kp continues in top form.

She had a great holiday in Egypt – lots of laughs. Ronnie, if you want to write up the tales of Egypt and email it to me, I will put it up on the blog !! Ronnie stayed the night when the girls got back and recounted all the stories – sounds like they had a Fun-Filled time (with Capital “F”s).

It was great to have kp back – I was very pleased to see her and vice-versa.

She has been using her contact lens a lot since she got back and has now managed a full 6 hours. She still hasn’t got the “contact lens knack”. It takes her a bit of twiddling to get it in and out, but I would need sedating to even get it in, so she does very well by my standards.

The fence people came on Friday and did the main part of the fence. It looks good and there is no way will be able to jump its 6 ft height. Mum has kindly offered to pay for it – thanks Mum ! You didn’t have to.

Whilst kp was away, I had the time to do the Spain DVD. We had been away with family to Spain last summer, but I had never seemed to be able to find the time to get the DVD done. So, on Saturday, we went over to Marie’s to “show” it. It was great to see the family enjoy it. Abby (10) was in stitches/tears watching herself snore when she stayed over at our hotel room. Ethan enjoyed watching himself to the Rocky music as he jumped into the pool in slow motion. Great to see !

Sunday, we jobbed on. We had a mass of paperwork to get through – new bank to sort out, Tesco shopping to order, wheelchair forms to fill in, etc etc… It took about 5 hours to get it all done.

All in all, a good few days since kp’s return.

Here are some photos from Egypt that Ronnie brought back….

Here is a crocodile made by the bloke who cleaned their room, made entirely out of towels !! He put Ronnie’s hairclip in its mouth and kp’s frosted glasses on its head.

Jane and kp….

Jane and Ronnie. kp took this. Interesting how it is missing some of Jane’s left side – I think a sign of kp’s inattention on her left side….

kp and Jane on a boat trip…..

Busy week ahead. There is talk in the Pollard household of us going to the gym 3 nights a week in an effort to get fit – yikes. Hope you can smoke on the treadmills ! We have dentist on Friday morning and are going to the flicks Thursday night – busy old week.

Well, we never went to the flicks in the end. kp wanted to see “Deja Vu”, but it wasn’t on at the cinema anymore.

We haven’t heard from the Police yet re their visit to check out the dogs. The fence is all done (thanks Mum). Here is one of the bits they did.

We visited Bannatyne’s gym in Durham on Monday night. It was very impressive. It’s spread over 3 floors and by the time we had done the guided tour, it felt like we had done a workout. By chance, we saw Sue (Karen’s friend and ex work boss) on the tour. She was doing some class or other. Hi Sue !

Karen didn’t want to sign up there and then, because she had already been referred to a more local gym (Deerness) from the physio. She went for a guided tour there on Friday morning and really liked the look of it, so she is going to give that a go.

We have had some pain issues this week. Karen is on Fentanyl patches that we change every 2.5 days. Despite not over exerting herself this week, she has still been in a lot of pain and we have had to change the patches every 2 days instead of 2.5 days She is starting to fear that things are going to get worse rather than get better. But she is still very positive in her head and feels that it could be down to the cold weather we have had recently.

Marie came over on Tuesday and Adele came over on Thursday. Lots of jobs were done and kp enjoyed their company.

Saturday saw me in an extremely positive mood, and kp felt so much better for that, which is great. We attempted a walk of the dogs Saturday lunchtime, but the snow was thawing and there was a patch of ice leading to our normal dog walking area so I had to take Karen back and then walk them on my own.

Sleeping-wise, Karen has not been too clever. Most nights she has been up a good part of the night. Last night, she went to bed with me at 11pm, but got up at 1am and didn’t come back to bed until 8.30am ! All down to pain.

We had the idea last night of keeping her old patches on for a while whilst the new ones were kicking in, but she felt a bit woozy on double dosage, but no pain !!

Friday we went to the dentists in the morning. Normally, it’s me who ends up having to go back for fillings, but I got the all clear, whereas Karen has to go back for a filling. Wahey. kp always rubs it in when I have to go back for a filling and she has perfect teeth blah blah blah. So, obviously, I made it very clear who had to return for the filling. kp wasn’t happy !

