Dogs, Chickens and Vintage China

Gratuitous Picture of a Manky Foot Today involved yet another visit to the plaster room at Southmead Hospital...or for those of you in the know, the Land of Mordor...as usual there are no parking spaces. Helen is quite keen to drop me off by the door and she'd like me to just hop in and wait for her. But I have been scooting around on the crutches like a veritable Long John Silver...now there's something I don't understand, he only used one crutch and I've tried it and it is pretty much impossible...anyhow, I persuade Helen that she can drop me off in the multi storey whilst she finds a parking space. In hindsight this was not a good idea. I leapt out of the car and set off at a fair lick, this however, did not last. By the time I'd gone about 30ft I realised that I was less Long John Silver and more...more...ooh, this isn't easy, I can't think of anyone that is not violently offensive... more a fat middle aged one legged man from Somerset...will that do...

I have decided to make a radical departure from the script, up to this very present moment I have regaled you with happenings from my day. The titanic...hah, used that yesterday, I'm running out of vocabulary...and ultimately successful struggle with constipation, the wildly exciting interlude that was bath night, I've even told you how I walk up stairs, which will show you how little goes on in my days. Ocean and Helen have both just wandered into the house preceded by a phone call from my mother-in-law with the result that as usual I've completely lost the thread. I had a whole plethora of things to write about and they have now all dropped out of my brain without as much as a 'by your leave'. Well, the one thing I can't tell you about is my day, unless, that is, you are deeply interested in the minutiae of trying to ensure that an API (Application Programming Interface) returns the correct data from a data warehouse...jeez, even I'm starting to yawn.....

Over the last three weeks I have become well acquainted...if not over acquainted...with the marvels of streaming technology. When I was last confined to my bed in 2012 I installed a forty inch flat screen television as the main monitor in my office. This is the room where I am the confinee...hmm, I may have made up a new word there...during this present break in normal service. Being an 'IT Professional' brings with it several issues and the worst of these...other than damp hands and the inability to converse with the opposite sex...is a serious addiction to technology. The office is home to two micro servers, one full size tower PC, a UPS...no not an American parcel delivery firm, it's an Uninterruptable Power Supply...,  two scanners, a printer, one vADSL router, one cable router, two gigabit switches, several metric tons of miscellaneous computer bits and three monitors one of which is the aforesaid 40 inch TV. Since it was a television I also had it connecte...

Yesterday was a bit of a red letter day...what the flying fuck does that actually mean, I have never received a red letter in my entire life, as far as I am concerned it would be a day that never happened...it did, and it was, for the purposes of this narrative a red letter day. Why? I hear you ask, well we had visitors in the evening and because of this I decided that I should attempt another bath and dress in some vaguely normal clothes. I ascended to the bathroom...don't worry we aren't going through having a bath all over again...this time by way of my foot not my arse..keep up, I went up the stairs on my foot. Now, the NHS in their wisdom will not let you leave hospital with a cast on your leg without demonstrating that you can climb stairs using crutches. For the past forty years this has been demonstrated to me on many occasions, back when the NHS was properly funded the physio would bring a set of stairs onto the ward complete with handrail and you would have ...

So yesterday I did a full days work without the help of any sort of prescription drug...oh alright I'm on a fairly ripe cocktail of drugs to prop up my failing brain, what I mean is that for the first time since the surgery I was not pouring painkillers down my neck...as it turns out this may have been a bad idea. As my last post relayed, I had the day from hell yesterday, however, eventually it was over and I topped it off with a bath which was quite marvellous. My barbiturate free day did not continue. After my bath I settled down to watch some completely forgettable crap... on Netflix I think. But little did I realise that my overly excited day had left my brain in a state of agitation. I am one of those annoying people who get at least 8 hours dreamless...apart from Keith and Dafydd  of course...sleep, that doesn't look quite right, should I have used comma's, mind you, see what I've done there, with the link, I am after all an IT professional...what the fuck wa...

I need help...what? no not that sort of help, I'm a married man I'll have you know...no honestly I need help to retrieve my, possibly, irretrievable plot. As you all know I went back to work somewhat earlier than expected and gradually it is driving me completely round the bend...oh alright, further round the bend than I already am. Today was the first day of work since my operation that has not been viewed through the lens of any form of barbiturate, opiate or any other form of 'ate' and I have firmly decided I don't like it. Work is not fun, it involves vast amounts of people shouting at me continually to do things that A. I can't do B. I don't want to do C. It's, possibly, fucking impossible to do Today was, maybe, one of the most stressful days of my working life...apart from the day when I accidentally deleted the whole of a top law firms intranet, that was quite stressful...actually I'm lying, today wasn't that stressful but it was ...

