Christmas 2018 and the turn of the Year
24th January 2019
Well a lot’s happened since I last wrote, some good, some not so good and some even worse so let’s start at the beginning.
My eldest daughter Amy came to visit a couple of weeks before Christmas, bringing with her, her partner Andy, my granddaughter Milly aged 5 and my newest granddaughter Violet, aged 1. This was the first time Karen and I had met Violet and she’s a little sweetheart, not that I’m biased or anything, but it has to be said that Amy and Andy between them make beautiful children. We had a great 4 days with them which was topped off by Andy taking the opportunity to propose to Amy. She accepted his offer, she’d have been daft not to as he’s a great lad other than being an Arsenal fan, but I knew the surprise for Amy was on its way as Andy had already formally asked me for her hand – he’s old-fashioned like that bless him.
Their long-weekend here was soon over unfortunately and then we were knee-deep in preparing for Christmas.
We spent Christmas at home, no surprise there as me going anywhere is nigh on impossible, but we were joined by our friend, one of my nurses, Cécile and her wife Audre and daughter Chloe for Christmas lunch and evening. Cécile was working over Christmas so they all came on Christmas Eve, Cecile went to work on Christmas morning and we all had a late lunch. Father Christmas brought Chloe a guitar so I got my Telecaster out and we had a little strum while I showed her a few chords, which wasn’t helped by the fact that what we call ‘C’ the French call ‘Do’. We are now planning occasional musical soirees as Audre has gone and got herself a guitar and Cecile is planning to get one soon. Karen plays the piano and somewhere up in the attic we have got a drum kit, so who knows where this will go?
Unfortunately the New Year was blighted by me getting constipated! I know, lots of rich food and all that, but it comes with added problems for me in that there are no pains and symptoms other than the nurses not getting anything out of me for days and days. Now constipation can be very painful, as those readers amongst you who have had it will concur, but I don’t feel the pain where it’s happening (I.e. my guts) if it’s below the level of my injury (my chest) so I had no warning until one night going to bed when I had agonies in my left shoulder and spine and really violent shivers. The pain was all referred pain and it was excruciating. Fortunately I had a few Co-Codamol’s to hand, kindly donated by my Dad some time ago, which shifted it but it has to be said they aren’t the best thing as one of their side-effects is constipation! Fortunately they were only 500/8’s – the weakest available, and as I’ve run out and Dad’s no longer with us any future pain relief will just have to be paracetamol. It was that bad though that I was beginning to show all the signs of autonomic dysreflexia – as I’ve discussed before on these pages – but fortunately a good emptying the next morning did the trick. I’ll not go into any more detail than that to save the blushes of the more genteel amongst you.
So after a few days getting over being bunged up another problem decided to rear it’s ugly head – Marina, one of my nurses, found a bit of redness on my left bum cheek, which she dressed. The next day I had a Stage 1 pressure sore and the day after that a full blown bloody Stage 2 pressure sore!
In the old days these were called bed sores or pressure ulcers and they are not very nice at all, indeed can be very dangerous. Now the internet is a wonderful place and is a marvellous learning tool and sometimes my natural inquisitiveness gets the better of me, as it did about this, but I will not put up any pictures of pressure sores for you because they look horrible. Seriously, please don’t let temptation get you Googling, some of the images I’ve seen are horrendous and having seen what I’ve seen isn’t helping me deal with the problem.
Treatment is mixed – the nurses are using all sorts of magic such as DuoDERM hydrocolloid dressings and gels (creams). Historically my skin has held up very well, in no small part down to the attention Karen pays to protecting my bony bits and the seat cushions I use on my chair. I have two cushions, both of which cost a small fortune – a Jay J3 and a Supracor Contour XS
They work by stimulating blood-flow within the tissues and air flow over the skin to help prevent the breakdown of the blood vessels and skin – have a look at this link for more details https://www.supracor.com/medical/total-pressure-management/
Of course having a pressure sore on my bum means not sitting on it for too long to keep my weight off my sitting bones and as a result this edition of my blog will have to be written over a period of a week or so for fear of exacerbating the rotting of my arse!
31st January 2019
As I said earlier this blog would come in instalments, this now being a week later. My youngest son Michael is coming across from the UK on Sunday next and hopefully his visit will not be impacted by the weather currently being experienced at both ends. The news last night showed Manchester Airport closed due to snow and we’ve had snow for over two weeks now. It all cleared on Sunday during the day but when we woke up on Monday morning it was back again – with a good 4 or 5 inches covering the ground. Karen had left the truck pointing up the drive (the drive is quite steep) and hopefully we’ll be able to get out on Sunday to go and get Mike from Limoges Airport. Last week Karen called the Town Hall and they sent Benoit, the local chap who works for the Commune, out with his shovel to dig us out. Hopefully we won’t need his help again as the weather forecast looks like its going to warm up – relatively speaking.
