Tag: Total Hip Replacement

Vampire DNA at Imperial College and Hip Replacement Update

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

I started watching “A Discovery of Witches” whilst in hospital after my total hip replacement. The other night we started series three. The main protagonists “academics” from Oxford University, also a vampire and a witch, had just gotten back from time walking to Elizabethan London in search of an alchemical text. They want to understand the vampire “blood rage” so obviously they go to Imperial College London to do some research. The TV programme had footage of the main entrance on Exhibition Road and drone views of the South Kensington Campus. The wife and I looked at each other.

There is no getting away from the place. It is everywhere like a rash. Like an antibiotic resistant STI it keeps popping up. Since the COVID days it is often in the news.

The story looks at the so-called vampire DNA of the de Clermont blood line and has quite a lot of London footage so-far including mews shots etc.. I do not look back at my interaction with that institution with fond memories. I am sometimes embarrassed to have been associated. And now it is in a bloody TV programme too!! FFS.

I am now four weeks into the time after hip replacement. I can walk around the house unaided, no crutches. Yesterday we walked the hills of Lannion centre and today my muscles ache. The actual joint pain in the hip is markedly reduced from before. There is enhanced flexibility and it seems that the functionality will continue to improve. There remains some problems with early morning-late nocturnal pain in the sacroiliac joints and where the sacral spine joins the lumbar spine. This kicks in around 5 AM. I am down to only one co-codamol a night taken around 2 AM. If I get up and move around, do some back stretches, I can sleep on a bit. I am sleeping through the night. We go to bed about midnight and I am up 6 – 6:30 AM at the moment.

It is not ideal though is tolerable. I could easily take some more dope – some more codeine. But I don’t think that is a good idea. When I am able to lie on my right hip, the operated one, I may be able to sleep better. The pain goes away within minutes of getting up and moving around. The incentive is not to lounge around like a hippie in bed.

The problem is I am not looking forward to going to bed. I am not looking forward to waking up in the morning. A non-ideal situation. Not sure what to do. I may try some back stretches later today. The pain may not go and I might have to resort to my previous medication which worked before the operation. Too early to tell.

There could be an enhanced vigilance at play. The last time I went to sleep, I woke up with an eight inch scar and a lump of Titanium…that is what happens if you doze off..

Luckily I know that many things do indeed pass. The hip progress seems OK. The sleeping and pre-dawn pains could be better.

On the whole the now is a whole lot better than the before….

Hip Replacement – Three Weeks In

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Last night following the themes of Metatron and Seraphim which have cropped up in my dreams we watched a film “Legion” in which a disappointed God sends his angels down to cleanse the world of humans. In that Michael goes against God’s orders. He chops off his wings. He ends up fighting Gabriel and a human baby is saved from slaughter, to provide hope. The film was OK…the plot was a bit formulaic.

What is clear to me is that in the collective consciousness there is vast speculation and extrapolation for only a very few verses in religious scripture. Humans have invented vast tracks of images and iconography to do with angels, the messengers and perhaps heralds of God. Most of those images are very idealized with virginal female angels and muscular homo-erotic male ones. Angels have caught the imagination. Angels, it seems, are rarely ugly. There are no middle aged men angels partially shaven and with beer guts. Although perhaps wise, angels rarely have advancing age. In modern psychology visions of angels might be treated as psychiatric illness. Though they have been a part of religion and hence historically a cause for war over the centuries.

The notion of angels pervades into modern culture. Highfalutin beings with special powers are popular in the “mind”. Supramundane entities are nevertheless anthropomorphic and made in the more idealised aspects of our physical images. Just as we might make God an old geezer, we might make an angel a pretty hunk with flowing locks and wings.

I am genuinely surprised as to the extent of extrapolation from only a few words in religious text.

Far out…

Back here on earth yesterday I managed to walk for around a kilometre with only one crutch along the seafront up at the coast. Because it was a nice day there were others taking their disabled and spastic relatives out for a spin. There were a few wheelchairs, one of which looked off road. As the lunchtime witching hour passed more locals were wheeling out their disabled. It was a nice day and the sound of the waves a pleasure on the ear.

Overnight I have my first night without getting up for a shit-TV and KitKat break. I am sleeping upstairs and had a cumulative 6-7 hours with only four wake breaks last night.

