Room 101

The last remaining vestige of socialist utopia in our benighted isle as imagined by Atlee's post-war Labour Government is the very wonderful NHS, currently under threat of privatisation by stealth from out ghastly rulers. One of many nightmares fuelled by the current Tory led coalition is the end of the free at point of service NHS, something I dread should that ever happen.

Yesterday saw my third operation in just under a year on the wires and pulleys in my hands, or to use the technical term, correction of Dupuytren's Contracture. As this is my third time I now know exactly what to expect. While I cannot fault the excellent standards of the actual operation, the amount of attendant bureaucracy is mind-boggling.

When I got my first letter in early September informing me of the operation time, I noticed that they wanted me at the hospital on Wednesday 12th October by 7:15am! That would mean getting up by 6am at the latest, and those of you that know me will realise that this filled me with some dread. I am not and never have been a "mornings" person. I still regularly recall my dear old dad getting up at the rise of the sun, and wandering about the house whistling at some ungodly hour. The memory makes me smile and cringe at the same time. How can anyone be so cheerful so bloody early?!

Anyway, I digress. I phoned the appointments people and asked if they could find me a date later in the month at a slightly later time, say 9am - still quite early enough, thank you, but if not I'd take it anyway as I want the op over and done with. "OK" she said, "we'll see what we can do". A fortnight passed and no call or letter, so I ring again and was informed by answer-phone that the lady in charge of appointments was on holiday, and could I ring my consultant's secretary, which I duly did. Of course this meant explaining the situation again, and she told me that the reason the original slot was so early was so that the consultant could see me before the operation. I asked her what time he arrived in the morning, and she avoided the question - obviously a lot later than 7:15am I'll bet. I and the other patients would just end up sitting around for hours with the chill air conditioned breeze wafting through the gaps on those horrible do-up-at-the-back smock things they make you wear.

She was actually very helpful and said she'd look into why I had not been contacted and get back to me. A few days later a revised appointment letter arrived..great, they've changed the slot... for Wednesday 19th October...at 7:15am. It made me laugh that did! So I rang up the secretary again and asked what was the point of changing the date if the time slot remained the same? "Oh" she says, "well, you should have explained yourself better". I smiled to myself and bit my tongue, "Never mind" sez I , "I'll take it anyway"..."Hold on" she replied, put the phone down and came back and said "How about 10am, same day? It'll mean you won't see the consultant beforehand"". "Great" sez I "He's seen me twice already, I'm sure he knows what he's doing". Just why they couldn't have done that first time round I don't know.

I arrived at the hospital yesterday and guess what, the consultant saw me anyway, and I was under the knife within an hour. When I got back to the ward the guy in the next bed who had been operated on directly before me was moaning about having to turn up at 7:15am and then sitting around for two hours while nothing happened. Wahey!

Bureaucracy addendum - In the short time between arriving at the hospital and being put under the lights (lovely reflection of my op to watch in the light cover by the the way!) I was asked the same pre-op questions by the ward nurse, the theatre nurse (who supplied The Stone Roses on her iPod as operation music - marvellous!), and the anaesthetist, who all filled in three different versions of exactly the same form. This doesn't really surprise me, having to deal with HMRC in my day job. Anything the Government get involved in is bound to be in at least triplicate!


The cuts affecting the NHS were in evidence in the ward after the op. The discharge nurse (in the sense of leaving the ward, not messy liquids..heheh) asked if I would need any painkillers. and as I have not used any of the co-codamol prescribed after the first op for that or the second op, I told her no thanks. A bit of soreness does not necessitate medication in my opinion, unless you're a complete wuss. Medications are handed out all too freely these days if you ask me. She told me that was just as well as they had run out of the "proper" stuff (co-codamol) and could only offer me paracetamol in any case.

Despite all the endless layers of officialdom and general waiting around, the NHS is a truly marvellous thing and the coalition will rue the day their pernicious and self-serving little Health Bill becomes law.

If the Evil Coalition get their way, which is depressingly likely, the first stages of creeping NHS privatisation will soon be upon us, enabling Dave's mates to set up phoney health companies in order to make vast profits out of the rest of us, and we will all be nostalgic for the old ways of endless paper shuffling related above. There's still time to sign 38 Degrees' petition to to stop the changes, so if you haven't already signed it, get off your arse (well, hit a few keys on your keyboard) and do it now! At nearly half a million signatures one can only hope, perhaps naively I'll admit, that some notice is taken in Westminster.

