No pain no gain

15/05/16


Hi all


Well i still haven't got a new date for my surgery yet, and we are half way into May. So i called the hospital and told them to book me in in July. When i get back from my TRIP TO DISNEYLAND!!!!! Ahem...excuse me.
I know from previous operations it takes up to two months to fully heal then another month to get back to walking normal. And i dont want to be changing dressings or in pain on Holiday.
So currently the Amatryptaline has kicked in and its reduced the pain to where if i pad out the bottom of my stump it doesn't hurt. I still cant walk far but i can do a bit of gardening and pick poo yay. The only downside of Amatryptaline is its a great nerve suppressant but it also affects your mood. Messing with you seratoning levels. Its a drug also prescribed to people with depression. It messes with my happy hormone so one day im really happy and the next day i could wake up and be so low and only have black thoughts and cry. The sooner i get this operation done i can get back off these things.
Also since new year i have been eating healthy, no booze, no sugar and low carbs and calorie counting. I still have a bun on my birthday and meals out but i take those calories into consideration. As of April i had lost half stone and as its not done through fad dieting just healthy eating it should stay off. I also do a 20min exercise routine without my leg on. Im gonna keep this up until the end of the year to see what my body settles at. Attached is a pick of me with my new electric leg. i have, for the first time in two years a size 10 top and bottoms on. Keep on plodding on folks. X

Good News....for you!

14.04.2016


Hi all


Well I had a meeting today with my Solicitor from the accident, and a group of other important peeps who were all interested in sorting out a website.
This website will be there to help you guys and give you practical advice, such as where you can go, who can I talk to, and that all important question, when will I walk again?

Other ideas could be equipment we want to pass on or sell cheap. Wheelchair or disabled accessible places. (thinking of creating a sticker to be displayed in windows of business, so you can see when passing they are accessible).
Giving you contact details or videos to watch about prosthetic procedures and aftercare, disabled exercises, and meet up activity groups.

I have tried my best to lay it all out here as it happens, as you know I'm still recovering nearly 4 years on. But I like to think that things I have learnt along the way, can be passed on to you. All I want to do is help, you are my therapy.

So I will give you more details when I get them from future meetings. To get all these ideas of what is to go on this site and I will link it here once it is up and running.

But if you have any ideas of what info you might like to see that you have struggled to find anywhere else then let me know. we can be the amputee army :) best foot forward...(groan sorry lol)

Another Operation...On my nerves!

23/03/16


Hi all

Well got results of my blood test and all is fine. I had low white blood cells last time because my body had just finished fighting off an infection. So when I had the 2nd test my white cells were going back to normal, and big surprise I don't have a vitamin deficiency!.
So just waiting for the pee clinic letter now.

So on with the leg news, got my date for the operation 23rd April, four weeks away. But hey what's another month I've already waited 4!
So I got to see my C.T scans, and it looked like an x-ray of a slab of lamb. The surgeon pointed out the neuromas, and they were exactly where I pointed to in my very first review. So now he can see them he knows where to operate.
Also neuromas area bundle of nerve endings that are trying to heal and connect to the other side of the nerve it got severed from. That's never going to happen so they just heal over in a blob, which is painful when pressed. So the surgeon is going to have to open me up high up my thigh pull the nerve away from near the surface where it is and tuck it further up inside the padding of my thigh. So that when the neuroma does come back. (I've been told its just your bodies way of trying to repair itself, so it will). It should be cushioned by my muscle tissue and not hurt as much.
The only other thing is, he warned me I will be in a lot of pain when I come around because he's cutting my nerve endings, two of them. He said that if I have pain then it fades that's good but if I have pain that continues and it will take longer to heal.
My two worries are I don't have any nerve pain at the moment, I just have a slight fuzzy pins and needles feeling and I feel my ghost foot.
But some poor people have trapped nerve pain that's constant and pulsing. Please, please don't let this happen to me!

So here's everything crossed for next month. 

Being Microwaved

16/03/16

 

Hi all

 

Well I've had my first M.R.I and it felt and sounded like I was being scanned then photocopied.

Also when someone tells you to stay still is it just me or do you want to move.

They put head phones on you and left me listening to Radio Heart (old dance tunes good god!).

I was okay until they jutted me forward and then back up. Probably to move me into position for a better scan. But I would be just lying there concentrating on not moving when suddenly 'jut', 'jut', and my stomach would larch. It took longer than i thought and i asked if they could see the cysts.

They said a Dr had looked over the scan they couldn't see any cysts but some small neuromas on some nerve endings that would be causing me pain.  (when i got home i looked this up and found out neuroma is a posh word for lump of skin. So just got to wait until next Tuesday now for plastic surgeon to review and tell me when my operation is.
 

On the health news i stopped taking my depo provera injection which was due in February and i expected to come on by the end of Feb. But no, we are near April and still nothing. i looked that up on the net and apparently it can take up to 6 months for your body to go back to normal if you have taken it for a long time. erm yes 10 years. so you just watch ill come on, on holiday whilst wearing my white shorts and top.

 

Also can't remember if i mentioned in earlier posts as its not leg related just a general health moan. Since changing my diet to healthy eating I've not been tired anymore or bloated and have had no I.B.S symptoms at all yay. (but god do i need a drink!). But i have had a problem with wanting to go to the toilet a lot like every hour and sometimes i don't even pee very much. This is making me tired as you can imagine waking up during the night bursting for a pee and then just peeing a bit.

i went to the docs and they gave me antibiotics thought i might have a bladder infection and got a blood test done and a pee test. the antibiotics didn't do anything, the pee test came back clear. The blood test came back saying i didn't have Diabetes, yay, but i had low white blood cell count, and they needed to do further tests. So more blood was taken, and she has referred me to the incontinence clinic. No, don't laugh its called that but it deals with all bladder problems i think for some reason my bladder has become over sensitive. i don't leak when i laugh and have very good bladder control thank you very much no massive pissy knickers for me needed!.  also i have itchy dry eyes. Just thought i would add that on.

