How tall is yours?

Twenty inches... I can't say I've given much thought to twenty inches before. It's not a measurement that has had much relevance in my life. Recently, however, I've become somewhat obsessed with it; suddenly twenty inches is very important to me.

My wife has found me on several occasions wandering around the house, tape measure in hand,
muttering like a noughties version of Catweazle...

"Tchh! Nothing works... nothings right..."

Do you know how high your toilet seats are? How about the height of your bed? Or the height of your favourite chair in the living room?

Whilst it may appear that I've succumbed to some bizarre form of OCD there is a modicum of sense and reason in my apparent madness.

You see, when I return home after my operation I have to ensure that, for six weeks or so, my knees never get higher than my hips... (I'm not entirely sure that my knees have ever been higher than my hips - I'm just not that kind of bloke!)

Anyway... the point is I have to be careful about how and where I sit. My bed has to be twenty inches high, the chair I sit in has to be twenty inches high and, of course, there will be times, sorry to mention this, when I want to sit on the loo... and guess what? Yep - the toilet has to be twenty inches high. Now that is certainly something I'd never given a moments thought to... ever! Who thinks of this stuff?

Imagine my horror, then, when I discovered that my toilets are painfully short - four inches short of the required standard to be precise! I feel so... so... inadequate! I never realised...

Of course, the NHS being the resourceful organisation that it is has come to my rescue and delivered two of these stylish looking devices to my home along with a seat for me to use whilst washing (the height of luxury I think!)

My nineteen year old daughter and her boyfriend were home from Uni when the delivery arrived.

I wasn't.

By all accounts my daughter was so overwhelmed by the elegance and style of these articles that she wept for quite some time. Her boyfriend seemed to be affected in a similar way!

Strange creatures teenagers!

Gadget Man cometh!

Men and their gadgets eh?

Let's see: I have an iPod, an eReader, a mobile phone, a laptop, a collection of USB pen drives, including one the of the latest 16 gigabyte ones, a desktop computer, an Xbox 360 (with wireless of course), several stereo players dotted around the house, digital photo frame, digital cameras times four (or is it five?), card readers, dozens of memory cards... You get the picture.


Now if all goes well I'm going to be in hospital for roughly six or seven days. So which of my gadgets am I going to take with me? Lets eliminate the obvious no-no's straight off the bat:

The xBox is connected to the TV and sound system so that's out. The desk top computer... too big, too many wires, too many other bits and pieces attached to it (three external drives, a usb hub, the network router, graphics pad and printer).

The stereo players... I've got an iPod.


The laptop? It has been suggested that I could actually carry on working on the day of my admission and if I were to have a local anaesthetic I could be typing away during the operation ( thanks Boss!) and throughout the rest of my stay in hospital. I was planning on using the laptop whilst in hospital to write this blog... I think I'll take a notepad and a pen in with me!


So no laptop, no desktop; therefore no need for the usb pen drives and any of the other associated gubbins.


I can't see me running around the hospital with my camera taking all kinds of pictures for my portfolio so the cameras and memory cards are staying at home.

As for the digital photo frame - well I have photos of my loved ones on my phone so I guess I can manage without the digital photo frame for a while. (Ahhhh what a sweet man!)


What does that leave me with then? Lets see:


My eReader - I currently have about one hundred and twenty books on it - some of which I actually want to read! Battery life is brilliant - I've used it almost every day since I got it in July
and I've re-charged it once... once! And that was only because I wanted to see if the charger worked! Battery life really is measured in weeks. The screen is excellent even in bright sunlight
and it's very easy to use. If you like reading get one!


See http://www.bookeen.com/ebook/ebook-reading-device.aspx (I should be on commission...)


My iPod - It's a one hundred and sixty gig iPod Classic and I love it! I have almost my entire music collection on it along with assorted music videos, podcasts and movies. I'll put some more
movies and TV programmes on it this weekend so I'll have plenty to watch or listen to!


Of course I'll have my mobile with me but I don't think I'll be allowed to use it too much inside the hospital - I'll hop outside every now and then to check for text messages and missed calls but I may be out of touch most of the time!


That's it then - one hundred and twenty books, fifteen thousand music tracks, a hat full of music videos, a dozen or so movies and a phone I probably can't use...

What the hell am I going to do with myself?

X-Rated Pictures

Fascinating things x-rays... you can see all manner of interesting things using x-rays - including my hip bones (now you just knew I was going to mention them didn't you!)

During my pre op assessment I had to have yet another set of x-rays taken just in case anything had changed in the two months since the previous snaps were taken.

On our return from x-ray we were asked to wait in an consulting room until the consultant was ready to see us. The nurse took the x-rays and placed them on the x-ray viewing thingy mounted on the wall over the desk and off she toddles.

Now of course I have to get up and have a butchers at the x-ray hanging there.

"Look" I say knowingly to Lin "That's my leg bone... and that's my hip..."

"Yes Dear." She smiles that certain smile that wives reserve just for their hubbies.

I'm now pointing at the big knobbly bit on the end of my femur (I've got an O level in biology you know!)

"Blimey! I don't like the look of that!"

"Really?" asks Lin "What's wrong with it?"

