Shake it all about

Last night when we went shopping at Morrisons John drove into one of the disabled car parking bays. He then got out of the car and opened the boot to get Wizzy out.

The driver of a van, which was parked next to us in the disabled bay, took his blue badge off the dashboard and shook it at John, indicating that only blue badge holders were allowed to park there.

The little van man was too busy telling off John that he didn’t notice me putting my blue badge on the dashboard.

John ignored the little van man, who was still shaking his badge, and unloaded Wizzy from the boot. He then turned Wizzy to face the van and shook it a couple of times.

As we walked/wheeled passed the van, I turned my head and gave him a big sarcastic grin.

Something to look forward to

Having not had a holiday last year (we thought I would be going into hospital because of my knee – we were partly right….) and are not having one this year (because things were up in the air about my hip and back), we decided it was time we had something to look forward to that wasn’t medical related.

Following my visit to see a back consultant last Thursday (the full story will appear in the Joint Journal shortly), surgery, (if it does happen) will be well into the future and there’s a strong possibility that I won’t be able to have a new hip put in.

This means that next year we’ll be hospital free. So yesterday I booked a cruise for next May.

We pick up the cruise at Lisbon, then it’s off to Portimao, Cadiz, Palma, Mahon, Corsica, Livorno, Portofino and finally Rome.

I won’t say we’re looking forward to it but we’ve already started the count down !!!!

Marie

Reporting in

So what’s been happening in the BOGOF household these past couple of weeks. Not a great deal I’m afraid.

We went to the Goodfood Summer Show in Birmingham, which was a really good. As expected there were loads of things freebees to taste and drink. We also saw the Hairy Bikers giving a cookery demonstration. They were so funny.

It was a little busier than I would have liked, and as usual, Wizzy was invisible which was a bit annoying. Still, we did get our own back by running over peoples toes when they wouldn’t move out of the way….

Took delivery of a new bath aid (you can read all about it in the Joint Journal), so getting in and out of the bath is a little easier.

The Customer from Hell made a couple of appearances over none receipt of some vitamins.

Had a bit of a run in with my dentist (full details will be appearing in the Joint Journal in the next couple of days).

So other than that there’s nothing else to report.

Marie

Opps

Last night John was making a batch of Pimms.

"One part Pimms", he said as he poured the Pimms into a measuring jug, "and three parts lemonade".
"Three parts lemonade", I replied, "don't you mean two parts lemonade".
"No", he said, "two parts would make it too strong".

So to those who read my comment on 'Summertime' and made some Pimms following my directions - sorry !!!!!

Marie

It’s French Jim but not as we know it

Last night an advert for Peugeot cars came on the TV and it announced that any new cars bought in June would received a free mobile phone with SatNav.

“Will I get one of those”, I asked John.
“One of what”, he replied, looking up from the book he had been reading.
“The free mobile phone from Peugeot for every new car bought in June”.
“No”, he said, getting back to his book.
“Why not”, I replied, getting a little annoyed, “even though I don’t take delivery of my new car until September, the paperwork will show that I bought it in June”.
John sighed, “because you’re buying a Renault….”.

Summertime

Today is overcast and it’s been raining, but yesterday was one of the first days this year that could reasonably be described as summery. So yesterday in the BOGOF household we saw the arrival of the First Pimms Of Summer.



It would be nice to say that we drank it on the terrace overlooking the formal gardens, but sadly we have neither. It was however a welcome reminder that winter is past.

Power to the people

Yesterday I had a phone call from the hospital complaints department.

I had been given a new appointment of 1st July.

Nothing was mentioned about why I had been put back on the waiting list or even an apology for been given the wrong information.

However I was happy with the result.

The Patient from Hell 2 – the NHS 0

Marie

The Patient from Hell

Yesterday I received a letter from the hospital to say that my appointment to see a consultant about my back on the 15th July had been cancelled, but they had given me an alternative date and time of 22nd June at 2.20pm.

As I would have preferred a morning appointment I rang the clinic earlier today and asked if there were any available.

Before the little reception woman looked for another time she cancelled June’s appointment, then said the next appointment she could give me was 27th July at 2.20pm.

I said that wasn’t any good so could I have the June’s appointment back.

No was the answer...

Because I was a new patient for that consultant and had ‘refused’ their appointment of 22nd June, I had to go back on to his waiting list. An appointment will be sent out when I got to the front of the queue.

To say I was not happy was an understatement !!!!

I was straight on to the hospitals complaints department and the Patient from Hell made an appearance.

I told them I thought it was extremely unfair to be put back on the waiting list when it was them who cancelled my appointment in the first place. I also pointed out that it was a bit rich to put in the letter that if the new appointment time wasn’t convenient, I had to let them know and they would arrange a new one.

