Waiting for a surgeon

Partly as a consequence of the amalgamation of several previous back and leg injuries  I now have serious problems with my knees, one of which requires replacement.  I have been through various processes in order to attempt to stave off the requirement for surgery but unfortunately to no avail, even though I had high hopes of one of the treatments.  By now I should have had the operation and be well on the way to recovery.

On October 24 I was added to the waiting list and was told that it would be around 18 weeks.  At the pre-operative assessment clinic I informed the nurse that I am very allergic to a chemical used in the joint cement used in joint replacement surgery, explained what happens to me if I come into contact with it (not pretty) and stressed the importance of this information in relation to the surgical intervention.

In due time I received a hospital admission date for the procedure and began to make all the arrangements necessary for the continued smooth running of family life whilst I was in hospital and in the recovery period.   Then on January 25 I got a phone call cancelling the operation because they had "just noticed" that I am allergic to the substance.  All of this despite the fact that I had told them that I am allergic to it 3 months earlier and they had had plenty of time to find either an alternative substance or an alternative surgeon who is confident to perform an uncemented procedure.   I am not a happy bunny and have made my feelings very clear to the hospital at the highest levels.  They are now trying to arrange for another surgeon to undertake the procedure.  Watch this space.

In the meantime if you have ever come into contact with a substance called Ethyl Methacrylate (also known as EMA) or Methyl Methacrylate (MMA) and had an unwanted reaction do keep it in mind if you ever need a joint replacement.  If you don't know what that is don't worry - you are not alone.  If however, you have ever had acrylic nails and had a bad skin reaction then you may well be allergic to EMA  or MMA and that is closely connected to the substance used in cemented joint replacements - the substance is actually MMA.  Not many people are aware that there is this connection and therefore would not necessarily think to mention such a reaction prior to surgery  but it is really important to do so and at an early stage.

Life

All seems to be functioning normally in the world of my student daughter.  She is stressed and overtired, wigging out at little things, even when things are going well.  As I said all is functioning normally in her world.  Unless things change we are expecting her home for 24 hours on Saturday, when at least I can give her a good hug.


Life here is a kaleidoscope of highs and lows, stresses and sweet moments.  The work for Royal Mail which I mentioned in this previous post started well but quickly dried up to at most two shifts a week.   Last night for the first time in his life he worked a night shift as it was the only available shift this week.  The poor man is like a zombie today despite having slept.  We had agreed that he shouldn't sleep all day as to do so would compromise his ability to sleep well tonight.  Somehow I don't think that he will be having a late night.  
Tomorrow however, everything changes.  No more Royal Mail for a while, he is heading to Newcastle to start a very temporary contract for a few days - and it is only days at this stage.  He will be home in just over a week but it is better than two shifts a week and at a much better rate of pay.  The call about this contract came as a swift answer to prayer after we had spent time praying for some encouragement.  God is so gracious to us.


On Monday I had an appointment at the hospital for a surgical pre-assessment in preparation for a total knee replacement.  The length of the waiting list indicates that I should be admitted sometime in January but a lot of people cancel their admissions in the run up to Christmas so we are hoping to ensure that we get ahead of ourselves and get all the Christmas preparations well under way so that if I am asked to take a cancellation I can.

She's leaving home

 26 hours ago I squeezed my daughter into the car alongside as many of her possessions as she could shoehorn into the space available.  We then headed West to Lancaster where she was about to move into her first house, even if it is only a student let, it is still her first house.  She was the first of the three girls sharing, to move in.  As student houses go it isn't bad, it is quite spacious, maybe a little cold at first but she soon got the heating blasting out until it was too hot to bear - we then found that someone had left the thermostat on at 30 degrees.  What it was however is filthy, we soon got that sorted with a twenty four hour blitz of cleaning, I have never before had to sweep dust off the walls of a house with a broom, not only the walls but also the ceiling.  I had to scrape years of accumulated grease and grime from the tops of the kitchen wall cabinets, clean out the insides of drawers and cupboards and clean out the fridge.  Surprisingly the one area which didn't need cleaning was the oven.  By the time the other girls turned up today the place had been thoroughly fettled as the old Yorkshire expression has it.  Swept, dusted, vacuumed, kitchen and bathroom cleaned, windows cleaned, nasty, dirty curtains taken down and replaced by fresh clean ones. Some of the grime was a bit too ingrained for the normal domestic equipment we had to hand but on the whole it was a totally different house from the one we entered at 6.30 yesterday evening.
When Elizabeth moved out of her university flat last year we scrubbed it out and left it spotless - that doesn't seem to have happened for a few years in this house - what was there was not just the detritus of one year.
Not surprisingly Elizabeth and I were both pretty shattered by the end of it all but I know she will keep going on adrenaline until she drops into bed this evening - whenever that might be!  I on the other hand had a long drive home alone and am now typing this in an effort to stay awake.


She is now happily living in her new house with two friends and enjoying what I am sure will become a hectic social life in the couple of weeks before lectures begin again, we on the other hand will have to live with a quiet hole which is usually filled with a noisy, boisterous young woman who alternately delights us and drives us mad.   Still it will be Christmas before we know it!


