Two weeks post op and I am off to my follow up appointment- things are going well and I have been progressing nicely. I have been giving my arm a good push five times a day with an umbrella; I am determined to progress.

Last week when I went to see the physio she told me that she had spoken to the Lovely Mr F and that I should expect him to put a negative slant on the op.

‘I am disappointed’, is the Lovely Mr F’s opening line. ‘And I spoke to the physio and she is disappointed too’.

‘Well I am not’ I retorted. I have been thinking about this since the operation. When I first made contact with the Lovely Mr F from the hospital in France I was desperate. I had been indiscriminately been hit on the slopes by a young reckless skier and seen by a senior french consultant who told me that my fracture was too severe for him to cope with. My GP put me in contact with the Lovely Mr F whose first words to me were ‘ That skier did a good job on you, its bad and I don’t quite know what I can do, but I am going to try to repair the joint’.

The repair is amazing – I can’t quite believe how well the first operation went. Nor can I believe that I am lucky enough to be able to write, take my earrings out, do up my shoe laces, use the mouse on the computer, put on mascara.  It was months before I could do those things. Ok, So I struggle with clothes still, putting my hair in a pony tail, laying down on my right side and so on but so what.

‘Have you got an umbrella and I will show you how much I can stretch’, I say. The lovely Mr F doesn’t hesitate, ‘ here, use a leg’ he says as he hands me one of those models that doctors use to explain your anatomy to you. I take the leg and proudly show him my movement.

‘You are the perfect patient,’ he says and I glow quietly inside. ‘You really are the perfect patient because you are glass half full’. It is true, I am an optimist and whilst my optimism has been thoroughly tested it remains intact, and it is has helped me get through the last 18 months.

I could go on to say how difficult he found it getting in the joint with the camera because of the scar tissue, how he couldn’t manipulate the arm fully under anaesthetic and just how much scarring from the initial trauma and then ( in his words) some brute shoving a load of metal in me there was but what’s the point?

In case you are interested here’s the photos;

This is before where you can see all the debris and scarring.

And this is the nice clean joint afterwards. Clean, but still very stiff.

The Lovely Mr F goes on to explain that there is nothing more that can be done for me and he doesn’t  need to see me again. I knew I was getting to the end of this journey but I didn’t know that it would be today – I thought I might have one more consultation so I was a little unprepared. I thank him, shake his hand and say goodbye.

‘Go skiing,’ he says and I reply that I will. ‘ Send me a postcard when you get there.’ I most certainly will.

I walk out of the door slightly discombobulated and feeling released, relieved. I can put this chapter behind me and live my life.

The end of seeing the Lovely Mr F also seems an appropriate time to bring to a quiet close this blog. For me, writing this has been like therapy, it has been a place I can bare my soul and say how I am really feeling about what has happened, but now is the time to finally move on, the end.

And remember, painful endings are often new beginnings in disguise. 🙂