Sunday, 26 April 2009
Thursday, 16 April 2009
Time flies when you're having fun.......!?
I'm not sure where this week went. One moment it was there stretching in front of me and now it's almost over. I seem to have done very little. It's not been helped mind you by the car deciding that it's terminally ill and languishing in the garage. It's been grumpy for a while now but appears to have decided that enough is enough, and that we must aquire another. I like shopping but would prefer that it wasn't for a new motor. Emily's camera is also broken and as you can imagine she is somewhat bereft without it.
We did manage to get out for a good walk this week (for walk read 7 mile hike). Dovedale is a short drive from us and we walked from there up to Milldale, then up and over to Bunster Hill and Ilam. It was, well, invigorating shall we say?
Footbridge over the Dove.
This is the view of Dovedale from Bunster Hill.
Photographs courtesy of Neil Haslewood at www.walkthelakes.co.uk
We did manage to get out for a good walk this week (for walk read 7 mile hike). Dovedale is a short drive from us and we walked from there up to Milldale, then up and over to Bunster Hill and Ilam. It was, well, invigorating shall we say?
Footbridge over the Dove.
This is the view of Dovedale from Bunster Hill.Photographs courtesy of Neil Haslewood at www.walkthelakes.co.uk
Friday, 10 April 2009
Friday, 3 April 2009
Sunday, 29 March 2009
Em's leg surgery
A couple of people have e-mailed me recently about Emily's leg surgery so I thought I'd blog it.
Back at the beginning of the blog I wrote about an embolism that she had in her leg after her first surgery. The clot had to be surgically removed and as she was so tiny quite a bit of damage was done to her femoral artery. The upshot of it was that the leg didn't grow for a while and by the time she began to walk at around 17 months her right leg was obviously shorter and thinner than the left. She was having physio as she was generally a little delayed in her development and it was clear that she had a weakness in her leg that was hindering her mobility. After a referral to orthopaedics we had a 6 monthly checks and the growth in that leg continued to fall short for a while. Eventually it stablised and CT scans showed it to be around 3.5 cm shorter. She wore a raised shoe throughout her childhood and thankfully this minimised the development of scoliosis although she was plagued by hip and leg pain.
Our lovely surgeon suggested a procedure called epiphysiodesis; basically arresting the growth in the 'good' leg to allow the shorter leg to catch up. He kept an eye on her growth via the CT scans and she had bone age x-rays as the timing of the surgery is very important. She had the initial procedure done around her 12th birthday. The surgery involves placing pins (they look like mahoosive Frankenstien bolts on the x-ray) around the growth plates; two crossing the plate above the knee in the femur, two crossing the plate under the knee and a little one at the top of the little leg bone (I have no idea about the proper name of it). Around two years later she was deemed to have equal length legs and the pins were removed. Placing the pins was more painful and intrusive than removing them and recover was slower. She spent some time on crutches, about 3 weeks for the placement and also had physio but she quickly regained the range of movement in her knee although the physio commented that both her legs had global weakness. She has lost a little of her adult height through the procedure but is heading towards 5ft 5 so it is not a noticeable loss.
After many years of having to choose her footwear carefully to cope with the raise she can now wear shoes like those chosen by many teenagers. Even if her dad disapproves!
Back at the beginning of the blog I wrote about an embolism that she had in her leg after her first surgery. The clot had to be surgically removed and as she was so tiny quite a bit of damage was done to her femoral artery. The upshot of it was that the leg didn't grow for a while and by the time she began to walk at around 17 months her right leg was obviously shorter and thinner than the left. She was having physio as she was generally a little delayed in her development and it was clear that she had a weakness in her leg that was hindering her mobility. After a referral to orthopaedics we had a 6 monthly checks and the growth in that leg continued to fall short for a while. Eventually it stablised and CT scans showed it to be around 3.5 cm shorter. She wore a raised shoe throughout her childhood and thankfully this minimised the development of scoliosis although she was plagued by hip and leg pain.
Our lovely surgeon suggested a procedure called epiphysiodesis; basically arresting the growth in the 'good' leg to allow the shorter leg to catch up. He kept an eye on her growth via the CT scans and she had bone age x-rays as the timing of the surgery is very important. She had the initial procedure done around her 12th birthday. The surgery involves placing pins (they look like mahoosive Frankenstien bolts on the x-ray) around the growth plates; two crossing the plate above the knee in the femur, two crossing the plate under the knee and a little one at the top of the little leg bone (I have no idea about the proper name of it). Around two years later she was deemed to have equal length legs and the pins were removed. Placing the pins was more painful and intrusive than removing them and recover was slower. She spent some time on crutches, about 3 weeks for the placement and also had physio but she quickly regained the range of movement in her knee although the physio commented that both her legs had global weakness. She has lost a little of her adult height through the procedure but is heading towards 5ft 5 so it is not a noticeable loss.
After many years of having to choose her footwear carefully to cope with the raise she can now wear shoes like those chosen by many teenagers. Even if her dad disapproves!
Friday, 27 March 2009
Monday, 23 March 2009
A belated Happy Mother's Day and Coming Home Part 2
Happy Mother's Day for yesterday. Hope everyone had a lovely time and that you were well looked after by your children. Thoughts to those who no longer have their mums or their children with them.
The Coming Home Part 2 reminded me of a past Mother's Day. I've been in London over the weekend - quite a change from the norm for me as I don't get away often - on my return yesterday the house was filled with a most fabulous scent. It was the smell of the blue hyacinth sitting on my kitchen windowsill.
The smell brings back memories of a happy Mother's Day in 1994. This was the first Mothering Sunday after having Emily - she had been in hospital for many weeks and had just escaped from PICU on to the general cardiac ward. Her dad had brought down the boys to see us and they had presented me with a cut blue hyacinth for Mother's Day. I'm sure it was probably purchased from the service station on the M6 but it is the thought that counts. The flower lived for an age on the windowsill of my tiny room in the parent's accommodation block, filling the room with its scent and greeting me when I walked in of an evening. The smell reminds me of that time and they are happy memories because she was getting better and I knew by then that I would be bringing her home.
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