The road to recovery has taken a left turn & the end is nowhere to be seen!

At the end of 2017 I wrote about how things have been with my legs & lifestyle changes (End of 2017 & looks like I have more lifestyle changes to come in 2018), well unfortunately not everything has gone to plan as nothing has changed with work/life balance & legs continue to get worse & back onto my stick & unfortunately it has also had a knock on effect in everything else in my life especially cycling.

So at the end of 2018, I finally got to have my long awaited MRI scan after Christmas & in January I got a letter a week after the scan & it was an eye opener & scary too.

A bit of a shock is an understatement, I sure hell did not expect this to be honest. Just expected the same as what was said 30yrs ago with my left leg.

Well I went to see the specialist today, what I was shown has simply put my life in a spin!

Firstly I was shown these images taken from the MRI scan which I took photos of & highlighted the spinal cord.

As you can see the spinal cord has been severely compressed & likely has been for many years. As for the cause, well it turns out to be a shit storm of reasons! Firstly I have narrow channels for the nerves to feed from the spinal cord, thick bone structure but what I was not expecting to be told was the spinal cord is being pressed by the hip socket due to onset of osteoarthritis.

So the prognosis is simple, leave it be & eventually I will loose the use of my legs & possibly more in that area from the waist down as already having symptoms it is not just the legs being affected. Or as highly recommended have an operation to decompress the spinal cord. This will help relieve the pressure on the cord but as made quite clear, it will not undo any damage already been done & could actually do some damage during the procedure. There are risks like all operations but to be honest other than death there is nothing that won't happen anyway if I don't do anything about it.

So within the next 4 to 6 months time I will be having the operation & honestly it is freaking me out a bit but there is not really any other choice. But it's after the operation that's gonna be the test for me, the 2 days in hospital I am fine with, as well as having someone look after me at home for 1-2 weeks. It's the time I have to take off work that is gonna be difficult, I have been told I am to stay off work & take it easy for around 3 months & that includes no cycling & after that period I need to return to work gradually & same goes with cycling.

I have been told after the operation, don't expect the legs to improve, maybe slightly worse but should not be in pain any more. With this & now know I have osteoarthritis, it is clear I will likely not be stick free anymore, tho make a damn good try in being stick free. What it does mean is I have now a constant battle to keep walking & cycling & no end in sight to win this battle.

Make me quite glad I finally got my Wet Room when finished this week as gonna need it but I do know now, the new eBike is needed more than ever!!

Minor blip in my plans....

Around 9 month ago after years of physio & determination, I thought I had finally conquered my disability, getting to full health & be stick free once & for all. Even getting on well with cycling & long rides with no issues after.

Well 3 weeks ago that all went to pot when my knee decided to go on me again after nearly 2 yrs of physio to sort it. It went so much so I was in agony & had to make a visit to the A&E where I eventually came back out on crutches & strong painkillers.

So for the first time in a long time I felt somethings I haven't felt in nearly 2 decades when my leg first went bad, disappointment & despair. It didn't help that the painkillers were making the mind all fuzzy & for the first time since I moved to Essex I wished I was back at Farnham, but not for what you might think. It was the flat I am thinking of, being on ground floor & having a garden is what I am missing at the moment. So I can relax & feel OK with it all as the cats would've had freedom to go in the garden & some where I can recuperate. Now there's nothing wrong with my current flat or it's location. Its the fact its in need of decorating & no garden I can easily get to as I'm on the 1st floor.

After 2 weeks, I finally came off the painkillers & crutches but still using the stick. Seen the GP to get a referral to a specialist as obviously the physio isn't working. And my brain is trying to adjust back to how I was years ago & I'm having issues with this, basically I am getting sick & tired with all this. I just want to get on with how I was doing before the knee went again, I aint as young to re-adjust again like I was 20yrs ago & really need to get this knee sorted.

At the moment I am feeling I wish I never had the damn operation to get me stick free as now going back on them is doing my head in & feel like I've been cruelly teased with a stick free life right now as I am back to how I was almost a decade ago & not know just yet when I be stick free again if at all.

So out of this I do feel I need to focus more on certain things, like everyone else we all have this where we have so many things going around in our heads & sometimes it's too much & need to re-evaluate & decide what is important right now. For me I need to sort my leg, a job & generally get my life back on track. The rest will have to wait or give way to what is more important.