(Hands up those who got the Beatles reference in the title!)

Grr

I am cross, I am more than cross - I am enraged and what's more I am outraged.


My husband and I got our full driving licences in the same year.  We have the same driving history and the same no claims discount.  Everything about us and driving is the same.  I am 2 years older than he is but we are at an age where that doesn't really make a difference, but when we obtained quotes today in both our names for the same car his was significantly lower than mine.  That makes me cross, what makes me really angry is that the insurance company won't tell me why that is the case.


The only real difference between us is that I am female and he is male.  The fact that they cannot/will not tell me why my premiums are higher than his leads me to the conclusion that there is sexism at work here and that takes me to the top of the anger scale.  


Anger is not of itself a bad thing, it is only when the anger takes control of a person that it is bad and I am not about to let that happen but just occasionally there is a crumb of transient comfort in letting the imagination run free.  (Be assured though that that last statement does not have anything to do with violence)

My Husband

I am so proud of my husband!


As a consequence of factors outside his control, his contract in London came to an abrupt end several weeks before it should have done.  He finished work on Friday and as he did so he made a phone call to an agency which he often uses when he is between contracts.  There was no-one there at the time and he left a message on their answering machine letting them know that he was available for work.  It is a mark of the good reputation which he has built for himself that this morning, on the first working day since Friday (because of the Bank Holiday), he got woken up by a phone call from the agency offering him work this afternoon with the Royal Mail.  Whilst it isn't good pay and won't enable us to meet all our commitments it will put food on the table and we are grateful to God for this provision.   My husband is not used to manual labour and finds the work physically very taxing and at times very painful as it caused him a repetitive strain injury the first time he did it and that injury has flared up each time he has done it since, but he keeps on going and takes every shift which is offered to him.

Week 2

My husband is currently working on a contract in London, although that is coming to an end very soon.  When he is in that area he rents a room in a family home as the cheapest form of accommodation in what is a very expensive area.  He has been in the same house for two six month stints and has got to know the family quite well.  He is staying in an East London vicarage with 5/6 bedrooms two of which are let.  When the family he lives with mentioned that they were planning to go on holiday they also suggested that we might like to go down and stay in the house with him whilst they were away.  This would give us the opportunity of a holiday which we might not have had otherwise, and we would also be house-sitting.  The house-sitting proved to be a very good idea, as whilst we were there I was reading in the Evening Standard about a lady who went away for the weekend and came back to find that squatters had moved into her house in her (short) absence, thrown most of her personal possessions in the garden in bin bags, except the clothes which were being worn by one of the squatters, her wine which they were drinking from her glasses - they did offer her a drink.  They told her that the lady who owned the house was dead and that her son had rented the house to them.  She was most surprised to hear this as she was obviously not dead and she didn't have a son.  She had to go to the High Court to get them evicted but unfortunately they had trashed her house and her belongings.


For us though it proved a much happier story as we had a very good week although David had to work we were able to be together in the evenings.  During the day we were out and about most of the time.  We went into central London most days although we did spend one day exploring the Essex countryside.  Well we tried to - we couldn't see much because of the rain.  It wasn't any old rain, it was a Marks and Spencer type rain - thick and impenetrable, lashing and bouncing, opaque curtains of water.  We had a look at Waltham Abbey church because it was at least indoors, we couldn't see any of the rest of the abbey because of the heavy rain and when we came to head home we were crawling along at about 15mph because it was unsafe to do any more.    We managed to have a quick look at Theydon Bois before the rain started, that happened just as we were going to sit on the village green to eat our lunch.  Epping forest was just a fog on the windscreen as we ate our lunch in the car in the vain hope that the rain would ease up enough for us to take a walk. 
The other days on the whole were fabulous, warm enough not to have to worry about coats or jackets (with one memorable exception)  We wondered the streets and absorbed sights, sounds and atmosphere.  We visited Covent Garden where Christopher and I had been before but Beth hadn't.  She was hoping that we might be able to get affordable seats for the opera (we knew that really wasn't very likely) but when we got to the door of the Royal Opera House she was crestfallen to see a notice announcing that it was closed until early September for refurbishment.
On another day Beth arranged to meet up with a friend for the day.  Her friend lives 30 - 40 miles from us but they couldn't organise themselves to meet up close to home and ended up spending the day together in London.  I found them in Harrods - what a surprise.  Christopher and I had spent the day in the Science Museum which would have been great if their signage had been good.  We spend far too long following signs to things which just weren't there.  
The highlight of our week was our visit to Parliament.  We had a guided tour of the Palace of Westminster and saw both the chambers, plus much else - the Robing room where the Queen dons the crown for the State Opening of Parliament, lobbies, meeting rooms, and the voting lobbies.  It is stressed time and again that one may not sit down in the legislative chambers, no reason was given for this with regard to the House of Lords, but in the House of Commons the MPs have had to stand for election to win the right to a seat in the House and therefore no-one who has not fought for the right to a seat may ever sit down in that chamber.   When we came out of Parliament we met up with David who had been visiting Millbank tower for work and we went off to find something to eat.  Finding food is always a challenge for us because of Christopher's inability to eat wheat.  We ended up in Wetherspoons in Victoria station out of pure desperation.   Beth and I then went to visit friends who live in Bloomsbury.  We had a lovely couple of hours with them with much laughter, it is usually too long between visits although this time I had been able to visit them in June as well.  
The next day being Saturday we were all able to go out together and set off in brilliant sunshine for the Cabinet War Rooms in Whitehall.  The weather forecast had suggested a light rain shower at 1 o'clock.  When we emerged from the underground at Westminster we were met by crowds sheltering from a humongous rainstorm which went on for hours - so much for a light shower - thanks Met Office.  We waited for about an hour and then just gave up and got wet.  We headed straight to the CWR in the hope that they would have a cafe where we could get something to eat.  Sadly their attitude is as bad as their cafe.  After 3pm they do not serve anything other than sandwiches and don't expect them to be polite about it.  Sandwiches are of course out of the question for Christopher unless they are made with wheat-free bread and of course not many places cater for that so we were unable to eat until after we came out of the Cabinet War Rooms well after 5.30.

