think I may be able to contain my frustration with recovery. That sort of TV will made my recovery worse, I could want to commit suicide if that was the only thing to see or do. I do have a TV weakness though. I am not a big watcher of TV anyway, especially if it means sitting down in front of the TV and just watching it. There are few programmes that entice me to that. But I am fond of old "retro" TV, the sort that both ITV 3 and 4 has. I have seen The Champions and The Saint all too often, but Alexandra Bastedo and the guests of the Saint seem to enchant me. Randall and Hopkirk with Anette Andre has the same effect!  It may be rubbish to others like Jeremy Kyle is to me, so that just says that it takes a load of different people to "make the world go round"! Or as they say "up north" "there is nowt so queer as folk"!   But as I enjoy them I can also see the flaws of them. Well TV was a lot younger in those days, and budgets reflected the thinking where the same sets were used for these programmes all out of the same stable led by Lew Grade and ATV. Scenes featuring foriegn places seem to have old film stuck in and taken from old news reels or some old library material, and jungle scenes were in a room with rubber pot plants, and desert scenes were made on a pile of sand or scattered sand on a floor.  I still love them. Its amazing to see that some of them have actors in them, unknown at the time, but household names now!

So I am now going to digest David Camerons views on Big Society.