The Crack Of Dawn

A lovely thing it is too....

As you may know I am undergoing a series of operations adjusting the wonky wires and pulleys in my hands, or to use the technical term, corrective procedures for Dupuytrens Contracture. Operation No.3 has been in the pipeline for a while now, and I told those lovely people at Trauma & Orthopaedics that a date in September would not suit as I am somewhat busy this month.

The appointment letter arrived today, my date is now 12th October. On the 13th and 14th I have gigs scheduled, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem as I now know what pain and discomfort level to expect, and both concerts are "sit down" jobbies. No, what made me harrumph was the time of the appointment. They want me there at 7:15 am!!

Hairymofo of God, why so early? Mind you I know for a fact that the actual op could be up to two hours after this time, during which I'm given a five minute cross examination to see if I've contracted Beri-Beri or grown a second head, and the rest is an interminable wait. I'm a grumpy sod in the early morning at the best of times, but as well as having to put up with getting up with the sun, I will not have been allowed to eat anything from 2:30 am, and can only drink water from 6:30 am. Boy am I going to be in good mood. The taxi driver better know where he's going or I may well be up for murder.

It's Up Here Somewhere...

A news article on the BBC website under the heading Can pub quizzes survive in the smartphone era? has some sensible responses, most along the lines of "Yes, and the cheats ruin it for everyone else, so should be shot"...well maybe not quite that extreme. However, there are a few responders who reckon cheating is good and the quiz should adapt to their ways. One such incredulous response was this from "smoker_dave"..

The quiz needs to evolve. How about embracing smart phone technology and having rounds with very obscure questions that are designed to be Googled.

The world is changing. There is no need to memorise countless facts and figures any more. The people who get ahead are the ones who can search the reams of information and pick out the relevant results

If this bloke turned up at The Quiz With Gravitas with his mates, all brandishing their smartphones, I'd be inclined to tell them to fuck off, or stick the phones where the sun don't shine! My more measured actual response was..

What a ridiculous idea! A quiz is meant to exercise your grey matter, you know, that thing inbetween your ears. As your name implies I guess you do your cheating in the outside smoking area, come back to tell your team mates, thereby ruining it for everyone else. I hope you get caught!

I await his reply with interest!

smoker_dave looks for his phone after visiting The Quiz With Gravitas

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While walking to work this morning approaching me were two women both wearing big and very dark shades as is the current trend. One was nattering away to her mate, looking directly at her friend and not where she was going. She didn't see a dip in the pavement and nearly turned her ankle. Recovering she turned to her mate and in a surprised tone said "That's dangerous, I didn't see it" without a trace of irony.

For some reason they obviously were wondering why I was chuckling to myself as I walked past.
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Any fellow bloggers out there will be aware of the Stats tab, telling you how many hits one's wibblings have had, and from what sources. Some wag inexplicably came across this blog using the search words "pictures of the biggist (sic) sloppy poo". I've no idea how that leads here, unless it is a reference to my loose writing style, but I certainly wouldn't advise anyone to type it in Google!
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The mangled maw - an update..


Just over a week ago I had my latest Dupuytrens operation on my left ring finger. The cast came off two days after the op, but the stitches will remain until this Friday. Movement is good, if a bit sore and the finger is now straight! Result.

When I get the chance I'll put up some charming before and after photos for your revulsion.
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Winged Eel Fingerling cured of Dupuytren's Contracture

Yesterday saw my second operation for Dupuytren's Contracture, just over six months since the first. This time the culprit was the ring finger of my left hand. Unfortunately, due to the recurrent nature of the condition this will most likely not be my last treatment for it, but my consultant tells me of a new procedure involving injections rather than operations, already in use in the USA, is well on its way to NICE approval, so future treatments will hopefully be less stressful. Again I am grateful to that wonderful British institution the National Health Service. How the less well off cope in countries that rely on private health insurance is beyond me, and the NHS is one reason I'm glad I was born in the UK.

Apart from the now expected interminable hanging around, and despite my initial weird bout of nerves - I breezed through the first op when it was an unknown quantity, but foreknowledge had made me decidedly wobbly this time, for some reason - once in the operating theatre I was fine. Sedatives doing their trick, I'd imagine.