I was not looking forward to today, it was tending to make me anxious and a tad fretful. Now, I've been through this Lord knows how many times but I just do not enjoy that first visit back to the plaster room to have the stitches removed. I very nearly passed out last time and this time there are fucking millions of the little bastards...oh alright, there's about forty. My foot looks like it's been worked on by a particularly industrious Igor...gratuitous Terry Pratchett reference. So I dress in my finest and donning the hat set forth with Helen for the distant Land of Mordor, or to the cognoscenti Southmead Hospital...it might as well be Mordor, they're bloody good at torture and dismemberment. Of course when we arrive the car park is full so we have to pull in right in front and I hobble into the hospital on crutches whilst Helen finds a wheelchair, I'm left with a very lovely retired lady dressed in pink who then pushes me about three miles to the plaster r...

What is on my mind right now is my foot, today is the day that I go and have the plaster changed and the stitches out, there's roughly thirty or so, I've just counted them. I can't say I'm looking forward to this, last time I nearly passed out and that was far less stitches than this time... I'll get the plaster room technician to do some more piccies for a before and after  :)

I'm sure you want to know this, I've cut down on the codeine and as a result am now much more regular...mind you, yesterday, the first poo for two days, I thought I was going to need stitches. So, with this in mind, I'm spending much more quality time in the downstairs loo contemplating life. I've started using the crutches which I can't do without wearing a shoe...other ankle is pretty much completely fucked as well. I have the balance of an particularly doddery octogenarian so I have to wear a boot on the right foot, otherwise my progress on the crutches tends to make strong men wince and Helen and Ocean give birth to small cats...I've completely lost the thread, what the copulation was I talking about?... ah yes, downstairs loo. So more time spent in downstairs loo with concomitant reduction in faint smell of piss around my bed :-) This morning I was visited by a sudden urgent need to see a brown friend off to the sea. This is a slightly complicated opera...

In the interests of full disclosure this post contains no boring IT wank whatsover... So, you've all met the downstairs loo before during the Morphine Constipation Olympics, my approach to the loo is now a little more considered. I glide across the hallway on my superior office chair and when I get to the doorway of the loo I have to turn around and go in backwards. The other day trying to bump the chair forwards over the aluminium strip across the doorway I managed to tweak my back again. So, turn round and go in backwards, the trick is to move your arse to the front of the chair and unweight the back wheels as you cross the strip, then move right backward to do the same for the front. As I have said before the loo is made for one human being, so one human being plus an office chair, washing kit and clothes makes things a tad cramped. For one thing I've gone in backwards and if I want to use the loo...I do...I have to spin the chair round. No problem this chair's w...

Jeez, I'm absolutely knackered, I've only been working since 0630 this morning...it's 1130 now. Bear in mind this is all whilst lying flat on my back so I'm not exactly over exerting myself. Firstly, answer any emails, then look at the log of bugs for software I'm involved with, quick call to 'she who knows all' to work out what the fuck is going on. Fix the issue that was blatantly my fault and upload it to the test system. Join a call with a third party and a project manager. More calls to work out what the fuck is going on with some other database'y things. Talk to India, set up stuff for them, more talk to India about really boring IT wank. Talk to head office about same IT wank. Talk to local office about same wank...is it time I actually had a..purge brain of naughty thoughts...talk to nice man in Weston-Super-Mare to ask about wank. Consider fixing wank...too tired need break, brain not working properly. Have wash...this is revolutionary...,...

So, work has now become a thing. You may not believe this but at work I am the consummate professional...what, how dare you, I'll have you know I...I...wear a shirt?...OK, OK, I'm good at pretending. So I've started answering questions and joining meetings and generally doing the whole 'David Brent' malarky. Thing is...another one of those existential dilemma's...I've just had nastily complicated surgery performed upon my person. I've been cut open, interfered with and put back together. I've suffered vast indignities perpetrated upon my person and I am only sane because of the combination of morphine, codeine, paracetamol and a soupcon of laxative... really?..you think that sane might be pushing it, you could have a point. However, look, the whole point is I've suffered unknown horrors bravely, selflessly without regard to my own safety. I am an absolute fucking hero...what do you mean all I've done is lie about in bed necking barbiturat...

I am suffering from a soupçon of cognitive dissonance...how about that for some pretentious shit for my first sentence ;-) I've just been on a call with work...aarrgh, fuck, fuck, fuckety, fuck. I'd just written nearly a complete post but because fucking blogger arses up the spacing I stupidly decided to do this in Notepad which doesn't save as you go and of course the fucking Chromebook shut down and I lost the lot. Mumble..moan..grrrr. Now the question is, do I try to recreate the eloquent brilliance of what I wrote from memory...I'm 52 and have difficulty remembering what happened an hour ago...or start over? So, firstly cognitive dissonance, I am lying here with my leg gently throbbing, smelling faintly of piss from having to use a pee bottle and having a bladder the size of a pea due to the diabetes...you didn't know, well by the way I have diabetes as well :-) and it makes you piss almost continually... so, where was I? This is leading to something, hone...

