He's Had a Good Innings
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 to demonstrate your dexterity on said crutches for about half an hour.
Last time they got me to do the stair climbing demo would have been 2012 and by then the funding allowed them to take me out into a stairwell for five minutes to confirm my athletic prowess. Well, three weeks ago I was lying in a hospital bed when the physio turned up, it was the morning after my surgery and any movement of my foot was, frankly, agony, even though I was half off my tits on morphine. The thing that hurt the most however was dangleyness, I'd sat on the edge of the bed and dangled my foot over the side in preparation for the physio's visit and the pain made me see stars...or maybe black dots...I definitely saw something and I may have sworn a trifle immoderately.
So I was not looking forward to the visit from the physio and trying to ascend a flight of stairs. Well they must have cut the physio budget to the bone, as she turned up, asked me whether I could use crutches and I replied in the affirmative. She then asked me to walk to the door which I obligingly tried to do. I managed two steps and had to head back to the safety of the bed as I thought I was going to either throw up or pass out. Apparently this was enough for her to to say I was fit to leave. The point of this meandering digression is to tell you that I did not receive my instruction on ascending stairs, but, I hear you say, you are a professional crutch wielder, if anyone should be adept on the old crutch it should be you, and I would have agreed with you.
There is a problem however...jeez I have to stop using 'however'...my advancing age means that certain motor skills are not what they were and more pertinently whenever I insert something into my brain something else exits by the back door. The method of ascending stairs on crutches was obviously a piece of trivia that my brain had decided it no longer needed...hold on, I am suddenly assailed by the urgent need for a morning poo, back in a minute...right, where were we, ah yes, stairs. I was convinced I knew the method for crutch assisted stair climbing. It's easy, you only use one crutch and hold the spare crutch thus...
The other hand holds the banister and you hop up one step at a time...in my memory...quite easily. Nay, nay and thrice nay. It was really fucking difficult and to be honest even though I managed it all the way up it was touch and go. The whole process had Helen in a state of nervous exhaustion watching me. The old brain had obviously ejected the theory of crutch assisted stair climbing and the motor skills were unwilling to fill the breach.
However... Good Lord, another fucking however...I reached the bathroom without incident and had a very satisfactory 'shit, shower and shave' apart from the shower being a bath of course. I then...and this is revolutionary...rejected the hippy trousers selected by Helen and dressed myself formally in black jeans and a shirt. I am a normal person, wearing normal people clothes, not for me the baggy clothing of the former piss stained bed dweller, I am dapper, I am professional, I look like a complete c*nt in the full length mirror but that is beside the point. Don't you dare complain, I used a * and everything 😏
So now the time comes to return back down stairs and after my experiences on the way up I was not sure that doing it on foot was going to be a thing. However...oh come on, really...I am nothing if not intrepid so I swung into action. Crutch in right hand, left hand on banister, brace, brace, brace, ooh that was easy, try it again. Yep, really easy, I've conquered it, I can do stairs. It wasn't until halfway down I realised why going down was so easy. Last time I had an operation it was on my right foot, which going up, is nearest the banister and makes it much easier. This time the operation is on my left which, makes going down easier. I'm fairly sure that by now you have probably lost the will to live, but for me this was a revelation. Oh and in the interests of pedantry we only have a banister rail on one side, hence left, right, up down etc. Really...you don't get it...look the rail is on my right going up and the dodgy foot is on the left, therefore in order to raise the right foot you need to...oh hang on, I don't get it either. My suggestion is you go out and relieve a cripple of his crutches, find some stairs and it will all become clear.
Yesterday evening was spent eating chinese food and being debonair and amusing but all good things have to come to an end and I eventually fell exhausted into my bed and watched some more crap on Netflix...a Bruce Willis confection this time, quite entertaining. I fell into the usual deep and dreamless until I was woken at around 5am with an urgent need to unload some of the extra fluid I had taken on the night before. Helen was off to her stall so she also got up some ten minutes later and was surprised to find me blearily trying to bring the world into focus. She provided a much needed cup of tea and buggered off to Cheddar to commune with the other denizens of the car boot sale.
As I lay in bed my ears were suddenly assailed by the sound of a small dog trying to attract my attention. Without the bad back it was but the work of a moment to haul said small dog up onto the bed. Here follows gratuitous pictures of small dog which will assure that people read this...
I can write all I like about my own suffering and titanic struggles with constipation but as soon as I put a picture of the bloody dog I get a deluge of interest. So here he is, in all his glory.
As you have heard before Henry is nearly fifteen, stone deaf, short sighted and somewhat arthritic so I am not keen on him leaping off the bed, but he settled down immediately to 'a doze, of senile and inept repose, but not for long his drowsy ease...' well it was a couple of hours before he woke up actually. During that couple of hours I suffered some of the most bizarre dreams imaginable, luckily for you I am not even going to attempt to describe them. Other peoples dreams are possibly the most boring thing you can be subjected to...I digress, the point is I slept, albeit somewhat uneasily for another couple of hours accompanied by a snoring and odoriferous hound.
I was woken by Henry's determined attempts to leave the bed. This propelled me precipitately into consciousness, I immediately sat up, grabbed the hairy git before he launched himself into midair and lowered him to the ground.
Things then got a little strange, his back legs splayed out and his head went forward and one of his front legs curled up and wouldn't reach the ground. Oh God, I'm on my own, in a plaster cast and the dog is having a stroke. I stared at him for a second and he started to pitch forward onto his face, this is it, he is fifteen, he's had a good innings. I was about the sound the last post and call the priest when I noticed that he had managed to get one of his toes caught in his collar...yeah really, no I have no idea how either. I released said toe, not without the ungrateful little bugger trying to bite me, he gave me a reproachful look and retired to his basket in a huff.
So that was my morning, how about you?
Charlie
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