Mary, Mary, quite contrary...

As many of you will know, I'm currently off work, as well as off my feet. Yesterday I had a little trip down Memory Lane to the life of an on-call GP of yesteryear... You know, oncall from home 24 hrs a day. Dr Finlay stuff.

Pipes Parkin was away to the Big Smoke this weekend, being organiser-in-chief for the stag weekend of the Great Lorenzo. Mrs P was home alone with Baby Mary, when she noticed a rash at bathtime. One panicked glass test later, Mrs P phoned her local "tame" GP. Me.

I dusted off my thermometer, found my stethoscope and wondered if I had any penicillin handy. Mary was very well in herself, smiling, chatty and very pleased to meet Max, whilst Jeff was gutted to have to stay in the kitchen.

It was an unusual rash so we thought Mary would be better seen by the paediatricians because, being "just a GP" I wasn't completely sure what was going on. Well Mary spent 24 hours in the shiny new RVI with the clever doctors and their blood tests, and we still are not completely sure what's gone on.

I'm fairly certain, though, that Mary is just being contrary - she's got that kind of smile.

Max averts disaster

The hot water has been decidely tepid lately. Thorough investigation revealed that despite Mrs Doubleu using the hairdryer as an emergency personal heating device, the radiators were in fact still working pretty well. It was clear though that at least one part of the combi boiler was not working.

We arranged to get a man in. An appointment was booked. He came. A part was ordered. Time passed. Then the man came again, and went - wrong part. Today he came back with the right part, fixed the boiler and had a self-congratulatory cuppa (strang, mulk, wi twa shuggas - part Geordie, part Glaswegian he was), then he foxtrotted.

I tried to make my lunch but kept being disturbed by Max. I suspected the racket was direct insubordination secondary to having been locked in his room during the plumbing procedure. It could also have been the chorizo I was having for lunch - that can make Max a bit cranky when he thinks Jeff might be ahead of him in the queue.

But no, Max wasn't hassling me. He was miaowing (which is rare) and trying to force way into the cupboard under the stairs. I chased him away a couple of times, but he was persistent, so I opened the cupboard to find water streaming from the boiler.

"And they don't think I'm smart enough to be an outside cat," thought Max as he settled down with his blankie, satisfied with his Lassie-like efforts. Meanwhile lunch was on hold as I tried to get hold of the plumber, again.

Good Session

Mr & Mrs "Pipes" Parkin had me round for tea yesterday... I took the soup: North African spiced butternut and lentil; they rustled up a chicken and bacon risotto; then, just as we had all decided there was no room for pud, DP remembered it was session night.

Hot foot down to The Brandling Villa for trad music. A sturdy old pub "under new management" - usually a phrase that fills me with dread, but on this occasion they seem to be getting it right.

Not only do they tolerate, nay, encourage the session but they have live music regularly, real beer, Hoegaarden, illy coffee, a good menu - and fresh from the extravaganza that was their sausage festival: The Big Pie Weekend is coming soon. 25 kinds of pie, 30 ales & 25 ciders... A recipe for success? I think so.

The session was its usual lively self but of course there was disappointingly no foot-tapping for me at the moment. I think I'm going to need a drum.

That's my mouse

Well the gloves are off, Ladies and Gentlmen.

Max was playing happily with his favourite catnip flavoured mouse (or is it a chinchilla?). First he wrestled with it on the bed, next he cast it onto the floor then practised his pouncing on the landing. He chased it down the stairs and that's where it all went wrong. In his excitement Max forgot that he shares downstairs with a bigger carnivore, nay, an omnivore.

It was not witnessed, but by breakfast the next morning the mouse wasn't damp - it was wringing wet. Wringing wet with what was surely dog saliva. It wasn't even chewed. I suspect Jeff went to sleep with the thing in his mouth, sucking every trace of catnip from the small creature.

Posing the "What's this?" question to Jeff produced the usual pavlovian response: head down, mournful eyes BUT wagging tail. Mrs Doubleu's doing: he knows no-one can stay mad at him for long, and even as he's told off he's wagging his tail for the cuddle that will come after.

Max looked on from the stairs. He was shaking his head in disappointment. The usual refrain:"Why did you have to bring that creature into our house, our home?"

I dried the mouse out. I even flexed and worked it to soften the crusted dog spittle. But the little mouse is no longer Max's favourite. After I'd finished my efforts at restoration he took a few tentative sniffs, turned about in dismay and retreated to his chair, comforting himself by kneading his blankie that Jeff has not yet spoiled.

Jeff hits 50

That's 50 kilos, folks.

