Nice Photos.

Sniper,you're so human...!

As ever, click on the pic to find out more and to see in better quality:

A lake in the new neighbourhood..

Not my handy-work, but it is taken of my right knee while I was "out" on the operating table!

ATB from George

Dear Debs,

I hope that they don't need re-torquing every twelve months. Ouch!

I think they were pressed in, and screwed up to fit! And yes it sometimes still aches like mad. This is apparently normal! Indeed, a healthy sign as the bone heals again. This is something that can last [in the healing stage] for another six to eight month [based on current progress], and the aching may well never entirely go. This is one reason why the eventual settlement is more likely to be months rather than weeks away. So the long term prognosis can be worked out more accurately. The risk is osteo-artthritis in the knee joint, and that can still go wrong, big style. Statistics seem to indicate that even successful operations like this is so far, can lead to a forty per cent raised risk of arthritis at ten years.

But knowing the aching is normal means that I can face it off with stoicism. If it were not normal, it would be worrying!

I think that screws are Titanium, and I do wonder if that would be picked up on a metal detector at an air-port. 

Best wishes from Goegre

Hi George,

You should do well long term. I've seen the original pre-op x-ray on your Carlton thread and, in one sense, you appear to have been lucky that the fracture doesn't appear to involve the articular surface of the tibia.This makes it less likely you'll develop premature osteoarthritis as a result of the fracture. You have avulsed the anterior tibial spine to which the anterior cruciate ligament is attached but this has been nicely reduced by your surgeon and should heal with no complication.

The aching should improve over the next few months. 

ATB

Steve

Dear Steve,

The surgeon was such a nice man. He waited for me to come out of unconsciousness - it being his last op that day - and told me the op was a complete success! He told me that given the good start, I MUST DO EXACTLY what I was told, so that the long term could be good. I don't suppose many surgeons do that even on the last op of the day! As I came round I was in such agony that before I was with it, It was fighting my way off the trolley! A great big orderly was holding me down and begging me to wake up and get a grip! Of course the recovery room is a strange place that I had never seen before, and so I was totally disorienteated. For a few seconds I was totally panicked, but the surgeon was at the foot of the bed, and reassured me. 

Who says the NHS is not a blessing? Not me for sure. It may be bearocratic, but is populated by some of the best people in society.

It is my hope that in essense it is never broken down, and privatised. In that sitauation, this experience would probably have ruined me.

ATB from George

Lovely Sandy - where is it?

K

Click on the pic to find out more...

And again:

Thanks Kevin

It's Garibaldi lake near Whistler,BC Canada...

Sandy

Ah! Thought it was vaguely familiar. I spent many, many happy days in BC (esp Vancouver, Victoria and Whistler) back in the early 1990s...

Sorry for responding off topic but my comment hardly justifies a new thread. George, your NHS comment reminded me of the opening ceremonies for the Olympic games which was likely incomprehensible to many Americans watching. The salute to the NHS had to be shock to a country struggling to come to terms with ObamaCare. I thought the salute a potentially great advert for the President but then I concluded it probably went right over the heads of most of my friends watching.

A few with the infrared filter.