Busy week for the week ahead ……

Monday – Physio
Tuesday – Rehab UK (in the afternoon), with a view to getting kp back to some sort of work (maybe voluntary)
Wednesday – Free
Thursday – Angela (other car crash victim coming over)
Friday – RVI in the afternoon

Also, kp got a letter through from her employer saying they are coming in March to terminate her employment – yikes. Also, she got a letter from the DVLA to say that she is going to be retested (not a normal  driving test) with an adapted car in May.

Pain remains an issue. We are still doing patches every 2 days.

Tuesday saw us go to rehab uk for a tour and an assessment. But it seems Karen had an eventful day before she even got there. It was disaster after disaster. She got up, had a shower, but couldn’t turn the shower fully off. She has a bit of gip with her right thumb and can’t seem to grip things too well. So, whilst she was getting changed, the drip drip drip of the shower was getting on her nerves. She couldn’t get her socks on, frustration was building, she couldn’t get her bra on, frustration was continuing to build.

She was running out of time before the taxi came. She had to forget her bra and put it into her handbag so I could do it when she got to Rehab UK. She tried to get her orange jumper on, but just couldn’t work out how to get into it. If an arm is inside out, she can’t work out orientation and how to fix it. She thought she had cracked it, and tried to get it on, but got stuck. She tried and tried to get the jumper off to start again. She said she was nearly in tears with the frustration. In the end, she realised she was going to get out of the jumper and had to cut herself out with scissors

Here is the remnants of the jumper….

When I said “Marie will be able to sew that back together”, Karen was NOT impressed.

So, not a good start to the day.

She forgot the money for the taxi, but thankfully, I just had enough when I met her there.

She was gagging for a fag by this time, but because she was late, we had to go straight in. Poor kp.

Anyway, we had a guided tour of rehab uk. They offer 2 programmes …..

• Vocational
• Community

The Vocational (or VOX as it was referred to) programme was for people who were looking to get back to paid work.

The Community programme is for people who want to reintegrate back into society more.

Following the tour, we spent an hour with the Clinical Psychologist (CP) who assessed Karen. It was quite a deep assessment, covering everything from

• the accident
• her schooling
• her work career
• her aptitudes
• her likes/dislikes
• her skills
• etc…
• etc.

Karen really struggled to take in all the information from the tour, and I think the assessment was one step too far. The end result was that the CP didn’t believe that the VOX course was right for Karen. Karen kinda knew this anyway. The community programme does things like show you how to take public transport, work your washing machine, manage your finances and Karen doesn’t really need those services, so really, for now, there is nothing Rehab UK can offer Karen.

That may change of course. If Karen wanted to do some voluntary work, Rehab UK would go into the prospective workplace and educate the staff there on Karen’s difficulties before she went to the workplace, so they didn’t think she was being lazy or “sleeping on the job”.

That’s it for this week so far…..

Pain, pain and more pain.

But, first….

Thursday saw a visit from Angela (fellow car crashee). It had been a while since they had seen each other and they had a really good chat. Angela kindly brought lunch – thanks Ange ! Generally a nice afternoon for kp.

Thanks to Angela for keeping the cutting from the newspaper about the guilty chap’s appeal. Here it is….. Click on it if it is unreadable (to make it full size).

Friday saw kp go to the gym. Just having had new pain patches on, she did 20 minutes of exercise and that’s when the hell started !!   She did a combination of bike and treadmill. In her own words, it “knacked her in”. She could hardly walk And her mood changed for the worse I met up with her on Friday afternoon at the RVI Newcastle where she was having another session with the Optician/Opthamologist chappy re contact lenses. She was walking VERY slowly

Early night on Friday. We were due to go to a birthday party on Saturday night. Karen’s brother-in-law’s 50th. It didn’t look too clever on Saturday morning – I walked the dogs as kp wasn’t up for it. But in the end, we had to rule it out, not only was the pain too much, but her mood was heading downwards. We watched Pokeface and then retired early.

Although I perhaps shouldn’t, I became Dr Pollard and prescribed kp an extra 25ug Fentanyl patch (on top of the existing 125ug Fentanyl). That meant she was on 150ug . She was also on Codeine and Diclofenac – we were throwing everything at the pain. It did help and Sunday saw her waking up with bearable pain. The weather was gorgeous and she came on a short walk with me and the dogs.