As was the case the first time, the op was carried out under a local anaesthetic, this time abetted by a total nerve block. Flat on my back with my "dead" left arm strapped down and hidden from my view by a sheet screen, the consultant and his surgeon began chopping away at the extraneous fibrous tissue build up at the base of my left ring finger. Unbeknownst to them I could make out most of what was going on in a reflection in the large overhead light diffuser, the sort you also find in dentist's practices. Probably due to the drugs I know, but I felt strangely detached from it all, so much so that watching my spliced hand was actually quite interesting! At one point a surgeon had in his hand what looked like an electric toothbrush, but with a tiny saw at the end. It made a satisfying buzzing sound as he turned it on and lowered it to my hand, grinning manically...."Mwahahaha".

OK I made that last bit up, but the electric toothbrush with saw attachment was indeed used. Fittingly enough, the last song played in the theatre from a random selection of old rock stuff on a nurse's iPod was Free's Alright Now. The operation had lasted over an hour, and I was wheeled back to the day ward where I was served copious amounts of tea and marmalade (my choice) on toast. Like I say, the NHS IS WONDERFUL, so hands off, Lord Snooty.

No doubt many visits to the lovely Jen in hand therapy await, so it's not all bad, this raspberry business.

The Maw of Me (in reverse)

Train Kept A-Rollin'*

* Except when there's the wrong kind of snow, or leaves, or signal failure at East Cheam, or....

As you've probably heard there is soon to be reform of the UK's rail network (read cuts) following a government study of their value for money released today. Our rail network apparently costs 30% more to run than comparable networks on mainland Europe. Could that alarming statistic have anything to do with the fact that administering a self created highly fragmented privatised system puts the UK at an instant cost disadvantage to state run networks in Europe perchance? So much so that the state subsidy to our wonderfully successful privatised railway system at £5 billion is five times greater after inflation than it was pre-privatisation.

When asked about the forthcoming reforms, Transport Secretary Philip Hammond said on Breakfast this morning that introducing a sliding scale of rail fares just before and just after peak times would increase choice:

"Instead of having a massive cliff edge between the peak fare and the off-peak fare you could have a couple of intermediate bands in between, so that people have more choices about the times they travel."

What this means in practice is that fares will increase in the hours immediately before and after peak times, ie in the times when most non-commuters want to travel. For "people have more choices" read passengers will suffer increased fares at the times they want to make their journeys. We already pay for annual increases in ticket prices way above inflation and now this. Interestingly since Hammond said this the review has been published and concludes that fares should be "more equitable" and are "already too high", and Hammond's quote above has mysteriously vanished from the BBC report.

Another great idea Hammond bestowed on us minnions was to build more parking spaces at stations in order to raise more money. Exactly where are these extra passengers going to fit? On the train roof or hanging out of doors perhaps? At least the Indians will feel at home!

Mind you what do you expect from a Tory Government, all they are interested in is increased profits for the major shareholders (which ironically include those paragons of choochoo virtue, the German and French rail companies) while they all swan around in chauffeur driven limos. On the other side of the fence, 70s throwback rail union chief Bob Crow said this about proposed further changes in working practices for his members:  - "To turn around and say working practices have not changed in decades is completely untrue," he said. "The railway runs 7-days a week, 24-hours a day. If you are talking about changing working practices to make people work longer, that is a step in the wrong direction." Oh come on, train drivers and "Revenue Officers" (ticket collectors/sellers) are on seriously good money, and a bit more flexibility on their part and you may indeed see passenger trains running "7-days a week, 24-hours a day", something I can assure Mr Crow has yet to happen in my lifetime. The 24/7 quote is another that has since vanished by the way.

Crow would no doubt object, and this time rightly so, to another mooted idea, the reducing of the number of on-train staff. Quite how this could be acheived is beyond me as B and I have often made entire 100 mile plus journeys without once having our tickets checked. No wonder fare evasion is a problem. Mind you, if want to buy an over-priced polystyrene cup of molten iron while on board from the many vendors blocking aisles with their trolleys of inedible tat, that's no problem.
 
