Awfulfix

This is an ad for the cyberleg that I'm currently sporting. I'm not quite sure about the message it's trying to portray. Orthofix - for patients who break their legs fashionably? Buy our products - you'll look like a trend-setting medical professional? Ski more - you'll raise our share price? It was the nurse specialist at St. George's who told me about the coinage 'awfulfix'. As she also referred to the hospital where William gets most of his care as 'Maydie', I'm putting this down to her love of wordplay rather than any reflection on the surgical decision to screw one of the things to my tibia.

The main feature of this space-age piece of robotics is a release-able bolt that turns the whole device into a spring. This should, of course, turn me into an athlete; my cyber-calf a technologically enhanced coil of potential energy. Sadly, when I saw my surgeon yesterday, he decided not to release it, as my bone has been shifting a little again and needs no furher encouragement. So I had to hobble out in my usual state. At least I had my stitches removed - a saga that involved two nurses, a registrar and an artery clamp. And took about twenty minutes. It seems that the sewing was a little unconventional. Short of putting his feet against the wall to gain enough purchase, I'm not quite sure how the reg could have pulled any harder, and when the thread finally came out, I half expected to find a salmon on the end of it.

The plus-side of all of this is that my leg is still fully supported by the device, so I still have the strength to pull an emergency stop, and thus drive legally. Which is a joy. Even though I have spent most of my time behind the wheel stuck in traffic jams either on the way to Tonbridge School or the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. But it's worth it, if only to see the look on people's faces as I get out of the car and reach for my crutches. As my friend Alice pointed out, I couldn't look any more like a benefit scrounger turning up to sign on if I tried. All of which matters very little, compared to the unalloyed pleasure of being able to get around wherever I want to. And if I am delighted about my window of driving opportunity, that is nothing compared to the joy shown by William as we finally loaded him up into his car seat last night to break him out of hospital after his month-long stay. He was squirming so delightedly that he lost complete control of every limb. So it's handy I don't get quite that happy when I get behind the wheel.

The other driving related piece of news is that Mr. BMW driving, highway code ignoring leg-wrecker has pleaded guilty to driving without due care and attention. And received 9 points and a £300 fine. I'm not quite sure what the fine is supposed to prove. In driving offence terms, it's probably pretty harsh, especially given his guilty plea. In any other, more moral light, a £300 fine is a bad joke. Perhaps some words of explanation were offered by the magistrate. Given that I was not invited to the hearing, they could only ever have been irrelevant. However, the positive news is that the various different witness reports clearly seem to have pointed the finger of blame. If I ever get to read them, I might even be able to piece things together myself.

Having sprung William from the Chelsea and Westminster, I was quite lucky to be free of the place myself. Another pin-infection has sprung up, and started to make itself felt, as is usual, at the weekend. With my GP's surgery shut, I thought a quick trip down to A&E at Chelsea whilst William and Sarah were upstairs would leave me furnished with the necessary bottle of antibiotics. Six hours later, with a wristband and hospital number, and after an x-ray, countless blood tests and two lots of intravenous drugs, I finally emerged. It was only due to the now familiar nonchalance of an orthopaedic registrar that I managed to escape a ward admission. Lesson learned - next time my pins look a little worrisome, wait until Monday to sort it out.

So, two more days of half term, and a semblance of normality has returned. William is back, and spending the afternoons rifling through his Thomas DVDs. Sarah's parents, who had once again marvellously stepped into the breach, are off home, and leaving us with a bed to sleep in. And the girls are glad to see their Mum back, and to re-assert their authority. As I walked them to school this morning, the first whiffs of resurging oestrogen could be caught on the morning breeze. How wonderful that the car that sits on the driveway now presents a real opportunity.

Back to School

So, after my ten day convalescence (perhaps a little OTT), I'm back at school, and contemplating how I'm going to achieve the commute tomorrow if the threatened six inches of snow arrive. There is every possibility that I will fail to even manage the steps outside my flat, as they have a nasty habit of icing up under those conditions. I suppose it's either tackling them with some SAXA and a hairdryer tomorrow morning, or stocking up with tins and bottled water tonight. Oddly, one of these options seems noticeably more appealing.

There has been some good news this week. Firstly, Queenie has posted a real comment on the blog, so I feel loved. (Or is it stalked, Queenie?!) Secondly, Mr. BMW has acknowledged his shaky grasp of the highway code in front of a magistrate, and has pleaded guilty to driving without due care and attention. This is good news, as I feel somewhat less silly admitting that I was knocked over, whilst remembering nothing about the circumstances. Apparently, there are plenty of witness statements to suggest that the circumstances included a BMW driver driving like a prat. And now he has agreed. In so many words.

The less positive news is that William is still in hospital. It seems that this infection is really difficult to shift, and the poor boy is now so generally under the weather, that he is picking up new ones as well. All of this means that he is unable to have a new central line fitted, which means that he goes without nutrition, which means that he is less able to fight infection... You see the difficulty. However, and not just because I know that Hope now occasionally reads this blog (I suppose meaning the language can never extend beyond 'PG' any more), I should say that this is not a disaster. These are just infections, and William will get there. It's just quite unpleasant visiting your son and being called upon to hold him down whilst yet another doctor assaults him with a sharp instrument. It's all too easy to consider that modern medicine is still harking back to the mediaeval when your child is having his blood let every day, and your own leg seems to have been fixed by a blacksmith. I tried to make both William and me feel better by buying him a LEGO Percy. An expensive business, guilt.

I am writing this blog whilst at my school desk. I have discovered another use for the blog. To put off writing reports. If there was no other reason to remember why I left teaching in the first place, writing reports would be enough on its own. It is the art of writing a set of 25 paragraphs per class, 23 of which are elaborate ways of saying nothing in different ways, whilst one will praise a child who is motivated anyway, and one will bollock a child who won't care. (There goes the PG rating.) How I've missed it. If only I'd kept the reports I've written for the children of royalty, the rich and the famous. I could have flogged them to the tabloids, paid my tax bill, sold my soul, and all in the certain knowledge that I didn't really have anything earth shattering to say about them either. I probably checked the spelling a little more carefully though. Back to the grundstone.