Sunday has seen her in bed most of the day (bar the walk) – it’s where the pain is most bearable. We have learned a lot this week.

Gyms are NOT right for Karen. They are too much too early, her hip/pelvis can’t handle it.  So, in the future, she is going to concentrate on short walks and not go over the top as she has done this week.

A quieter week this week for kp. Thank (insert your deity here) !

Mixed Week and a busy one too.

Monday saw Debs (ex work colleague and pretend friend (private joke)) come over. kp had made her some soup, Debs brought the bread.

Tuesday – a bloke came to service the bath hoist. We don’t really use it any more at the expense of my back. One of the problems with it is that when you are lowered into the bath fully, you are still 2 to 3 inches higher than you normally would be, so kp doesn’t get a good soaking. So, we have this new routine now. I help kp climb into the bath. She stands at the tap end, facing the taps. I stand in the bath facing her back. I grab her under her pits and she then falls backward, trusting me to lower her in. Going down is easy (pardon the expression). It’s the lift up, which really knacks, but it is much more beneficial for kp if she can have a good soaking.

The afternoon saw Adele and the kids (Abbie (10), Louisa (3)) come over (it was half term). I had them believing that the garage door worked on voice commands and they really enjoyed shouting “Open” and “Close” at the garage. Of course, when I got sick of pushing the button, I had to shout “Stay closed until I speak” at the garage, but they still kept shouting ! Was a good laff.

Abbie stayed over and accompanied Karen to the shops the following day (taxi). Karen had her contact lens in. She is using it daily to get used to it for the driving assessment in May. But she loses some peripheral vision by having it in, and apparently Karen knocked a display over in a shop and Abbie had to rebuild it.

We took her back on Wednesday and we went over to Marge’s to see Tracey, Mark and Megan who had come up for the week (from Southampton). It was lovely to see them. Here is a foto of kp and megan.

It turned out to be a late night. I think it was about 10.30pm when we left – after midnight, by the time we retired.

I have started feeding some swans and ducks at work before I have a fag. One day this week, the strangest bird appeared with very weird feet. Anyone got a clue what this is ?

Bad night’s sleep on Thursday for kp. Don’t think  she came to bed at all until 5am. Up with me at 7am and then had some catch up sleep during the day.

We got some Wimbledon Tickets through which is good.

Saturday morning – I got all the tiles off in the kitchen ready for the kitchen work starting this week. Here’s the kitchen minus tiles.

In the afternoon, we went to Redworth Hall with Nigel and Terry and Julie and Paul. (Nigel and Julie being work colleagues). It was a treat from work because we were unable (all of us) to go to the yearly financial-end management bash last November.

Redworth Hall is a lovely building. We arrived at about 3.30pm, just in time for the massage that kp had booked. I went in the pool and sauna while kp had her treatment. It was £26 and not half as good as Diane’s massage (the lady who normally does kp). Diane only charges £8 !

kp joined me in the pool. There was a cracking chair hoist to get kp in the pool. The water was a little too cold for kp but it was fine for everyone else. I bounced her round the pool twice before she wanted to get out and go in the jacuzzi, which was gorgeous. We retired for a cream tea.

Here’s kp at Redworth Hall.

We met up with the others for drinks and chat. The meal was “ok”. The steaks were overcooked. The service was poor. We had tea/coffee in the bar area. Karen was the only one on tea. They sent a small pot (enough for 2 cups of tea). It had FIVE teabags in it !! Julie had to wait an age for her baileys coffee. Everything was overpriced and the quality of service really let them down. Our reservation wasn’t ready on time. The staff left dirty dishes and glasses on the table. But, it didn’t stop us having a good time.

Paul and Karen retired early. Nige, Terry, Julie and I stayed up until 1am. I was bladdered and retired at 1am leaving the hard core drunks (Nige, Terry and Julie) to stay up another hour.

Cracking night.

Breakfast was great. The service was top notch and everything was cooked to perfection.

That’s pretty much this week summed up.