Mrs Doubleu has been a bit worried that she couldn't feel his ribs very easily. Then Pipes called Jeff "barrel-shaped." A walk to the vets confirmed he's hit a half-century, up 7kg since August.

This has almost certainly been because he's still been growing, he's now just 16 months, but still - the last thing we want is a fat dog... so the treats will have to be rationed. It appears though, that treats will still have to used, if today's performance is anything to go by.

Mrs Doubleu let Jeff have some off lead time in the snow at the park today. He stayed close for a while but then took off up a steep hill through the trees. Mrs Doubleu chased and rounded a corner to see Jeff homing in on a dog training lesson. Imagine if you will, a dozen dogs, all off-lead, sitting nicely in a line next to their owners facing the class leader. Imagine 50 kilos of Bernese Mountain Dog excitedly bouncing into the group then licking, nuzzling and jumping on these dogs. Order vanished, chaos ensued.

The last the class saw of Jeff was Mrs Doubleu persuing him down the hill again after he'd spotted another group of dogs to harass / greet. For that class, I think Jeff will be forever used as an example of how not to behave.

Modified Brostrom (3)

Well it wasn't quite the "Eureka!" moment I'd hoped for. But I am now in my walking cast a.k.a. the moon boot.

The nurse in the plaster room with a BMI of >50 took off my fibreglass cast. One minute - my foot and ankle, indeed up to my midshin was secure in the cast, the next it was nestled safely in her warmth (cleavage? abdominal folds?) as she worked with her electric saw. Then - free! but feeling decidely vulnerable.

Friends had informed me that my lower leg would be: thin like a sparrow's and/or pale like a corpse's and/or scaly like a lizard's and/or withered like a crone's and/or very hairy like a werewolf. Thankfully none of the above was true. It is slightly thinner than the left at the moment with some minor dry skin. Nothing to get too excited about.

The orthopaedic registrar who saw me today was more of a grunter than a talker, but the scar looks very neat and my ankle didn't flop around in the breeze, so I'll forgive his poverty of speech for now. Still gotta keep the crutches for now though, but I am allowed to gradually start to put some weight through my right foot when its in the moon boot.

Modified Brostrom (2)

Last time I did my ankle, 8 years ago, I had private physio for 3 months and was treated a little like a walking wallet. She did however strap my ankle in a weird fashion with flesh coloured tape and thus give me the confidence to still go scuba-diving in the Egypt. In fact a week of finning around the Red Sea seemed to achieve more than she ever did and 2 or 3 months later things appeared to be back to normal until...

This time. I decided to go with a private orthopaedic opinion as I had another scuba trip I had to check I was going to be fit for, this time to the Great Barrier Reef. The modern waiting room, smart 3 piece suit, natty brogues and carefully matched shirt and tie all inspired confidence but made me consider that I was paying a little too much for this appointment. It was decreed that I would be fit for my scuba trip, road cycling was unlikely to make things much worse, but I did need an MR Arthrogram. I decided my pockets weren't deep enough for a private scan and booked my liveaboard dive trip instead, knowing with a degree of confidence that my NHS scan would take place some time well after I returned from Australia.

In August, the radiologist said my ankle would feel "funny" and when he learnt I was medical, he was certain that I'd want to see the contrast injected into my ankle. He was wrong on both counts: when he injected the additional 8ml of fluid into the ankle that already contained its usual 2ml of synovial fluid it didn't feel funny- it felt like I'd just injured it all over again. The fact I was was watching this on a TV monitor as it happened wasn't interesting, it was nauseating. To add insult to "injury" the staff in the MRI room misheard me and I was subjected to half an hour of earspliting 50s music in a vain attempt to drown out the VERY NOISY scanner as they scanned me every 5 minutes to see where the fluid was leaking from.

I had ruptured my CFL and torn my ATFL, and was listed for an arthroscopy and EUA as a warm-up for a bigger definative op that the surgeon was almost certain I'd need. The "warm-up" anaethesia went well and I can just about remember telling the recovery nurse that I had a "big doggie." Results: Yup, the joint was very unstable and yup, I was starting to get mild arthritis from it slipping about all the time despite my best efforts to compensate. I liked to imagine that when I was anaesthetised my foot was like a freshly landed wild salmon, flopping about and hard to get a good hold of because of my desperately unstable ankle - those anaethesia drugs always give me full-on dreams.

So I was listed for a modified Brostrom's lateral ankle reconstruction and finally had this just after New Year 2010. This all seemed to go smoothly and apparently I'm likely to be back to premiership foootball in 6 months. Post-op recovery was initially swift, out of hospital within 48 hours. I had the initial recuperation period with Paul and Fi as Mrs Doubleu was in Pittsburgh and neither Max nor Jeff was deemed responsible enough to look after me. Jeff dog was boarded out with Anne, and Max left with a suitably large pile of food. I was very well looked after: my nails were painted by Freya and my lego skills encouraged by Dylan. The fact I was immobile and therefore a "captive playmate" all the better as far as they were concerned.