Well isn't this fun, my body appears to have become some sort of venue for a cage fight. Various portions of my anatomy are fighting each other to be the most painful. I'm half expecting my earlobes to start attacking my neck. As you should all be aware whilst valeting my undercarriage some days ago I managed to put my back out...now there's a strange phrase...put your back out. Where do you put it and why is it out, I've never put my back in. And why do you 'put' your back out as if you've done it deliberately...more digression, back to the case in point. So we start with my ankle which has been sorely abused by the NHS, then my lower back which was tweaked egregiously in the notorious bollock washing incident, now we have my left hip and all of them are competing for title of Grand Champion in the category of Most Aggravating Body Part. I was not a happy bunny this morning, my hip was too painful to have my leg elevated and as a result my ankle was a...

Ouch, fuck, where did that come from. I've just been woken from a deep and dreamless sleep. Well maybe not dreamless as actually I was dreaming about welsh scallies counterfeiting money, yeah I know, weird right? So one minute I was somewhere near Abergavenny counterfeiting currency with Keith and Dafydd the next I was wide awake and it was then that my leg inside the cast did an involuntary twitch. 'An involuntary twitch' you say '...and pray why would you want to communicate this at six thirty in the morning' Well, mainly 'cos I want to put you off your breakfast. If you have been following this series closely then you will have read about what they actually did. If you haven't not to worry I will explain;) They sliced open my ankle cut the tendon away from the bone then cut open the other side and pulled the tendon through between the tibia and fibia and then routed it down to that side of my foot. Just imagine if it was this that had the involuntary...

So maybe I should be telling you all something more conventional like what sort of day I've had...not bad all things considered...and detailing the food I've eaten though that's much more passe these days. Most people just share endless videos of cats. My back which as you may recall was injured in an horrendous bollock washing incident is definitely feeling more spritely. As a result of this not unwelcome development I have become bored and possibly a little introspective. The cast is really beginning to get on my tits, it makes me feel like my foot can't breathe. You know that sensation that you get when you can't find your way out of your own jumper or can you remember going to the bottom of the bed when you were a kid and then panicking 'cos you couldn't find your way out? Well I've got that, in my foot, I have to wear one of those horrendous pressure stockings on the other foot and it's obviously feeling a bit left out as occasionally it ...

Due to a severe lack of suggestions about what I should write next I've decided the time has come to share some more pictures of the horror perpetrated on my ankle. Now firstly let me tell you what they've done. Strictly speaking I don't have to do this but it made me feel distinctly queasy so I think it would be rude of me not to share. Just to give you an idea this is my foot before the latest operation:) The first procedure was a Posterior Tibial Tendon Transfer to the Dorsal Foot In this procedure, the surgeon releases the posterior tibial tendon from its insertion into the navicular. The incision is made on the inside (medial) aspect of the foot, and the tendon is released. A second incision, which is about an inch long, is made on the inside of the lower leg, just above the bony lump (medial malleolus) on the inside of the ankle. To identify this spot for yourself, find the bony prominence on the inside of the ankle then go back about an inch and a half...

And so inevitably I come to existential dilemma number three and this I promise you is a biggie...at least from where I'm standing, er sitting, lying, sprawling...one of those, take your pick. The back pain is thankfully receding and I've not taken any serious pain relief all day. I'm somewhat scared, frankly I'm terrified that it will produce a bowel impaction so gargantuan that when it eventually goes off we'll have to rebuild the whole East wing and rehouse the servants. So back to existential dilemma number three....Fuck me gently, you're not going to believe this. I think the bomb bays doors are inexorably opening for another run. I'm going to have to go.... Right I'm back with you and guess what I bought you in with me. Do you feel special. Ladies and gentlemen I am writing this whilst triumphantly, nay, gloriously having my second poo of the day. It's remarkably difficult to poo whilst your leg is on an office chair. It's not conduci...

I have just won Gold in the morphine constipation Olympics. The baby has been delivered, I'm estimating he was around 1lb 3oz and for those who want to know he looked like his father with just the merest touch of jaundice. Helen was out taking the dog for a walk and of course this was when my recalcitrant bowels decided time was up, the train was in the station, in fact it was bumping against the buffers. The previous bollock washing incident having incapacitated me to a large degree this required thinking outside the box, no pun intended. Sometime earlier in the morning I'd given in and taken some codeine...couldn't somebody have pointed out that I was spelling fucking codeine wrong...sorry I digress, which had taken the edge off the back pain. The train was tooting it's horn and rattling backwards and forwards by now, there was no time to waste. So manoeuvre myself to the edge of the mattress, grab the office chair and jam it against the bookshelf to stop it m...