There is one place I do want to mention because I was so very impressed by the staff.  We were in Carnaby Street - the home of fashion in the1960s - and still very much a focus of fashion.  Christopher went to a shop which sold Vans (a type of shoes) and was pretty much in 7th heaven.  I was using my walking stick a lot in London and when I went into the shop I saw some seats and headed towards them, one of the staff saw me and said "do please sit down - would you like a free drink?"  WOW - is that service or what?  I didn't have a drink but I can tell you I was mightily impressed.  Well done to the Vans shop on Carnaby Street.

One week

Two weeks ago my daughter was going to a Christian camp.  This was known about well in advance and planned for.  She was to be a tent leader.  My son had been offered the opportunity to go as 'crew' (helping with preparing and serving food and probably several other tasks as well) but had refused.  The phrase "there is no way I am getting up that early in the mornings" was heard on several occasions.   Daughter having been on camp last year decided that she wanted to make it a little more civilised this year and wanted to take a tent with a sleeping compartment which would be a little warmer and would also keep the bugs out (she is a complete wimp when it comes to bugs).  She was sharing this tent with her fellow tent leader and good friend. When she announced that she wanted to go a day early to get her tent set up and organise herself before the onslaught of the campers I thought this was a very sensible idea, until the realisation dawned that she was intending on sleeping in the tent on her own for the first night.  This I did not perceive to be a good idea, it is not just the bugs she is a wimp about.   I knew that she would be petrified in the tent alone at night, especially if there were bugs, more especially if there was lightening, even more especially if she heard footsteps of the night watch staff around the camp - she would have convinced herself that it was a deranged serial killer on the prowl.  It would be more likely to be a starved cereal hunter but the mind plays tricks in the dead of night - sorry poor choice of words there.
I insisted that she had to have someone in the tent with her on that first night.  When she eventually gave in she was heard to admit that she "would be a bit jittery" on her own - hah - a bit?!!!  Having tried all other avenues to find someone to share her tent that first night she finally climbed down from the high horse she had mounted over the subject and asked her brother, very nicely, if he would spend the night with her.  Being a loving brother deep down (very deep down) he agreed.  Consequently I delivered her with a bag packed for at least three weeks, a tent and a brother accompanied by an overnight bag.  I can't tell you how much I was looking forward to a peaceful, child free evening on my own.  I was not however surprised to receive a text an hour after I got home saying "can I stay?"  I then had to scramble around to find sufficient clean clothes, that is clothes which weren't draped stylistically over the carpet, chair, desk, bed and any other available surface in his room, or stuffed into corners, under the bed and in places I hadn't even thought of.  No wonder the boy complains that he never has any clothes.  My much anticipated peaceful evening was shattered but it was to be replaced by a calm, relaxed, childfree week - bliss.  Having got everything packed and delivered to the minibus which was collecting the campers I was FREE. 
For the next week I tidied and cleaned the house and it stayed that way.  I ate only when I was hungry, I cleared away my cups and glasses as I used them so that the place was neat and comfortable.  I read, I crafted, I relaxed - it was bliss and I savoured every moment.  I made lots of cards and tried out lots of different ideas and played around somewhat with card and paper.  I caught up on making several cards so that I shan't have last minute rushes for the next couple of months at least.  Did I miss my offspring?  Only until they walked through the door and started squabbling again and making mess, leaving laundry all over the floor for me to clean and iron.  At that point I could have wished them right back on camp in the wind and rain.
My son didn't go on camp as 'crew' assisting the activities leader instead, but he did end up "getting up at that time in the morning" and he loved every minute of it even though it meant sharing a ridge tent without an inner tent with other staff members.  He has learned a lot, made a lot of new friends and I suspect he will be keen to go next year.