 

Soooooo...Monday blood test results probably say i have a vitamin deficany, its usually vitamin D and told to sit in the sun more. Then Tuesday scan results and operation date. and i got some comfort drops for my dry eyes, and trying this herbal remedy of the TV for over active bladder until i have to go to the pissy clinic.

 

My mam came to visit today and i asked her how she was and she started to get upset saying she feels helpless that she can't make me better and why all this crap is happening to me. i felt really bad and said may be you pissed off a gypsy didn't buy her lucky heather and she cursed your 1st born. it made her roll her eyes at least it stopped her crying. but i told her theres no point in saying why me and crying. yes i do cry form time to time but will that make it better will it change anything, no. So you deal with it your presented with a problem so you go okay what do i need to do to change this/make it better/cure it. and slowly move forward. you don't take each day at a time you take each hour at a time. hours make days then weeks then years. I still have my hearing, my sight, my voice and my hands. so you just keep moving forward ticking off the hours.

Stuck in the pram again!!

14.02.16


Hi all

Well after finally seeing my plastic surgeon again he suggested that I need an M.R.I to check out what's causing the pain this time rather than just cutting me open and having a look around.

 

I can now put my leg on after getting a longer end pin and having the bottom of the socket made wider, but after only a few steps it's like walking on a blister that gets worse the more I walk on it. There's a lump at the back and something wrong at the bottom right hand side and I think when he took the cyst out he trapped a nerve. Because when I push down on the end when walking a shooting pain runs up the front of my thigh. Basically its all fucked.

I have the date for my M.R.I in 4 weeks then a review 2 weeks after. Then surgery probably a couple of weeks after that. So by May all surgery should have been done and I'm healing.

I decided I wanted to treat myself and booked to go to Disney land in Florida in June. I've never been on a long flight before or to another country but it looks more likely I will be in my pram for this.

 

I quit my role play group in January because I couldn't deal with going to the pub (where its held) on my crutches or in my chair, they did offer to go to the host house and even to come to me. But I've found that I started to get social anxiety leading up to games night and found myself more and more making excuses not to go. I know it's me being silly but I didn't want any attention or compromises made for me, I didn't want to be pitied. I know I wasn't, I know my friends mean well and they were just out to game where ever that might be held, but when your down you think these silly things.

I still socialise on face book and I'm going to an event in April where I will see friends. But at the moment it's taken a lot of stress off my mind just deciding to be on my own for a while.

 

Another thing that bothered me today was my sister posted pictures of her, and her husband showing off her new cycle gear. She had bought her first bike and really liked it and would be cycling with him now regularly. When I saw her picture in the lycra and goggles all I could see was me. I have always been a strong person and it's got me through many tough things in my life, but my sister has and always will be a girly, girl. If anything happened to her especially to her face I don't think she could take it, I will worry for her now.

 

So this is a down post today I'm afraid. I thought after the cyst had been taken out I would be back walking by now, but no it's worse, roll on March.

Back to the beginning again!

05/01/2016

 

 

Hi all

 

 

Well the stitches have come out (dissolved) and I tried my leg on last week it was really pain full like pulling a shoe on over a very bruised foot I couldn't put any weight through it so decided to let it heal some more.

 

Yesterday I tried again and found I couldn't get my leg to click into the bottom of the socket no matter how hard I pushed. (must have put on a few inches on my upper thigh over Christmas, I blame the Baileys and mince pies.)

 

So I tried putting my old leg on (the hydrolic) which has a wider socket top I could get this on but when I stood there was a sharp pain at the bottom back where they had operated. They must have cut really deep for it still to be as sore after 5 weeks. So frustrated I have kept my grey rubber liner on to get my leg used to the tightness again, and maybe act like a shrink liner to reduce the mine pies, I mean swelling.

 

As is the fad with the new year I have joined the band waggon and I'm eating healthy and exercising.

But I'm so frustrated because my garden is overgrown and because of the mild winter everything is growing and needs sorting out, and don't get me started on poo picking. (I have two bowel healthy dogs if you're wondering)

 

So I'm going to keep trying each week until I can get my leg back on but if I'm still in pain by the end of January then I'm going back to hospital to see what's up.

This is the last operation...no really!!

6.12.15

Hi all

 

 

finally had the op to hopefully get rid of the crunching bone thing.

Well was up at 6am got to hospital for 7:30 didnt have operation till 4pm! Woke up in pain so they gave me morphine and anti inflamatories Then coz nil by mouth since 6pm yesterday the anasthetic made me really ill threw up twice in hospital and again in a bag on lift home in car.

When I finally got home was a bit drowsy then just couldn't sleep so about 3am got up and managed to have some toast.

 

They found a fragment of bone and large cyst that was pressing on a nerve at the back of my leg so thats been cut out hopefully that should sort it but I don't think they got the right area but cant tell until the swelling goes down.

 

So I'm back in my pram, I managed to do all my xmas shopping for friends and family last week, wrapped it and got my mum to hand out. So all I have to do is heal now and enjoy Christmas.

 

heres hoping my Christmas wish that there will be no more operations that this will be it, and my aim for next year is to be walking with my new prosthetic. (which ive now got used to) and be able to walk without a stick.

 

xx