*#*!@#*!!!!

As I read the description of this blog under the title, I realise that it is no longer accurate. I am no longer really contemplating my navel, and I am no longer slave to a piece of medical technology. Fortunately, all shall be rectified, as I am going back to St. George's next week to have another frame fitted. Joy. My surgeon's appointment yesterday did not, you may imagine, go to plan. In fact, it wasn't even an appointment with my surgeon, as he seemed to be keeping his head down, and relayed the good news via his colleague, whilst he sat in an office ten yards away from me. Which news, given the fact that I had no x-ray, and that the desicion was clearly based on my examination four weeks ago, could have been delivered a month sooner. Or even by phone. I guess that consideration and a bedside manner only come with the BUPA package.

Still, the good news is that the plan is not to use another Ilizarov frame, but to opt for something a little less intrusive. My web research has turned up the likelihood of this being something like an 'Orthofix' rod. Doubtless I shall be proved wrong in this assumption, but these are assumptions that you have to make in the vacuum left by an Orthopaedic surgeon who is too busy to talk you through it himself. At least I got some straight answers from his colleague as to how long it's likely to be before I can wear trousers and a pair of shoes again. And the answer is - three months at the most optimistic. So that's Madam Butterfly and Glyndebourne out of the window. And my career is therefore starting to look a little shaky on its foundations. In order to make a comeback, it's generally assumed that you have already established a career. I'm not sure where I stand, given that I was still very much in the business of trying to establish it. The answer may have to lie in a hair transplant and some healthy fiction regarding my date of birth. Anyway, whilst thoroughly cheesed off with the whole business, I chose to have my leg temporarily replastered in purple. Wikipedia gives a list of possible connotations here. Take your pick.



Tonbridge seem happy to keep me on though. I present a very useful solution to their temporary staffing difficulties, and so my colleagues have been refreshingly honest in their responses - all of which have been couched in terms of commiserating about my news, whilst being delighted that I'm hanging around. It is, of course, nice to feel wanted. It will be interesting to see what the younger boys make of my exterior metalwork though. If only I were teaching in a primary school, then I could convince them that I was a death robot, and would be looking forward to months of peace and quiet.



I justify banging on about my leg in this blog by the fact that it is the blog's subject, and so establishing a narrative focus is a good thing. However, it does feel a little selfish to be airing concerns about my leg when William is enduring another hospital stay brought about by another life-threatening line infection. He was rushed to Mayday casualty on Monday night, where it took all of the rhetorical powers of Sarah and me to persuade them that it was almost certainly a line infection, and should be treated as such. My opinion of the medical profession is not riding high at the moment. Sarah will doubtless cover the details in her blog, but it was quite alarming this time, as the poor little blighter has been really quiet and listless - not a good sign for William - and has peaked at a temperature of 40c. I was convinced last night that he was on the mend, as he was endlessly quoting Thomas the Tank Engine episodes even as he was drifting off to sleep, but he has been rough again today. He managed to formulate the sentence, 'I want to go home!' yesterday, and he couldn't have found a better way to tug at the heartstrings if he taken a seven year course in cardiac surgery. Except, of course, that such a medical qualification would be unlikely to equip him in any way for an act of sensitivity.