Tory politicians may well point the finger at the rail unions and the Brontosaurus that is Bob Crow, who let's face it is an easy and somewhat large target, but the biggest share of the blame for the state of our once proud rail network has to be taken by their party. All in all rail privatisation has been a complete nightmare for the service user, what with inflation busting annual ticket price increases, a fare system so complicated you need a degree in theoretical mathematics to understand it, overcrowded trains, crazy route duplications in the name of so-called competition, cancelled or severely restricted services every Bank Holiday when they chose to do maintenance work, some godawful stations (Clapham Junction, Birmingham New Street to name two), arbitrary route and timetable changes, rude and unhelpful station staff, etc etc.

One way billions could be saved at a stroke is the scapping of the utterly unecessary, environmentally decimating and hyper expensive new high speed line between London and Birmingham which as far as I can make out is being built to shave 30 minutes off journey times between the two cities. Woohoo! I'll bet it will still be cheaper by plane, and, unless you book your ticket five months in advance and thereby travel when the train companies want you to but not when you want to, by car too!

Tory ideology has wrecked our railway system, just as the same blinkered thinking threatens to wreck the NHS....but that's another story.

If Labour made rail re-nationalisation an election pledge it would certainly grab my vote and I'm sure many thousands of others too, but unfortunately my turning up at the pub quiz in a frock is more likely!
 
I am most dischuffed....see what I did there?
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Monday sees a return to NGH for yours truly as an operation is booked to fix the Dupuytren's Contracture in my left ring finger, or in layman's terms, to fix the wires and pulleys in my left hand. This time I may be put under a general anaesthetic as this op is going to take longer than the one on my right hand last year. Although my right ring finger is undoubtedly in a better state than before the op, and the grip in the right hand is slowly returning, I would only term it a qualified success as it has left me with occasional pain when having to grip with my right hand. Hopefully this will improve over time.

Am I nervous? Yes, slightly, as this time I know what to expect, which is not always a good thing. The aftermath will be fun too, as being left handed I will have to rely on my "lesser" and not fully functioning right maw for a couple of weeks. Expect lots of typos as I regale you with all the gory details including pictures of scars ;)
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That Lady Gaga was on Breakfast this morning too. She's a bit daffy is she not? Undoubtedly as popular as she is what with 34 million Facebook followers, I can safely say I have never knowingly heard one of her "tunes", for I am an old fart.
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See See Rider

....which in my case, unaided by a pair of glasses I can from about 20 yards away, and as it's been over two years since I last had my eyes tested, I thought it was about time to have my rheumy peepers checked out. If you're apt to follow popular (mis)conceptions then opticians, along with dentists, are two professions where it is allegedly common to have work done where none is needed, thus generating more income for your white coated practitioner.

Well today Boots Opticians restored a little bit of faith in one of those two professions at least. I was told that my ocular prescription has remained almost unchanged since late 2008, and although I could be asked to get new glasses, the difference I would notice would be so minimal as to make it not worth my while. Marvellous!
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My right ring finger will remain in a cast for this week and possibly for next week too, depending on how much straighter it is by Friday. So far there has been a 10 degree improvement - woohoo! The obvious question folk ask when seeing it is "How did you do that?" Tiring of saying I have Dupuytren's Contracture followed by an explanation of the condition, here are a few differing reasons, some of which I've used...

1. I broke it skiing down our road during the December snow storms.
2. It broke during a frenzied desk top calculator session on 31st January in order to get a client's accounts finished in time. No, really.
3. I broke it after I got my arm stuck behind a radiator while attempting to retrieve a plectrum. I also have burn marks on my arm - do you want to see them?
4. My finger got caught in the cat's collar, and she jumped off the arm of the chair - crack - ouch!
5. Punching a garden gnome.
6. Slapping a Tory MP.
7. I broke it playing Water Polo.
8. It broke while vigorously kneading dough.

Which do you think I've used?
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While writing this I've been listening to current flavour of the month The Boxer Rebellion. Meh.....ok in parts, a bit formless...they can't write a tune...
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Anybody watched BBC1's sci-fi thriller The Outcasts last night? I thought it was quite good and shows some promise. Perhaps the Brits can make serious modern sci fi drama for adults after all? Battlestar Galactica's Jamie Bamber (I keep wanting to call him Jeremy!) was in it as a barking mad military type with the suitably macho name of Mitchell Hoban who leads an expeditionary force to explore the hinterland, and wants to set up a splinter survivalist group away from the prying eyes of President Tate (Liam Cunningham). I say Bamber "was" in it because he's been offed IN THE FIRST EPISODE! Unless there's flashbacks coming, or he plays his son sometime in the future, that's your lot.