Healthwise, kp is taking a big downer. She described her mindset as “realising that her body was not only NOT going to get any better, but was in fact going to get worse.” Her body has been a wreck this week, her hip seems to really be packing in. Her pain is up. Normally, that would cause a big mood change in kp, and she feels like she should be going on a downer, but she couldn’t understand why she wasn’t (mentally). We both think it could be the anti-depressants stopping the low mood swing.

Thankfully, we have a visit next week with an independent orthopedic consultant (as part of the claim for damages), so we might be able to gleam from him why it is getting worse.

That’s enough for now.

This week, Karen is seeing a doctor about her industrial injury benefit (Monday) and has a doctor’s appointment on Wednesday.

Just a quick note to those that have had problems posting on the blog. I have sussed out why. I had forgotten to approve the comments. A while ago I changed the blog so that all blog comments have to be approved. This was because the blog was being used for people advertising porn websites etc….

To give you an idea how bad it was. Of the 1072 comments left, I could only spot 5 to be approved. Sorry to Sue, Debs and whoever else was affected. I will remember to check more often !!

Well, a bit of a heartbreaking and eventful end to the weekend.

From the moment she got up this morning, she had been in pain. Nothing too unusual there, especially given that it was patch changeover time this morning. We figured it would get better, but sadly, it got worse, MUCH worse.

We had a snooze in the early afternoon, and kp got up out of bed really struggling to walk. As the afternoon wore on, she could no longer walk more than a couple of steps. Finally, she was midway across the hall, and she froze unable to move. The wheelchair was in the garage, so I had to resort to one of the study chairs (with wheels) to get her to her destination (front room). She was in so much pain, she couldn’t even get out of the wheely chair. An attempt to get out of the chair resulted in shrieks from kp. I could feel the pain her shrieks were so gutteral. At this point, she burst into tears.

kp:- What am I going to do ?

She didn’t mean “shall we go to hospital ?” or “should we have a cup of tea ?”. She meant “How could she go on in life like this ?”

I couldn’t help but cry with her. I was so upset, she was so upset – it was horrid.

dp :- We’ll have to go to A+E love.

Which we duly did. We set off at about 8pm. I got the wheelchair out of the garage, tore off the Easyjet tags (last time we used it) and brought it to her. She couldn’t stand on her own, and I had to resort to the old routine of getting her in and out of the chair. The turns that I had learnt back in 2005 were once again deployed, but this time, there were squeals of anguish pouring from Karen at every move I made on her. I have never seen her so racked with pain since the accident and that is saying something.

You can imagine how hard it must have been for her having to go from the wheelchair into the car, from the car to the wheelchair etc….

Once in the chair, she was ok. By ok, I mean she was still in pain, but not enough to warrant the screams that movements brought on.

We saw the triage nurse and were classified as “urgent”, which was good, it meant only waiting an hour !

When our ticket came up, we were took into an examination room, and we had to get kp onto a hospital bed. This bed didn’t go any lower that the setting it was on, which was higher than kp’s bum. How ridiculous !! I had to lift her onto the bed whilst she screamed in pain (heart breaking). The Doctor came and did loads of things that made her scream more. He put a venflon in and gave her 3mg Morphine (which is nowt), but it did help a little. It didn’t help make the moves painfree, but it did make it so that when she laid down she wasn’t in as much pain.

The Doctor was reluctant to give her any more than minimal amounts of Morphine because she is on 150ug worth of Fentanyl patches, and an overdose of opiates can cause the heart to stop apparently. A tricky balance for sure.

95% of the time was spent waiting around. Between our arrival and 3am here is what happened.

• Examination by Doctor
• Morphine
• X-Ray
• More Morphine (at Karen’s request)
• Loo Trip (nightmare)
• Fag Trip (nightmare)
• More morphine
• Arrival of Orthopod Doctor.

He told us that Karen had a fracture and did we know if it was a new fracture or an old fracture ?!?!?! The historical x-rays were at Sunderland, so they didn’t know the history. I described how I remember the old x-ray looking ie there was a bit of bone chipped off. He asked me to look at the x-ray and identify if what he was looking at was present on the old x-rays. I told him I thought it was there on the previous x-rays but couldn’t be sure. I told him there was a photo of the old x-rays on the blog. He went off to find it, but couldn’t find it because this website wasn’t a permitted website for the NHS and therefore couldn’t be browsed.

