Day 31

A very quiet day yesterday - I was surprised that the double glazing allowed the curtains to move in the wind and it was markedly colder in the room. Very odd in what must be a relatively modern building. Also the water in the loo was going up and down a little which I think I have seen before in my previous house and is something to do with pressure changes brought about by strong winds.

A bit achy in the right leg this morning but that is, I think, just the muscles protesting at being used in the Physio exercises yesterday and not having been used to do anything much in the last few weeks apart from just sit doing nothing.  When I am allowed to weight bear (hopefully Monday week) I can get that right leg back into walking trim again.

Bit disappointed in the size of
Sunday lunch !

One of the things that has been exercising my mind recently is that at no time I have had discussed with me the 'life cycle' of a broken hip.  Bearing in mind I am at the younger end of the average range of someone who breaks a hip it is clearly not the the same for everyone and I imagine that the older one gets the more life-changing a broken hip can be.  However I can look back and map a life-cycle on to my experiences and perhaps extrapolate that forward as I understand it at the moment.  Perhaps a gant chart who help but I am not sure I could fit one on here so just a bit of verbal:

• Day 1 - break hip
• Day 1 or Day 2 - repair hip
• Day 5 - get out of bed and weight bear on good leg
• Days 5 through 14 - remain on the ward and get more proficient at hopping with a zimmer and learn to use crutches - weekday physio sessions
• Day 14 - transfer from an acute bed to one where you don't require daily care (my experience suggests physio reduces and you are left to your own devices)
• Day 40 (ish) - fracture clinic appointment to assess weight bearing options and range of movement
• After this I am not sure but assume transfer to a longer term rehab with intensive physio but I am not sure what long term means - my current assumption is that once I can prove I can use my (difficult) stairs and can cook, wash, clean, etc. etc. I will be allowed home but will have carers call in for a period of time but there has been no discussion with me about what the short term future holds other than the long term future is good, the short term a bit more challenging.
• I have found this information on the web - some of the services I have enjoyed but others not. I am painfully (no pun intended) aware that the physio side of things in Cliftonville has not been of the regularity I enjoyed when in Abington Ward.

Oh how I wish Northampton General had a document such as this and someone had come and discussed things with me. With acknowledgement to Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals.

To add insult to injury the evening meal was just 10 chips, 2 spring rolls and a Chicken goujon and they were all cold.  Really not good enough.

A lovely visit from Mike P this evening.  Tomorrow we are back to 'normality' after a now normal to me quiet weekend.  The NHS really does seem to be a 5-day-a-week organisation - we get ill or have accidents and get better whether it is a weekend or not so the NHS does, in my opinion, have to move towards a 7-day-a-week organisation sooner rather than later.