Update following visit to consultant

A very quick and efficient visit to Northampton General this morning mainly thanks to Steph Furniss of CRT who was kind enough to drive me there and back.

I saw the 'head honcho' Mr Northover this morning: 

• The good news is the structure of my hip is very sound
• He thinks I am way ahead in terms of recovery than he would have expected 6 months after the breakage and that I should continue to walk as much as I can
• He could see the difficulty I was experiencing in bending around the joint which he thinks may be due to the big tendon running over the metalwork of the repair and being irritated by it. The options (in about 6 months) will be:

                              o Do nothing because everything is now OK

                              o Remove the metalwork

                              o Replace the hip

                              o Give a couple of steroid injections

• None of this can be contemplated for about another six months at the earliest to give the hip more time to recover on its own
• He said that I am quite unlikely to ever be without some form of very slight disability (e.g. a slight limp)
• There is ‘damage’ associated with ‘anno domini’ which is more pronounced on my right (bad) hip and as ‘expected’

I popped into the ward is was on – ‘Abington’ and by chance spoke to the physio who thinks it will take between 12 and 18 months for me to get back to full fitness.

I feel much more settled now that I understand a bit more of what is going on.

No 2 of an occasional update

Things, sadly, seem to be going downhill at the moment. Lots of pain in the big muscle in the area where the incision was made to fixate my hip.  The NHS physio has finished (I can dress, wash and feed myself) but I continue with my private physio, Liz without whom I would be lost.

Fracture Clinic appointment on Friday 29-April at which I hope they will give me some idea as to what is happening.

Not very pleased at the moment.

No 1 of an occasional update

I have spend the last couple of days staying with my friend Sue in a hotel in Kenilworth (a lovely market town with a great amateur theatre).  Sue is here to play bridge this weekend and we thought we'd meet for a couple of days.  We walked just over 7km (about 4.5 miles) yesterday which is the greatest distance I have walked in a day since breaking my hip.  

I still have a sharp pain sometimes in my groin area which is quite controllable with anti-inflamatories but I don't particularly wish to take drugs.  I see the consultant again on 29-April and recently spoke to his secretary to advise her of this little issue; she said the radiology team will take a close up image of that area!

Recovery is taking so much longer than I imagined but friends say how well I am doing - I see my progress every day so don't see the step changes that others do.