There were so many tears throughout the whole evening. She was dreading, absolutely DREADING, staying overnight in a hospital again. But, with the pain so bad, and being unable (without accompanying agony) to get in/out of the wheelchair, she knew deep down that it was the right thing to do.

At about 2.30am, she was told that she would be admitted and that the consultant would advise how best to proceed. She is Nil By Mouth, in case they have to operate in the morning.

I left her in a comfy position, eyes closed, absolutely knackered, so fingers crossed that they come up with a good action plan in the morning. Our worst fears are that they will say there is nothing they can do and pack her home with a bottle of Oramorph. I can’t see how they could as she can’t even stand, let alone walk or transfer from chair to bed.

It’s 9.15am. Just got off the phone from the hospital.  Karen has had a comfortable(ish) night. She is ok pain-wise as long as she doesn’t move. The consultant has done his rounds -  apparently he is sending her for an ultra-sound and an MRI scan today to work out what the best Plan of Action is. His options are to either …

1. Pin and plate the fracture or
2. Do a full hip replacement

We’ll know later today hopefully.

Am off to drop her bits and bobs in after I have had a shower etc…

Day 666 eh (yikes).

Well, kp had had a comfortable night’s sleep when I dropped off her bits and bobs at 10.30am. The pain was “uncomfortable” but if she moved, it was agony.

I spent 10 minutes with her, before I went on to work. Returning for visiting hours (2pm-3pm), she was asleep when I arrived. I think the previous night really took it out of her. Marie arrived shortly after I did. Here are Marie and Karen in full gas mode ….

She was due her scans in the afternoon. I left at 3.15pm and headed back to work, but at Chester-le-Street I had second thoughts. I was too tired (only had 3 hours sleep last night) and turned back. I went to bed after doing an hour’s work at home.

Up at 6.30pm, I went back in for evening visiting (7pm-8pm). I was greeted by this sight…..

What made me laugh even more is that when I got closer, she had chewing gum in her mouth. Bless !

Still knackered. She was asleep most of my visit, but I didn’t take it too personally. If anyone would like to visit kp, feel free during the visiting hours above. She’d love to see you. Or you can have a chat with her on her bedside phone (07040227581). It costs an arm and a leg per minute (be warned).

No scans at all. She is on a catheter now as the pain involved in getting on a bedpan is too much. Fingers crossed, they do scans tomorrow and we know when the op is going to be.

Just heard from kp. The doctor has been round and she definately has a new fracture since the x-ray in January 2007. What the doctor couldn’t believe is how she has managed to walk on it and that she was unaware of a moment when it could have happened ie a fall. She has had no falls, and the only thing we can think of is the bicycle exercises at the gym which she felt were a bit strange.

So, they will deffo be operating, but which operation we don’t know yet.

dp

kp in good form tonight. Starting to fret a bit about the pending op. We are still none the wiser about when and which op, but we suspect full hip replacement and tomorrow, but could be wrong on both counts.

Marie came over today and helped (with Margo and Joan) clear out the kitchen of everything ready for the kitchen fitters tomorrow. She also took delivery of over 150 boxes (the new kitchen).

Thanks to Margo, Joan and Marie for all their hard work.

Marie and I went over to visit for the evening. The time whizzed past. Sue (Brady) came to visit which was nice, bringing flowers and grapes. Thanks Sue. Whilst Sue was here, we were talking about what could have brought the fracture on. And kp thinks it was some exercise she did on a bike at the gym. Marie then piped up that she had reread the last few weeks blog and thats indeed when things started to deteriorate.

We think the final straw is when I was putting her in the bath on Sunday ( to ease the mounting pain) and she couldn’t get her right foot over the bath rim, so I helped it and she thinks that was the bit where it broke. In other words, I broke my wife’s hip.

I don’t think she is pressing charges, but you never know after the little spat we had at afternoon visiting. I couldn’t concentrate, I kept getting distracted by goings on around the ward. kp was none too happy. And I nearly stormed out, and she would have if she could have. anyway, we patched it up. I threatened to break her other hip and she soon towed the line.

What a day !

Kitchen fitters arrived at 7am on the dot. FIVE of them !! But it felt like more.

I went to work – was there for 7.45am. Marie was coordinating kitchen and dogs !