There followed 6 weeks of complete non-weight bearing on my right foot. So I've really just about had it with crutches.

Seriously, I go back to clinic this morning and I'm expecting to get the cast off, be fitted with a walking cast. I'm hoping to throw away my crutches in what I'm imagining will be a scene of almost biblical fervour, hallelujah and salvation.

To be continued...

Modified Brostrom (1)

I've just about had it with crutches.

Don't ever take your ankles for granted. Seriously, you rely on them more than you realise: walking, running, cycling, swimming, climbing, and snowboarding. Believe me, even taking a cup of tea from one room to another is a major undertaking on axilla crutches (tip: flask and backpack).

No doubt many of you are aware of the ongoing saga of my right ankle. Sprained often in childhood, once badly playing squash 8 years ago, and then properly knackered in November 2008 on a midweek Beamish Oddsox mountain bike night-ride.

Instant nausea at the time of the injury (embarrassingly but luckily only 200m into the ride) gave me a clue this was a more substantial injury. After a couple of hours of rest, ice, and elevation, I struggled to remove the mud-caked gore-tex sock. And as soon as I did, my ankle visibly swelled to the size of a melon in front of my eyes. "Yikes!" I thought.

Mrs Doubleu was preparing a presentation for work the following morning and thus not best pleased at my request for a lift to A&E. Needless to say, said A&E was full of Mrs Doubleu's least favourite patient demographic: drunken, vomiting, teenage girls. Despite the retching, Mrs Doubleu admirably soldiered on, preparing her talk on her laptop at a safe distance from the spew, whilst I had X-rays and painkillers.

The X-rays showed "no bony abnormality." I couldn't believe this, given the pain and swelling, so I asked the casualty junior if he could have my films checked by the registrar on duty as I was "a GP and everything". Now in all likelihood, he went for a cup of coffee, then came back and told me they'd been checked and were fine, but hey, I felt better about it all.

So when it didn't settle down, I had physio. I had a week's boarding in Whistler to get through. It did seem perverse though, to be icing the bastard after a morning in the snow. But the thing just didn't settle, no matter how much I tried to convince myself it was slowly getting better. It plateaued by May, by which time I could cycle on the road and pay for it with a day of swelling. Running, climbing, boarding and mountain biking had much steeper payments.

To be continued...

Insomnia

It's 02:09 and despite insufficient sleep the night before last (poor judgement - late coffee) I am awake.

Since then I've survived the limo ride through the relentless snow to the airport, a Quiznos sub and the overnight flight from Pittsburgh via Paris to Newcastle. It helped that once again I was treated like minor royalty, wheeled to the front of every queue and given 3 seats to sprall across for the transatlantic leg. Mrs Doubleu also had 3 seats and sensibly decided to catch some sleep.

I couldn't help myself with the seat back video entertainment system and despite my better judgement watched The Damned United (good), Funny People (so-so), the Invention of Lying (oh-no) and Dexter (episodes exactly where we'd left off - a sign?). So, no sleep there then despite the room to stretch out.

I crashed out almost as soon as we had said our hellos to Max and Jeff. Some amazingly vivid dreams followed, many of which featured sirens, buzzers and bells. Claire's walk with Jeff lasted about an hour longer than planned and yep, she'd spent at least half an hour leaning on the doorbell in the freezing cold. Well if you will go walkies without housekeys...

Anyway what was I saying? You're awake when no-one else is and feel the need to prattle on to the blogosphere... There's an app for that.

App: blogpress.
Diagnosis: jetlag.

Snowmageddon

Well that's what they're calling it over here... 2-3 foot of snow here in central Pittsburgh, PA. - the most for 20 years or so. They've had more in DC - the most for 90 years. Still: snowmageddon? There's nothing like American hyperbole, is there? Having said that, it is a little more impressive than the 1.2cm of snow that regularly grinds the UK to a halt.

Claire has attempted, and failed, to dig her car out with the bread board so its hiking to work for her at the moment... and me, I'm getting cabin fever. Crutches and ice on the sidewalk do not mix. Still, I managed to brave the conditions for bar food and 2 pints of Yuengling last night. I really had to earn that deep fried zuccini.

Ok, so I just looked out the window and its snowing again. Not so good since we're hoping to fly back to Newcastle-upon-Tyne tomorrow. Snow - please just stay away until 6 tomorrow night, then you can dump as much as you'd like.