The complaints officer agreed and said she would look into it and get back to me in the next couple of days.

The Patient from Hell 1 - The NHS 0

Marie

Four months today….

…. And I’ll be the owner of a brand new Renault Clio.

Having started with a short list of four cars – Vauxhall Corsa, Peugeot 207, Ford Fiesta and Renault Clio, - it was whittled down to the 207 and the Clio.

This afternoon the Clio became the winner.

Roll on September 15th !!!!

Marie

Challenges update

Back in January I set myself some challenges - to read two books a month, finish off the blankets that I was crocheting and knitting and complete the two projects I was cross stitching.

So far this year I’ve managed to read:

Home in time for breakfast – a WW1 diary
MASH an army surgeon in Korea
Rescue me – my life with the Battersea dogs
Voices from the Home Front
Remember, Remember, the 5th November (history of Britain in bite size chunks)

Not quite the two a month I was hoping for, but considering I’m a slow reader, I don’t think that’s too bad.

As you can see I’ve finished my crochet blanket.



I also finished chart number three (out of nine) on one of my cross stitch projects.



Here’s to the next few months…

Marie

OT

Yesterday morning we had a visit from an Occupational Therapist.

When I was in hospital a referral was sent to Social Services for an OT to come and assess me at home. They had only just got round to dealing with it now…

He’s going to arrange for a bath lift so I’ll be able to get in/out of the bath easier than what I currently do - which is slid in, then on the count of three John helps to heave me out.

One of the biggest problems is getting in and out of the house, so he’s going to arrange for a surveyor to and see if a ramp can be built at the front and back.

It’s taken a while but it looks like things are finally moving so I can have a bit of my independency back. Yippee !!!!

Marie

The return of the Joint Journal

Just to let you know that the Joint Journal is back….

Marie

Goodfood leaves a nasty taste

Due to the problems with my back, and that I might have surgery on it later this year, we’ve decided to put our holidays on hold until we know what’s happening.

With nothing to look forward to (we were to be going on a cruise this year…) John suggested we go away for a few days sometime in early summer.

The Summer Goodfood Show is taking place at the NEC in June, and one of the chef’s theatre sessions will be the Hairy Bikers. I think the Hairy’s are brilliant so John suggested we incorporate the NEC in with our couple of days away.

I rang the NEC goodfood show ticket hotline to arrange the tickets. I gave ‘Barry’ (he sounded just like Barry from the Iceland adverts….) my Goodfood magazine’s subscribers code which entitled me to reduced costs. I then advised him that I would be in Wizzy*, which according to their website, gave wheelchair users ‘carer’s complementary free admission.

‘Barry’ explained I wasn’t entitled to any magazines subscribers reductions because I had already received a reduction due to the ‘wheelchair complementary free admission’.

I haven’t written a ‘customer from Hell’ letter for ages !!!!

Marie

* the name I’ve given to my wheelchair

Normal service has resumed

Now that conference is over for another year we can now get back to blogging again.

Having been constantly nagged at, we’ve finally brought ourselves into the 21st century and joined facebook. As one of our friends said, ‘about bloody time’… I’m still not that convinced about it so we’ll see what happens.

There’s been a few changes on the medical front since I last blogged. My back is still causing me problems. The strong painkillers my orthopaedic consultant prescribed for me weren’t doing anything, so my GP upped the dosage and gave me some slow releasing ones as well. They’re a Class B drug so there’s a mountain of paperwork to sign when I get them delivered*. The side-effects aren’t that good. They make me quite tired (I could sleep for England…) and quite spaced out, which is really weird. Still at least they seem to be dulling the pain a little.

I saw my orthopaedic consultant recently and he’s going to refer me to a spine specialist in the hope he can do something for my back.

The news on getting a replacement hip is still up in the air. The plastic surgeon, who I saw a few weeks ago, sent a long rambling letter to my consultant saying he wasn’t prepared to do a skin graft, yet in the final paragraph said if he (my consultant) wanted to go ahead with the hip replacement, he would do it.

Without the skin graft I can’t have a replacement hip, so my consultant is going to have a chat with the plastic man to see exactly what the score is.

I’m afraid my aim to read two books a month have fallen by the wayside a little. During February and March I only managed to read ‘Rescue me – my life at Battersea Dogs home’ and ‘The voices from the Home Front’. I did though manage to finish my crochet blanket.

Marie


*my local chemist arranges all my repeat and extra prescriptions with my GP surgery

Still here

Just a quick blog to say we're still here.

Normal blog service will resume shortly.

Marie

Spooky

For the past few days I’ve been watching the first couple of episodes from series one of Torchwood on the DVD player.