At 9.30am I had a call from Karen.

kp:- David, you need to come straight away. Mr X (consultant) has been round and told me loads of stuff and I can’t take it all in (she was crying).

Something about 6-12 weeks, and wearing a cage, and floppy foot.

Well, I was none-the-wiser and so made my escape from work as best I could and headed to the hospital.

kp was distraught when I arrived. She was upset about everything the consultant had said and was 100% convinced she was going to die during the op.

dp :- You’re not going to die. Karen, you have been 10x weaker than this and sailed through similar ops.

kp (crying) :- Yes, but this is the way it happens. Just when you think you’re past the worst of it, you die during an operation like this.

Part of me did think, “aye, she might”, because I shared her thoughts 100%. She took an unusually long time to calm down, but by the time 1pm came, she was quite relaxed.

Before the op, Mr X (consultant) came round to see me and explain to me, what he explained to Karen. In a nutshell, here is what he said …..

• 6-12 weeks recuperation
• She may come out wearing a brace (not a cage) – a brace is apparently a pair of plastercast knickers that lock the hip in place.
• If the nerves get damaged (1% chance), she may have a floppy foot (like Morse (his words not mine)).
• 1-3% chance of infection which is BAD ! He stressed this as “the whole lot would have to come out”.
• There were a few more points, but I am tired and can’t remember them.

At 1.30pm she went off to theatre. He told us the op was 1.5 hours long, so about 3-3.30pm (I thought) she would come out.

Well, the time dragged and dragged and dragged. I was under pain of death that I HAD TO BE there IF she comes out alive. I MUST TELL HER that it went fine. So, I had my orders. Knowing I had at least 1.5 hours, I went for lunch

Then I sat on some respite seats halfway between theatre and the ward, knowing she would have to pass me to get to the ward.

2.30pm came, nowt

3.30pm came, nowt

4.30pm came, I was getting worried.

4.45pm – bloody hell

5pm – right, she’ll be fine.

5.05pm – nah, she’ll be fine

5.06pm – blimey time is passing slowly.

This was what I had been looking at for the last 2.5 hours

And yes, I was gagging to occupy my mind, so I took this picture of myself .

And no, it’s not Brad Pitt, it really is me.

5.15pm, Right, this is silly.

The priest came past and could tell I was worried, but I gave him the cold eye as I couldn’t be doing with calming words. When he came back a second time, I gave my “I am an aethist, agnostic humanist look” and he went on his way again.

Moments later, Mr X walked past. He had forgotten who I was, but I wasn’t going to let him walk on by.

dp:- “How is Karen ?”

Mr X:- “Fine. The operation went fine.”

And by the time he had said the second “fine”, he was out of earshot.

30 minutes later, she was wheeled past me to my great delight. And then of course, the husband battery commenced.

She was still not mentally all there. I couldn’t hear everything she was saying and I started asking her to repeat herself. Bad move !

kp:- David, you MUST listen to what I am saying

I learned quick. Next time I couldn’t hear, I just said nothing. And remarkably it worked, she forgot she had asked the question I think, or perhaps thought she hadn’t asked it. They are great this anaesthetic drugs.

Back on the ward, she was a nightmare. I was doing everything wrong. Visiting hours started shortly after she was back on the ward, and the noise was too much for her. Rather than let me put headphones on her, she quite happily shouted “SSSSssssshhhhhh!”. When that didn’t work, she shouted “Please be quiet” at fellow visitors.

Here is kp very shortly after she was back on the ward.

It was funny as hell. Marie soon arrived as did Marie, Freddy and Adele and they too were laughing at kp’s antics. When she wanted water I was there for her. But I held the straw wrongly and for the wrong period of time. When I withdrew it I wanted more, when I shoved it in, she didn’t want any.

CLICK HERE for a flavour of how you couldn’t say the right thing.

To be fair, she was in a LOT of pain. She was moaning with pain at every breath. Occasionally, she would fall asleep, snore and wake herself up and then moan in pain. The syringe driver of morphine wasn’t responding to every click of the button that Karen wanted it to.

Hopefully tomorrow, she will be in less pain.

As far as we know, the op was a success, but I only think that, because Karen told me that he had said that ?!?!?!