"Well... It's all... it's all knobbly and... and..."

"That's your good leg dear..."

I carry on with the assessment of my hip x-ray in silence.

It really is fascinating looking at an x-ray of yourself. I found it really hard to associate the picture I was looking at with the bits and pieces inside of me. It's hard to relate the image of that

hip with the thing that has given me so much hassle over the years. It looks relatively harmless. It doesn't seem jagged or rough or even particularly malicious; it's just a bone. Albeit a strange shaped one. It will be interesting to compare this x-ray with one after the op... to see what they've done, you know - to make sure I get my monies worth!

After a few moments of silence a light bulb goes on in my brain...

"Lin! Take a picture... of the x-ray.. it'll be great..."

And bless her she does - out comes the mobile phone with its two mega pixel camera and she

starts snapping away...

"I could show them to your Mum or the kids - it'll be cool! Hey! I could send copies of them to... to... people... Yeah!"

"Sweetheart?" Lin is smiling that smile again.

"Yes Dear?"

"You can't show these pictures to Mum or the kids or anyone else for that matter..."

"But - why not?" I ask.

She walks up to the x-ray and points knowingly at the somewhat opaque image of my todger

resting neatly between my legs.

"Well it's not the kind of picture Mum wants to see is it!"

At which point the door opens - the consultant walks in... along with two female nurses and a startled looking junior doctor.

I'm not entirely sure what they thought - but the nurses were smiling very sweetly.

Do you think it knows...

For the past week now, as I'm psychologically preparing for the op, my hip has been letting me know that it to is not a happy bunny. It has been more than usually twitchy at night as I'm laying in bed. Not the usual 'Ah... Sorry Mate - got to move again' twitch - this is more of a 'You don't think you can get rid of me that easily do you?' sort of twitch.

In fact I think that twitch is no longer a reasonable word to use when describing my right legs nocturnal movements. Hmmm... How about 'flip' or' jump' or 'jerk'? Anyway I digress...

Walking into work this morning my fellow traveller and colleague kindly informed me that I was listing to one side rather more than usual; a fact that hadn't entirely escaped my attention owing to the fact that every time I put my weight onto the right leg it flatly refused to co-operate and informed me so by sticking a red hot ten inch blade into my hip! It's a very expressive hip!

Of course I know that for a while after the op I wont be allowed to cross my legs so to spite me the only position I can sit in now that isn't painful is... yes you guessed... with my legs crossed!

Do you think it knows?

One week to go!

A week from today I'll be sat in my shiny new hospital bed, wearing my freshly starched jim-jams clutching my brand spanking new tooth brush waiting for my fabulous all singing all dancing ceramic hip replacement. The operation is scheduled for the Thursday (2nd October 2008). I'm kind of hoping it will be an early start on 'op day'. Not that I'm keen to go under the surgeon's knife it's just that I want to get it over with A.S.A.P. and get on with the business of recovering.

You see - this has been a long time coming. During my teens I played a lot of football and did a lot of running. Both activities were always followed by periods of excruciating knee pain... (Ahhhh...)

After many visits to various specialists and after enough x-rays of my knee to make me glow in the dark the health profession in all its wisdom decided I was suffering from 'growing pains' and that my knees would eventually settle down all by themselves! We (me and my knees) were not entirely convinced by this diagnosis but went merrily along on our way hoping for better days to come! I continued to play football and would often run the seven miles or so from my home in South Shore Blackpool across town to North Shore to see my then girlfriend so I can't say that my 'knee problem' curtailed any of my activities because it didn't.


It was about ten years later that my dicky knees raised their ugly heads again - (do dicky knees have heads that can be raised?) - I was working as a postman at the time and was finding the morning deliveries more and more troublesome... now some of you that know me may just think it was my aversion to early mornings kicking in - but trust me on this one my 'knees' were really
starting to hurt again.


So off we go again on the jolly NHS trail looking for a diagnosis and treatment to rid me of these pesky knee problems. One doctor decided I was riddled with osteo-arthritis and would more than likely end up in a wheel chair so I might as well stop walking any great distance, get buses or taxis everywhere... he even offered me a walking stick... Now I'm no expert but I think he was a bit of a dick brained platypus! I spent months trying to come to terms with this outlook - I was twenty three for God sake!

I decided to change my GP at this point and registered with a surgery closer to where I lived (I had to reduce my walking after all... ;-) )
My first visit to my new GP was the turning point. Dr Brown came out with something revolutionary, something that no less than six other doctors had completely failed to grasp.
"You had Perthes disease as a child didn't you?"
"Yep... So?"
"I think we need to look at your hips..."

It turns out that the pain I was feeling in my knee was actually my body saying 'I can't make you feel the pain in the place where you are actually hurting i.e. your hip - so I'm going to send the pain signals to your knee...'
Technically its called referred pain. Whatever... Dr Brown - for connecting the dots... Thank You.

This blog is not going to be a pop at the NHS. It's just about a knackered old hip joint that's going to be replaced with a shiny new one. And about my experiences during the whole process. The good things and the bad. Warts and all.

And yes... I am scared... very scared. It is the NHS you know!