Action packed week.

kp in good form generally.

Monday saw kp go herself (by taxi) to physio. It was her last physio and was in the form of a review meeting. It finished with a referral back to the neurophysio at Chester-le-Street. She had been referred there a few weeks ago and not heard anything, and still hasn’t heard anything ?! Fingers crossed they get in touch as kp wants to progress her physio. If needs be, we have a pool of physio to call upon that the insurance company have paid for, but it would be better to go back to the same physio that saw kp last time.

Tuesday, I met kp (from work) at the RVI (Hospital in Newcastle). This was for the fitting of the special contact lens. With kp not being able to use both hands, the “optician lady” fitted the lens. This was really funny to watch. kp is normally good with things around her eye. I am hopeless and would need a general anaesthetic to get a contact lens fitted. So, with kp being “ok”, we thought it would be a walk in the park. Wrong ! As the optician held kp’s right eye open and the contact lens got nearer and nearer, her eye would frantically start blinking. It took about 6 attempts before it had to be aborted. It was funny at the time. A new plan was needed. The lady optician had the idea for kp to hold her left eye open, while the optician held her right eye wide open and plonked it in. It worked after a couple of attempts. She had 2 lenses to try on, the first was the smaller pupil version. Basically it is a normal contact lens (that can be left in for a month without taking it out) but with a black pupil painted on. The idea being that it blocks all the vision in the right eye, leaving kp with good vision, instead of vision that is blurred because of the crap right eye.

Here is the lens on a piece of tissue….

As always, click on the photo to instantly enlarge…

Here is the first lens in situ …..

As always, click on the photo to instantly enlarge…

The optician asked Karen how it felt, and she said it feels ok, but like she had a lump on her eye. This was normal apparently. She spent about 10 minutes with this in just to get used to the feeling. Unfortunately, although this looks really natural, it let some vision in, and was still a little blurry, so it was time to get it out and try the second, larger pupil version. After a few more failed attempts getting the b+stard thing in, here she is with the larger version…….

As always, click on the photo to instantly enlarge…

This was great, vision-wise, but it was irritating her eye. We (optician included) were unsure if this was just kp getting used to it, or some adverse reaction. It was decided to give it a try, and if it got worse and she needed it taking out, she would need to come back in the following day and they would whip it out.

We headed home, with kp’s eye constantly weeping, but thinking she would get used to it. Half-way home in the car, I got a gut feeling that it wasn’t right and suggested to kp that we go back to the hospital for them to take it out. She wasn’t having any of it. She really wanted this to work and wanted to persevere. She spent the whole journey home with her eye closed as that was the most comfortable.

When we got home, it was still irritating her eye, and it was starting to look a little bloodshot, and her eyelids were becoming redder and redder. Sue Brady (one of kp’s old work chums) came over for tea (bringing bread and salad) and we had a good natter and a lovely meal, kp’s eye getting redder and redder and more sore as the night went on.

After tea, kp looked like this…..

As always, click on the photo to instantly enlarge…

Enough is enough ! It had to come out. Well, what a fart on !!!! With kp only able to use one hand, she couldn’t hold her eye open and remove the contact lens at the same time. Sue kindly washed up, while kp and I attempting to remove the blasted thing. kp’s got more and more frustrated with the attempts to remove it. I stood the mandatory 3 feet distance necessary at times like this.

However she tried she couldn’t get it out and invariably after her efforts the contact lens would be in such a position that it looked like she had 2 pupils. I stepped into the danger zone and together we cracked it. I held kp’s eye wide open as she rummaged around for it, and finally plucked it out.

The following morning, kp’s eye wouldn’t open. The gunk oozing out had stuck her eyelids together, but STILL she wanted to give it another try. She is desperate for it to work. We booked another appointment for the RVI for Thursday.

Wednesday was a quiet day, more than made up for by Thursday. I met up with kp again at the RVI (Royal Victory Infirmary) on Thursday and kp got her eye examined. She had a large scratch on her eye caused, the optician thought, by some spec of dust or a bit of grit getting underneath the contact lens and irritating her eye. This was good news as it meant that the problems she had had weren’t down to an allergy to contact lenses. The eye would take a week to heal, and the new contact lenses would take a couple of weeks to come so that worked out well.

From here, kp and I went to see the Occupational Health Doctor for the Blood Service. Coincidentally, the doctor works for the same company (Norwich Union) that is contracted to do the Blood Service’s Occupational Health. He was a lovely bloke with a German accent, and had been doing this for 14 years, so he knew his stuff. We sat with the Occupational Health nurse for 30-45 mins while we waited for the Doctor to be free. kp was her usual self asking millions of questions of the chap. One of the questions she asked left the poor chap with no answer to give bt the truth……

kp:- “So, will he give me some idea when I will be able to return to work ?”

OH chap :- “To be totally honest about the situation, I think it is probable that you won’t be going back to work with the Blood Service “

He continued talking for a while, further explaining the situation, and I could tell kp was getting upset, her eyes welling up more and more. I moved seats so I could comfort her. The OH chap was great and explained that this wasn’t the end of things, but the start of a new life. I think, deep down, kp thought there was a chance she wouldn’t be going back to work, but it’s the hearing of it from someone official that always hits her hard. In the middle of the upset, the Doctor was ready to see her and we went through with him.

We probably spent about an hour with him, and it took the form of lots of questioning, whilst the Doctor wrote a report. In the end, he said that his report would be saying something along the lines of…..

Karen would not be able to go back to ANY form of work for the foreseeable future.

He said they used to say “permanently”, but they now say “for the foreseeable future” to cover themselves.

This hit kp hard and we had more tears !! So sad ! Thankfully this Doctor had worked in this role for a long time, and shared some experiences with us. He explained that in some of his past cases similar to Karen’s, he had been asked to go back 6 months after such a meeting to see how the patient was progressing. In nearly all of the cases, the patients felt great. They had closure on one part of their life, and the doors to other things had opened up. This quelled the tears a little.
It looks like she will get ill-health retirement, but financially, we have no idea what this means. The OH chap reassured us that the fact she only has 4 years service wouldn’t mean any less money.

A quiet Thursday night followed with an early night.

Friday was another quiet day for kp.

Saturday, we had planned to go and see the new James Bond movie “Casino Royale”. It was a great movie, not the best Bond, but good nonetheless. I’d like to share Karen’s thoughts on the movie, but she was asleep for half of it !!! One funny moment I should share, there was a big action sequence in the middle of the film with the usual James Bond music playing and then all of a sudden a big car crash and absolutely silence in the cinema, that is until an almighty SNORT! came out of Karen. She had woken herself up with her snoring.

kp:- “Was that me ?”

LOL ! Thankfully, I could hide behind the big popcorn box we had bought.

That’s pretty much it for the week. We have had a good week overall.