…grayblog…

Author: graybo

  • links for 2009-03-04

  • I’m free! I’m free!

    This morning, I had the plaster cast removed. Thank goodness for that!

    I now have a “double tubigrip” arrangement on my left foot/ankle/leg and have been given instruction to gently start walking again. I can only manage a handful of steps at one go before it becomes too painful/uncomfortable, but the doctor reckons that I should progressively get stronger and more mobile by early next week. He reckons that the majority of the damage (or possibly even all of it) is muscular, not bone.

    Frankly, being able to move around again is great. I was starting to become a bit of a bear-with-a-sore-head (or sore leg) and could easily have become utterly insufferable for my family. But I’m looking forward to having a soak in the bath tonight and not relying on Hels to wash my hair (I couldn’t get in the shower to do it and found it rather precarious to lather my barnet whilst balanced on one foot). And, most of all, I’m looking forward to being able to drive again and get back to proper work rahter than the half-hearted work I’ve done for the last ten days.

  • links for 2009-03-02

  • The Disaster Zone

    The title of this post reflects the name that my uncle has for our household. Thanks Ted.

    So far this year:

    • conservatory woe, involving new conservatory purchased to replace old leaking one, but not being manufactured to the right size, resulting in a large “air gap” that it took the suppliers three weeks to resolve (sorry Dave, should have come to you)
    • heavy cold woe
    • financial woe, now resolved
    • more family health woe
    • falling down stone steps woe
    • chickenpox woe
    • and now, leaking waste water pipe under the sink in the bathroom woe.

    For goodness sake, can we just have a simple life where everything bloody well works?

  • links for 2009-03-01

  • links for 2009-02-28

  • Inspiration

    Geoffrey Smith, RIP.

    I remember watching Geoffrey Smith’s World Of Flowers when it was first broadcast, although I can’t have been more than 11 or 12 at the time. It was a stunning series, years ahead of its time. Now we are used to series (often on BBC4) that tackle a subject in depth with lots of footage shot on location around the world and fronted by an expert who is passionate about their subject and gets their message across through sheer force of personality (I’m thinking of people like Jim al-Khalili and Rageh Omaar). That series was a great influence on me, tackling a different genus in each episode and getting across the personality of the plants concerned, the people involved in their introduction and development in cultivation and the places and locations from which they originate.

    It would be going too far to say that the programme had a direct influence on my choice of future career (other circumstances in my life had far greater influence), but it was certainly in the background. I hope that they repeat it soon as a tribute – it would be of interest to anyone, not just gardening enthusiasts.

  • Bone update

    How odd. I’ve had a letter today from the hospital in St Malo that treated me last weekend. It is short and to-the-point.

    EXAMEN RADIOLOGIQUE: 

    Radiographie de la cheville gauche face et profil et pied gauche face et profil:

    RESULTATS:

    Absence de lésion osseuse traumatique radiologiquement décelable sur les incidences réalisées ce jour.

    Beg pardon? Now, my grasp of French is rudimentary to say the least (“schoolboy” would be a generous term and possibly an insult to most schoolboy students of the language), but the word “absence” does tend to leap out of the page. Google Translate comes to my aid and tells me that the radiography did not reveal a lesion on the bone. So why exactly am in a cast and on crutches, then?

    Clearly, I’ve done a lot of damage to my left foot area. I must have stretched and pulled every muscle, tendon and bit of meaty gristle down there. It swelled up a fair bit (although, by everyone’s admission, not by a massive amount) and was very sore whenever I put weight on it. But have I actually done any damage to the bone? There was much discussion at the local hospital here in Blighty when I rocked up with my cast and my French x-ray transparencies because the damage is far from clear. I think I can see the ghost of the (tiny) chip on the image in the area where my French doctor said it was, but this new letter is signed by a different doctor. Was the original doctor imagining things?

    I’m booked into the local fracture clinic for first thing on Wednesday morning. I’m going to ask them to review the evidence and to take a new set of x-rays so we can be sure what has taken place – my guess is that they will want to do that anyway. I’m trying not to get my hopes up too high, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I have only damaged muscle and that, with a bit of strapping, rest and physiotherapy, I can be back up and running, or walking at least, as soon as possible.

  • links for 2009-02-26

  • links for 2009-02-25