::Griffblog::

Tuesday was supposed to be my clinic appointment to measure the bone growth. Last Sunday was the tentative 25mm goal point assuming the bone has grown as planned so the clinic appointment was already late.

What with all that happened over the weekend Tuesday just appeared. The appointment at St Peters was for 2.30pm and so just as we were about to leave the house at 1.15pm the phone rang. It was St Peters cancelling the clinic as the Consultant had just rang in sick!

So I was left in Limbo. If I stop turning the nuts and the bone has grown as planned it will begin to knit. Fine if the leg is the right length, not so good if it’s short. If I continue to turn I risk having the leg too long!

We tried calling our liaison Sister at St Peters on Wed and despite being promised a call-back, none came. called again Thursday and got through. The cancelled clinic has caused turmoil so the best advice they could give me is to turn the nuts twice a day rather than 4 times and I’ll be seen on Tuesday 6th, a full week later and 10 days after I should have stopped turning the nuts.

Apparently the bone rarely grows at the ideal 1mm/day and even if it is longer, the bone is still soft and so can be compressed back a bit, indeed this is often planned as otherwise when it settles and knits you lose a few mm of length.

So now we’re keeping our fingers crossed for Tuesday. Hopefully the bone will have grown well and we can have a date when the lengthening stops and it is all locked off. Then the consolidation/knitting phase can begin.

I’ve always been a vociferous supporter of the NHS and the staff who work within. But last week this was stretched to the very limit by a poor experience at Frimley Park Hospital.

Last Wednesday evening I had a pain begin in my left chest when I took a deep breath. I did the man thing, ignored it, went to bed and hoped it’d go away. When I awoke the next morning the pain was still present.

I tried to book an appointment with my GP but no slots were available. Instead I eventually got a call back mid afternoon from a Doctor at the surgery. Having explained the symptoms he told me I needed to present at A&E as it may be a blood clot. Having recently had an operation I was in the increased risk category apparently.

So off I toddled to A&E at my nearest hospital, Frimley Park and after some tests, an ECG and a chest x-ray it was decided that I needed a lung scan and so would have to stay overnight. I won’t pretend I was delighted but needs must and after 4hrs in A&E I was transferred to the Medical Assessment Unit (MAU). This is a ward with beds for short stay only, no TV’s, bedside lockers or other frills and comforts.

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A huge problem for ilizarov and TSF frame wearers is clothing. Frames on the lower leg are perhaps slightly easier to cater for but troublesome nevertheless and femoral frames, being the largest and most bulky present a quite literally ‘huge’ problem.

As we had prepared long in advance we had purchased a couple of pairs of running shorts, the type with the slits up each side. The inner mesh lining was removed and we were relatively confident that underpants and these shorts would stretch over a frame. That was before I had the frame fitted!

When I awoke to see how big the frame actually was it was clear that we had underestimated the size. I managed to don pants and a pair of shorts with great difficulty and in the meantime Sue hastily modified a pair of shorts by cutting up the side and sewing on snap fasteners.

This made the shorts much easier to fit and so she then moved on to applying the same modification to underpants. No longer did I have to struggle to get them over the frame where they would catch on every nut and bolt!

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For the last few days I’ve been feeling very positive and happy so the contrast with my glum disposition today is all the more obvious.

The infection appears to be improving at least. During the daily pin cleansing and dressing this morning it certainly looks like the infection around the pin is receding which if true is great news but despite this I can’t shake the mildly depressed feeling I have woke with. I’ve been snapping at my wife and daughter. Given all they have done and are doing for me these are the last people I should be arguing with!

Part of it is possibly my first appointment with the Physio tomorrow. Although it is just an assessment I’m worried that they will mark my inability to raise my ‘bad’ leg onto a stool or into bed as poor progress. It’s difficult to know what I ought to be able to achieve by now but this is the one thing that means I am still heavily reliant on others for. If I want to get off the settee I need help to move my leg as I do when I sit down and the same applies for getting into/out of bed.

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Medical professionals will tell you that infections are not ‘if’ but when with ilizarov and TSF frames. The bone/skin interface of the protruding pins is a haven for bugs and they can take hold very quickly as a result.

So with little pomp I presented myself at my GP’s Surgery last week. A pin site had become increasingly sore and inflamed over a few days and the skin surrounding it had begin to break down.

Sure enough my GP agreed that it is almost certainly infected. A swab was taken for testing but hard lumps under the skin are an indication that a possible abscess had already formed. The pin wire goes right through my leg from front to back and both ends are infected, one minor, one bad. And so I am now on a course of very strong antibiotics.

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