Set in 2040, mankind has developed interstellar travel, and the inhabitants of colony planet Carpathia have been there for 10 years, implying that faster than light travel has been around at least since 2030, a mere 19 years away. The fact that technology has advanced to such an extent in such a short space of time is so far the only Dr Who-like techno bollocks leap of faith in the show. OK, we've also got a device called Deep Brain Visualisation that can project your thoughts and memories on screen, but somehow this is more believable than the faster than light bit.

Living in a city of piled Portacabins and dressed in semi-dirty sundry shades of army surplus, our heroes are eking out a fairly joyless existence, and had they washed out the colour a bit more you could indeed have been watching Battlestar Galactica, given the projected level of grimness. The colonists soon hear that the final rescue ship is about to arrive from a nuclear war benighted Earth, and on board is the daughter of head of security Dr Stella Isen (the wonderfully fierce Hermione Norris). Earlier ships have burned up in the atmosphere, and so does this one, cue much wailing and gnashing of teeth. But....there appear to be survivors as we see an escape pod parachuting to ground at the end.

A decent enough start, I'll stick with it.
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I probably won't stick with Sky Living's Bedlam though. At last starting to use some of their obscene profits to make new drama, Sky have come up with this load of supernatural hosreshit. Set in a luxury block of apartments converted from, you've guessed it. an old mental asylum, or "loony bin" as it would have been known, this unpromising piece of real estate is of course haunted by the ghosts of former inmates.

The main characters are a bunch of unlikeable self-obsessed twenty somethings, one of whom (Ryan) is played straight by former warbler Will Young - he must be a thirty something by now surely? The central character Jed (Theo James - nope, me neither) is sent charging around rescuing damsels and guys in distress from ghosties and ghoulies. He is alerted to imminent danger by being sent text messages from the ether, which say things like SAVE KATE SAVE KATE ad infinitum. In the past he's been "in the bin" himself as his ability to see spooks was naturally enough misinterpreted as certifiable madness. He also forgets to wear a shirt most of the time. In a similar state of permanent semi nude is said Kate (Charlotte Salt - ?), Jed's cousin, who even almost shags Will Young at one point.

I digress. If this week's horror movie clichés are anything to go by - malevolent spirits attempting to drown our Katie in the bath, green slime pouring down the walls - it's a clunker! Obviously aimed at the Being Human market it misses by a good few rattles of the chains I can tell you.
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The Pain Recedes ......a bit

Well, the finger is now back in a cast, hand sculpted by Jen, and a magnificent construct it is too! Over the course of the next fortnight the cast will be taken off and replaced twice, and at the end of it my finger will be a straight as it's ever likely to be.

With the help of trusty old friend Nurofen, my back pain is more bearable today. Only two knee buckling spasms on the way to the hospital, instead of one evey 50 yards as was the case yesterday. Whilst hobbling along with a peculiar gait the thought occurs to me that what I could really do with is a walking stick. I've got one of those carbon fibre hill walking jobbies at home, but as it ends in a blunt spike it is rather impractical around the house, as it would leave carpets full of holes. B would not be pleased. No, I need a real "old geezer's" walking stick with a rubber wassname on the end.

After the hospital appointment I limp into town, pondering where does one buy a walking stick? First off I tried Millets the camping equipment shop, as I know I've seen sticks in there before. A trusty pole carved from Appalachian pine might be just the thing. Millets is shut for refurbishment until April. Next up a wander through the market. A long shot I know, and if I had wanted a handbag or some luggage, or my mobile unlocked, or some fruit & veg, I'd have had no problem. Hmmmm... I know! Old peoples clothes shop M&S; they must sell walking sticks surely? Not as far as I could see, and I wasn't about to ask, it's bad enough admitting to myself that I need the bloody thing in the first place. Last chance was old people's cheaper clothes shop BHS. Nope. So I hobbled back to the office, by now in some discomfort, and I now sit here typing this self-pitying nonsense.

If anyone has any sensible suggestions, or indeed silly ones, do tell.....

Feel The Pain

Stress affects different people in different ways.