The snow is lovely to look at – it’s a proper winter wonderland here as I type – but it does bring problems. We had a big fall late in November which broke branches off trees which, in turn, fell on the overhead telephone cables and then sent them tumbling to the ground. Cables still litter the roadsides two months later, waiting to be replaced, but no one is complaining either because they are used to it or, more likely, Orange have re-routed the lines over an alternative run through to villages. 3G and 4G Mobile coverage is generally OK around and about and everyone has a mobile so people get by.
There’s some good news on the bum front – it’s getting better! The new dressings I described earlier are working – whatever’s in them eats all the dead tissue and promotes the growth of new skin. It develops a quite distasteful aroma (it stinks!!!) but my sense of smell isn’t what it was before my accident so I don’t cop for the whiff. We changed the mattress on the bed to a hospital one which is designed to help prevent bed-sores and I’m being much more disciplined about resting on my side during the day and sleeping as much as possible at night on my side. My thanks must go to Karen for all her help with this – I can’t turn myself in bed so she has to get up with me and wrestle me around on to my side and later my back – which means broken nights’ sleep for us both and none of the fun of wrestling in bed like the good old days!! Also when I’m in my chair I try to do the obligatory 10 minutes every hour pressure relief – which basically means leaning as far forward as possible in my chair to take the weight off my sitting bones, again with reminders from Karen that it’s that time again!.
It’s all a pain in the bum – but it all helps prevent/reduce/resolve a very real pan in the bum so it’s just a case of shut up and do it. If nothing else it’s a timely reminder that I can’t afford to get complacent about my physical health – just because I’ve fortunate to date doesn’t mean I can take that for granted.
We’ve got a busy few months in front of us now, with visitors queuing up to come and see us. Son Mikes’ visit is the first of many we are expecting this year. Karen’s brother Pete and sister Jane are coming the week after Mike. Pete is bringing his son Joe with him and they will shoot off to the mountains (le Mont Dore I think) for some skiing and leave Jane here with us for a week, stopping by on their return to pick her up and all jet off back to Manchester. Then Karen’s other sister Ann and her hubby (also Pete) are coming for a long weekend at the end of March, so we’ve lots of great company to look forward to in the immediate future. We will also have to squeeze in a visit from Leighann – Karen’s’ daughter – who was due to come for her birthday a couple of weeks ago but couldn’t because her passport had gone missing. We’re free then for April – at the moment anyway although I think Amy and Andy are thinking about another visit then – and then at the end of May my eldest son John, his wife Laura and our grandchildren Lucas and Thea are visiting for the first time. I can’t wait J but in honesty it is all a lot of extra work for Karen, on top of everything else she has to do on a daily basis as a result of being married to a spaz. Fortunately all our visitors know that coming to see us isn’t the same as coming on holiday – there’s work to be done and it’s all hands to the pump! One of my dearest memories of Amy and Andy’s last visit was of Milly and Violet helping carry firewood in with their Mum and Dad.
As bad as life is for me I can’t forget how difficult it is for Karen. She is always exhausted, through my constant demands, the demands of living in the country and the lack of sleep that again is down to me. When I had my shoulder done this time last year (and how that time has flown!) Karen had 2 months reprieve from the daily grind and it is has been obvious to me for a while now that I need to get some respite for her. We discussed this with Dr Chanson, with a view of me going back to Le Mont (where I did my post-operative rehabilitation last year) for a couple of weeks so that Karen could have a holiday. Unfortunately the Doc told us that Le Mont no longer offer rehab care as they no longer have any physio’s on the staff and that they were now a nursing home for old folks! All is not lost though as there is an old folks home in Auzances which also offers respite care and is all geared up handling people (young or old) with complex needs and Dr Chanson has said it is all very simple to arrange so we just need to figure out when and for how long. I’ll keep you posted on this.
One thing that living like this does give you time for is reading and having always been an avid reader it is a pastime I have taken to voraciously. Our house is full of books – my own collection is quite large but I have the benefit of Karen’s voluminous library – one of the advantages of being married to an English teacher who steadfastly believes in the power of literature. Since we came to France I have taken every opportunity to bury myself in the pages of a book, ranging from Homer (The Iliad) to all the Biggles books, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (although a translation from the original text as I couldn’t manage the old English version), a collection of PG Wodehouse and even a biography of Samuel Beckett. It took me a long time to get through the Beckett book – he was a strange bloke – but I persevered because the actress in Karen adores his plays. We’ve seen Waiting for Godot, Krapps’ Last Tape and End Game in London together and still, for the life of me, I can’t figure him out! It might just be the philistine in me though because I don’t like Shakespeare either. One book I really did enjoy revisiting was Gulliver’s Travels and that led me to wondering if any of you dear readers have an old favourite book you would recommend I read? It can be on anything (fiction or non-fiction) by anyone, if it’s available on Amazon I’ll find it and buy the book or the Kindle edition. If I have a preference it is for personal histories of 20th Century conflict – especially World War 2 and the immediate post-war period such as Korea, the Indo-Pakistan and Arab-Israeli conflicts. Please e-mail any recommendations to me at jem@jembrookes.com
That’s probably enough for now, you’ll be getting bored and my arse will need some pressure relief so I’ll love you and leave you.
Keep warm and stay safe.
Jem