18/07/23 Fall

 I put this in the Walter House residents WhatsApp group his afternoon...

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Uneven pavement warning! After Xxxxx's recent adventure...

Went for a walk this afternoon, intending to do once round the Cathedral and back. Got past all the raised paving slabs on the left side of the road ok (feel I know them all by name by now), then tripped over a slightly raised one near the Recruiting Office. Went straight over forwards, despite the stick in my right hand, with a bit of an anti-clockwise twist and landed hard on the side of my left hip.

The bad one which doesn't have a lot of bone left in it....

Moment of sheer panic...

Two very kind people - middle-aged woman and young Asian man - rushed to my aid and helped me back to my feet. The lady found my left hearing aid, which had been dislodged from my ear. Without her, I would almost certainly not have noticed it had gone and would now be starting a claim on the insurance. No harm done, the hip is intact but a few muscles are complaining and I have a small graze on my little finger. The automatic fall detection on my personal alarm (Careline365, not the McCarthy Stone one) worked and connected me to the call centre while I was still on the ground, which I think is pretty good. I'm being cautious and cancelling my Tuesday boules night in Brentwood for this week.

The moral of this story is to watch out very carefully for those raised paving slabs. There are too many of them and a moment of inattention...

Nevertheless, walking is healthy exercise and good for you. Sometimes.

"Be careful out there."

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Followed by:

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Thanks all for the comments and concern. Some muscle pain on the left side but nothing worse, I think. Moving around rather gingerly and have just taken a couple of ibuprofens.

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Now wondering whether I should contact Orthopaedics at Broomfield - or even my so far unseen new GP - to see if a precautionary X-ray or CT might be advisable... Will see how it feels in the morning.

12/07/23 Still in remission...

 It's been a long time again, but very little of note has been happening. Life in the new place is settling into a steady pattern, we've been out for a few meals and I'm playing regular boules again at Ongar, Epping, and Brentwood where last night I paired up with a Frenchman and we beat another English-French pair 2-1, which makes up for Monday when my side lost by the opposite margin. Haven't been back to Birchanger yet as the drive is now a bit longer than it used to be, but do intend to make it a few times before the season ends.

Had a 'phone consultation with my new consultant today - nothing new in the bloods except a message that I should hydrate a bit more. I'll try, but I'm not good at it. Good news is that the CT of my hip showed no sign of new disease. It's just a matter of waiting for October...

21/06/23 Southend

Went to Southend for a bit of a walk along the front and some lunch. There's only one lunch to have in in Southend so we went to a place we've used several times before for fish & chips. Disaster! Chips so underdone as to be close to raw in the centre. We had to send them back.
Then took the train to the end of the pier. At 1.3 miles long it's too far to walk these days. I thought this photo was worth posting:

And when we got back to the car, we had a parking ticket. For parking outside a marked bay. Well, the markings were so faded as to be near invisible. We have photos and are challenging the ticket...

17/06/23 Anchor

Nothing new of any significance, just some warmer weather and lunch today at the Anchor on the banks of the Crouch. Excellent lunch it was too. I had a fancy mushroom fusili, and the Eton Mess in the photo was Sue's not mine. I had the out-of-focus blueberry cheesecake in the background. All photos by Sue, and taken from a Facebook post.

11/06/23 Marks Hall

 Just some photos from a beautiful day at a favourite place.

080623 Numbers

I now have a collection of five hospital numbers from five different hospitals, and that doesn't include Princess Alexandra or Guy's. I probably have numbers for them as well somewhere in my records, if I didn't shred them when we moved. So a possible total of seven from adult life, eight if we go back far enough to include Poole - that one definitely lost in the mists of time, if I ever had one. Another sign of getting older, I suppose.

08/06/23 Appointment

My appointment at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital came through - October 9th. Rather longer than I'd hoped for but that's the way the NHS is these days. Perhaps I'll get lucky with another cancellation. One slightly worrying thing is that the orthopaedic surgeon I'm seeing has his specialities listed as sarcoma and metastatic disease. I don't have the slightest reason to suppose I have either of those and if a hint of one of them had appeared in that recent CT scan, my unofficial medical adviser has quite rightly pointed out, I would be on a 2-week urgent cancer referral. But the stupid worm of doubt in my mind won't accept that...

Boules at Towe yesterday went quite well - played two, won two on  a very difficult stony "terrain" where a lot of the throws went off at 45 degrees (or worse) on first bounce. Fortunately my partner was a very good shooter, and that's invaluable on such tricky ground.

I was not put into a good mood on arrival, because the car park had been re-decorated, courtesy of some morons and the local foxes:

Also had a copy of the clinic letter from the Springfield orthopaedic surgeon. He says I should continue using a stick and avoid putting any extra load on my left leg. I had worked that out!