As you may know, as an accountant, my busiest time of year is December/January when clients finally get round to giving us the info we need to complete their Tax Returns, the online filing deadline being 31st January. As the deadline approaches work gets more and more manic. This year was worse than most as folk don't want to think about the taxman on top of all the other shite the Government are currently landing on us, and so even the more efficient of clients were much later than normal.

Anyway, I always have 1st February off to recover, and usually the stress release factor does not kick in until two or three days later, so at least I can have a day off slobbing about in comfort. Not this time though.

My pressure valve blowing is usually followed by a migraine, which with me are not so bad, and within 24 hours I'm back to normal. In years gone by the release was always muscle seizure in the lower back, which takes a lot longer to get over. I thought I had beaten that particular manifestation with visits to the osteopath having done the trick, but last Friday I noticed a low level pain in the top of my left hip. It went away over the weekend, but on Monday (deadline day) it got slowly more and more intense, to the point that come 5 o'clock I could barely hobble home, getting spasms every so often that almost made me fall over. Last night was hell. I got about 4 hours sleep all told, as every time I had to turn over was bloody agony. Today is a little better, but I can't sit or stand for more than 10 minutes at a time otherwise I get shooting pains down the legs. So far I've resisted taking the as yet untouched elephant strength pain killers I was given when I had my finger operation last November but if tonight is anything like last night the bottle could well be cracked open.

Bloody annoying waste of a day off if you ask me! And there's no way I'll be going to the weekly piss up, err, sorry, pub quiz tonight. Bastard****~~~##

Tomorrow I have a morning hospital appointment with Jen at Hand Therapy (that reads all wrong...) to re-cast my still too wonky finger in a last ditch attempt to straighten it out, and unless I can't move at all I am determined to go. Could be interesting....

B reckons I need more exercise which is probably true, but I am a a lazy git and the idea of "exercise" fills me with....ennui! Having said that, I've got get up and hobble about a bit or I'll seize up completely. Ho-hum.

Bend Me Shape Me (3)

Well, it's now just over three weeks since my operation to correct the Dupuytren's Contracture in my right index finger. After the second visit to the Hand Therapy department of my local hospital when the stitches were removed, I was given exercises to re-mobilise the operated finger. Strangely, after the cast came off my little finger was stiffer than the ring finger, but the exercises soon righted that small problem. I have to wear a thermoplastic moulded splint in bed overnight, and finger splints at intervals during the day to encourage the index finger to straighten out further, as it has been held in a bent position for so long the ligaments memorise the crooked position as normal, and require re-training.

Some before & after pictures...

Before...

After...

Before...

After...

Before

After...

Exercise will hopefully straighten it out even more.

Here's the finger splint...

..and the thermoplastic moulded splint for night wear...



Mmmmm...sexy!


..and finally the minimal scarring, which will reduce in time..

Bend Me shape ME (20

You may wonder at the strange nature of the heading - it's because I am typing this one handed, as part one of straightening out my wonky hands is over, and I intend to leave in all typos caused by being mono-manu for effect.

I was worried the night before my appointment that the operation may have to be cancelled because a bite given me by Molly, The World's Loudest Small Ginger Cat © which resulted in a sore red swelling to my left hand had obviously become infected. Luckily the consultant was not concerned as it was my right hand they were operating on. Penecillin was prescribed. The nurse also told me that the most infectious bite one can get from a common non-venomous animal was not from a cat as I thought, but from another human! I Would add here that Molly's bite was fully deserved as I tried for just a bit too long to remove a clump of matted fur from her during a grooming session. I  should know better after 14 years!

Apart from the seemingly interminable three and a half hour wait to be discharged, the whole thing went wonderfully well. The operation, under a local anaesthetic, was supervised by a consultant and his chief nurse and they distracted me from the cutting and splicing being done to my right hand by the surgeon and his assistant by talking about music and beer! The nurse, who I hAd met before and discovered back then that she had a liking for real ale, turned out to be a bit of a rock music fan too so we chatted about all things music, including Lemmy's incongruous appearance in beer ads, which the consultant found on his mobile for me.