This morning I have been out in the garden. In a 2 acre garden it is easy to walk far. We inspected the damage done by the wild boars and looked at the repair to the fence which the wife made. The little buggers have not been back since the hunt visited. Maybe some families had boar for tea. I used the leaf blower to clear the oak leaves from the gully by the pond. I was able to re-tension the five strand electric fence, the coypu deterrent. If we keep them at bay the lotus display next spring-summer will be ace. As winter deepens they come to ours for food. I have indoor and outdoor crutches now. One of which is now very muddy.

I have started to think about doing a small plumbing job.

There is some semblance of normality returning. I did a roast chicken dinner on Friday night and today we have lamb chops in a teriyaki marinade.

The scar is healing well. It is a bit itchy but no longer raised. The pain levels during the day are fine. The flexibility is already better. I can pick stuff up off the floor without kneeling…It is pretty weird feeling a hip joint click and not having painful bone on bone grind. It will take a while to become accustomed. I am happy with the progress at three weeks. I can walk unaided around the house when not tired. It is easy to imagine things getting better.

It is hard to know how well I am doing relatively speaking. We had prepared for more difficulty which has probably made things easier.

As usual preparation nearly always pays off…

My normal physiotherapist will probably freak at how far he can stretch my right leg when I see him next week!!

There is a semblance of normality returning…

Total Hip Replacement – 9 Days In.

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

When I was looking into getting this done I found that the available information on line was a mix of promotional advertisement for services, mildly patronising video and that statistical outcome based discussion was sketchy. Urban legend, in other words the ubiquitous they, say that for everyone they know the operation went well and the results were better than before.

I understand that I am at the lower age demographic for osteo-arthritis induced hip replacement and that my disease was more advanced than most. This means that I was probably more handicapped to start with.

The question that always came to my mind was, “who had the first hip replacement and how did they persuade the poor soul to let them loose with the hacksaw?” “Which genius was sufficiently convinced that they could make things better?”

It is pretty clear to see that without operation my decline would have continued and perhaps accelerated. In this sense it could be said that advanced osteo-arthritis is by way of a slow killer. The will to live is gradually ground away like pepper corns in a pepper mill. It is an erosion of body and hence life.

I was ready for the operation.

My dressings are due to be changed tomorrow and thanks to the technical excellence of French medicine so far all seems ok.

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The overall experience at the relatively new private hospital at Plérin has been very good. The cleanliness and general ship shaped and Bristol fashion of the place build confidence. Having experienced several operating theatres I can safely say that the facility there is the best I have been in. The team were very good.

The sense I get is that the whole thing has been a tad over dramatized on-line. But maybe this is testament to the high quality of care I have received. A lot of stuff on-line is old and perhaps historically out of date.

I did not expect to be able to tie my shoe laces in under a week.

I did not expect to be able to open my legs in “box-split” direction as far as I can.

I did not expect to be able to pick things up from the floor…

The weirdest thing is, without doubt, feeling movement and motion in my right hip socket.

The pain levels have been tolerable though modern hospital medicine errs on the side of under medicating. Our GP is of a different view, old-school, and more keen to prescribe pain relief. We have a stocked home pharmacy so to speak. The wife has been very helpful and understanding.

In comparison to when I had fractured my left femoral neck six years ago the experience has been much easier so far.

But nobody has mentioned the difficulty sleeping which I am experiencing. Which for me is perhaps the most difficult part of the recuperation. I have sufficient medication to completely zonk out but I am aware that this comes with constipation and an elevated risk of fall. I have had two nights with two periods of around two hours continuous sleep over the weekend which has been an improvement.  

This is the area I am keen to see improve fast.

It can see the improvements in movement already. I am able to stand and cook stir-fry for around 40 minutes; I can take a shower and on Friday with the aid of crutches I walked around half a kilometre at the local port. Because I have experience from the injury before I have an inkling of time scales.

I can walk around the house with a single crutch. This has confirmed that I am in fact left handed. The amount of stuff I use my left hand for has become so obvious as that is my single crutch hand. I was “trained” to be right handed. But is pretty obvious I am not.

I have walked ten metres without any crutches. So I can see the progression.

I estimate that I could probably drive the car. It is easier getting in and out than before the slice and dice. The advice is not to drive and while I am still a visitor to the “opium den” this is wise. 

Boredom during the waking hours of night is perhaps the most irksome. Luckily shit TV is a good soporific.

All in all I am feeling a whole lot better and am more functional than we had anticipated and planned for. All those preparations have worked out worthwhile and made it easier for us both. It is mildly surprising in a pleasant way.

We shall see how things progress…