Yesterday afternoon I settled down to watch episode six. It started off ok - the voice of Jack saying ‘Torchwood. Outside the Government, beyond the Police…’

The ‘scary’ music was playing and a woman’s mobile phone rang. She answered it but no words could be heard. The music continued and I could hear her car coming to a stop on the road. Again she opened her mouth but no words came out.

I skipped through various scenes and the same thing happened. I tried the next episode but it was still the same.

I even tried the episodes I had watch the day before. The same thing happened.

Thinking there might be a problem with the DVD player I loaded one of my ‘Family Guy’ DVD’s in to the player. That worked perfectly….

Last night after we had watched a film on the DVD player John tried to see if he could get Torchwood to work. The same thing to him.

This morning I decided to try Torchwood on my new TV/DVD player which is in my work room. I’ve played a DVD on the new TV before, but this time I couldn’t find the DVD slot.

It was ridiculous. Of course it was there. I spent ages pressing buttons on the remote trying to get the slot to open, then running my hands over the TV to try and find where it was. It was not there ….

Spooky !!!!!!!!!!!!

Snow

You think we've had it bad do you ?

Well here are a few pictures from Canada and Russia to show you what REAL snow looks like. But first, here is how they clear snow from their roof in Italy, the land where health and safety is unknown.




Now to Canada and a look at the Labrador Highway



And here's why the 'phones in Russia don't always work as well as they should.



And finally a few pictures showing why you should never leave your car out in the snow ...

It’s back

Remember the problem I had with my back when I was in hospital, well it’s returned…

Not the weekend just gone, but the one before that, we were in Scotland finalising things for Renfrew conference. We think it was either the long car journey or the hotel bed that set my back off again.

Last Monday I started to get pains in my lower back and both of my legs, and as the week progressed, they gradually got worse.

Now I can hardly move first thing on a morning as the pain is excruciating. It is not nice….

This afternoon I was back at the hospital to see my orthopaedic consultant. As usual his opening lines were “How are you doing”.
My reply was “I was fine until Monday…”.

He explained as I now had a weakness in my back, the disks would continue to displace and that the only cure would be surgery on my spine. Wonderful !!!!

Thankfully that’s not a route he nor I want to take right now. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about.

He’s prescribed me some stronger painkillers in the hope that will ease it a little and fingers crossed it will settle down like it did when I was in hospital.

He then asked how I got on when I saw the Plastic Man last week. I explained that I wasn’t impressed with him and that he didn’t think it was possible for him to do the plastic surgery what my consultant wanted.

“Did he now!”, replied my consultant.

I don’t think I’d like to be in the Plastic Man’s shoes when he next has a chat with my consultant...

Marie

NHS – otherwise known as useless

Yesterday I had an appointment at the hospital to see a plastic surgeon. The infection in my hip had eaten everything in it’s path – skin, bone, muscle, even metal !!!

Consequently once my metal hip (or what was left of it….) had been removed, all that was left was a huge cavity.

In order to try and put another hip in, my orthopaedic consultant arranged for me to see the plastic man as I was going to need a skin graft on my hip and a muscle transplant to replace what had been eaten.

To cut a long story short, I wasn’t impressed with the plastic man. According to my consultant they had had several long chats about what various procedures would be done. You could have fooled me…

If it wasn’t for my name being on the file that was in his hand, I would have said he had the wrong patient. I also know it was the right plastic man as he introduced himself when he first came into the room.

To be honest it was pretty much a waste of time. It’ll be interesting to see what he actually wrote in his notes.

I’ll find out when I next go to see my consultant. It’s supposed to be on Monday. However I’ve been trying for several weeks to get the appointment time moved back half an hour as I can’t make it at the time they’ve given me.

Whenever I’ve rang the reception to get the time changed they said that there were no later appointments, so I’d have to keep ringing back every few days to see if any later ones have become available. This has been going on for over eight weeks…

I rang them this morning and was told the latest appointment they could give me was 2.15pm. I explained that was still no good as the earliest I could get there was 2.30pm.

They couldn’t give me anything later as that would mean the consultant would be hanging around until I got there.

I was to ring them on Friday and if the latest time they could give me was still 2.15pm, they would change my appointment time of 1.50pm to 2.15pm then make a note on my file that I would be fifteen minutes late.

You couldn't make it up !!!!!!!

Challengers done so far

In January I set myself some challengers for 2010. They were to read two books a month, complete my two cross stitch projects and finish my crochet and knitting blankets.

I read the two books: ‘Home in time for breakfast – a WW1 diary’ and ‘MASH an army surgeon in Korea’.

I’ve done a little bit of one of the cross stitch projects. The other one is on black fabric, and as my eyes aren’t as good as they used to be, I need good sunlight when I’m working on it.

I’ve now got only 39 ½ knitted squares and seven more ‘rounds’ to do on the blankets.

Here’s to February’s challengers.

Marie