MUSIC of my choice from her iPhone was played during the op, and it was quite surreal listening to Communication Breakdown while discussing the benefits of beer brewed in Oakham, all the while being lied flat on my back and vaguely feeling some tugging and manipulation of my right maw. As well as the local anaesthetic, a tourniquet is put round the arm to stem the flow of claret while the op is in progress. The op took half an hour, and when they removed the tourniquet there followed the most intense bout of paresthesia 9really getting into this medical malarkey now!) I've ever had - that's pins and needles to us laypeople. It felk like my hand would explode when touched, but it was also quite pleasurable after a strange fashion.

Club hand!

They gave me some strong painkillers to take, which as yet I've not touched. I figure I can put up with an intense ache without horse tranquilisers (co-codamol).

The cast stays on for about a week. I can already feel the improvement in the mobility of my right ring finger, even restricted as it is in the cast. I'm looking forward to seeing the results of the NHS handiwork.

Not too many typosa (sic) considering.....

Bend Me Shape Me

Old people often like to meet up to discuss their medical ailments and compare operation scars, and it seems I must be of that ilk as I am about to share with you what I trust will be a straightforward medical procedure I am about to undergo. Mind you I can't be as old as my mate Phill, you should see the stuff he shares with the world!

In two and a half weeks time I am booked in to the Day Surgery Unit of my local hospital to have my right ring finger unbent. I suffer from a rather lovely condition called Dupuytren's disease, which runs in families. My uncle had a similar op a few years back.
The condition entails that over the course of time fibrous tissue forms under the skin of the hand causing a finger or fingers to curl up. You may recall Thatcher had an op for her "claw" some years back. The thought that I share a condition with our ex-dictator does not fill me with happiness I must say.
Although not painful it can become inconvenient - you catch your bendy finger on things, you drop change you are given, etc. I first saw my doc about this around five or six years ago, and I was told not to bother going on the waiting list, as it was not an essential or urgent operation and I could be waiting for years. Earlier this year, after the condition had slowly worsened over time, I revisited the surgery and saw a different doctor, and lo and behold I get a slot only three months later. I get the impression the first doctor was fobbing me off as he considered my potential op a waste of NHS time when far more needy cases awaited treatment. This is of course conjecture, but if true I suppose he had a point, but then again I always found this particular practitioner a supercilious so and so.

Anyway, I digress. I have this problem in both hands, and it is far worse, although weirdly, less immediately obvious, in my left hand than my right. Due to the nature of my work, and the fact that our heaviest workload is from December to the end of January, and being left handed, I opted for the right hand being seen to first, with an expected recovery time of a fortnight. The left hand will have to wait until February next year, as the recovery time will be longer and it is my writing hand.

Warning for the squeamish - I fully intend to post "before & after" photos, but I will warn you in advance! Oh, and expect my hit and miss syntax and spelling to deteriorate as I give you updates soon after the op via one handed typing...

Wish me luck.....

PS - Any tips on dressing one handed gratefully accepted..

Trains, Safe Music, and Crooked Digits

Back in February I regaled you with a tale of woe involving non-appearance of trains at Watford Junction. Complaints were made, a full refund ensued. Earlier this month amazingly we were on the only SNCF cross-country TGV to be delayed, EVER! At least that's the impression given by our embarrassed hosts.
I'm beginning to think we're jinxed. Said train arrived over an hour late at its destination, and SNCF employees handed us all complaint forms when we got off. Now you may think with their spotless reputation where punctuality is concerned, that the refund offered would be 100%, no questions asked. Nope, it's a measly 25% for a delay of between 1 and 2 hours. At least UK reparation is of a better class than our French counterparts. It's now over 3 weeks since the form went in and we have yet to hear anything, we'll see what transpires.

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I love Spotify, it's a great idea, but have you ever tried their Radio tab? One of the genres is Alternative, right up my alley methinks. After putting up with it for an hour or so it turns out to be about as alternative as lunch at The Reform Club. Think I'll try the Jazz tab....good start with Ray Charles and Natalie Cole duetting on Fever. Just right for the hot day we were having when I wrote this.

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What a fine thing the NHS is - not only do they provide a wonderful service under increasingly trying circumstances, but some of their female nurses quaff Real Ale.

I found this out today from Lynn who did the tests on my claw-like hands with a view to straightening them out. One finger will be a local anaesthetic job, but the more serious one may involve a general, with my arm having to be put in a sling thereafter for up to 8 weeks! God I wish I was 20 again.......at least I'll be able to wave my scarred maws at Phil and make him queasy.