So for now, just watch this space as I dunno how the next few weeks, months or years will pan out. I am hoping to try a short gentle cycle ride in a week or so time to test the waters to see if knee can cope. Then go from there, but most of all try not get stressed as I know that never helps the recovery.

On 2 legs...

For those who been following me for a while know about me being on walking sticks & working on getting off them which I finally did almost 2 weeks back. But some don't know the background to all of this & some have asked questions or not as they feel embarrassed to or not care.

Well for those who do want to know, I thought it is time I put all of the years into 1 blog so it will be easier to just send this blog & let whoever wants to know see it all. So where do I start, well I guess we start right at the beginning & I think we should start with the prequel.

Well, I when I was little I wasn't on sticks, in fact I was full of energy & fully fit.

So as you can see, I was quite fit & a good runner etc. I also started getting into cycling in my teens & bought my first bike with my own savings.

Was a good bike to start with & got me into cycling, even did my first sponsored cycling though on a borrowed bike as this one broke just before the day.

This got my parents to buy me my best bike I have had & still miss it now, the Raleigh Maverick.

And I had many many years of use of this bike with my friend who also had one too. I did get into motorbikes too but I still enjoyed cycling. By the time I was 18, I passed my motorbike tests & got a full license & started getting a strange tingling down my left leg that didn't go away & was the start of the whole event of changes for me.

So now at 19, I am starting to get tingles down my left leg & shooting pains from the hip causing leg to give way. GP didn't have a clue so sent from one specialist after another, X-rays, MRI's, Ultrasounds, etc. Eventually they decided I had a trapped nerve in Hip joint & to free it involved an operation with a 50:50 chance of success, being young I decided to go for it as after all if it failed I was young to adapt & at first after the operation it did work but slowly came back & then had another operation & again was OK & again it came back but worse than ever. 

By this time I was in a good steady job with McDonalds as Dining Host / Party Organiser & doing well with own rented bedsit, having fun as you do in your early 20s. But this leg issue was hampering me at work so I was offered a 3rd & final attempt to sort it. I did go for it as I wanted to get fixed to keep my job; unfortunately it didn't go as planned. The nerve was so damaged from constantly being trapped; it had frayed & snapped when being freed off again. And with nerves, you can't just repair them like a frayed wire so no more could be done. So as of December 1993, I had now become reliant on a walking stick, loads of painkillers 24/7 as I was now in pain like I have never known before. The best way to describe it is like phantom pain when someone loses a limb, where they can feel the pain on the raw nerves as if the limb was still there...

So the next 4yrs, I wasn't working. I was spending 3 days a week at Physio doing pain management, trying to get off the painkillers & get a job. No job offered as to be expected as most saw me unfit to work whilst going to hospital, Conservative Government did though so had to keep looking. Eventually I did get one, Dominos Pizza as the kind Canadian franchise owner was happy to let me try out the job first & kept me as I did better than the others. But it was a short term job as I was going to College for retraining in a Disability College. Which proved quite helpful & into a well paid job for the quite a few years.

So jump a few years, I'm in a well paid job. Got a flat, moved to another flat, got married & divorced, all the usual stuff everyone does but as a disabled person using a walking stick. I kept doing my motorbiking & almost everything else; cycling wasn't in my life anymore & told it wouldn't so bike were sold off. I learnt to be a stubborn person to try everything once to see if I can do it, even if it was done slightly different than a regular person would. But I never let the disability get to me; yes I had my dark moments. Who doesn't? But saw the disability as a challenge, a way to get my creative blood flowing in new ideas to do something that technically I couldn't. From DIY, riding motorbikes & even riding horses.

So all was it should be for me, up until 2005 when I started to get a new pain in left leg & unrelated to the damaged nerve. And again it was yet more tests & just as they thought it was a damaged hip joint, they discovered something on a detailed X-ray to the cause. My bone was turning to jelly, a Bone Cyst. 

So I was booked in fast to get it sorted as it was on the verge of snapping, so no kicking, jumping, falling over, etc in case it snaps. Gave me the heebies thinking about it. But this problem was going to be a blessing to me, for the specialist doing the operation offered me another chance to fix the nerve as it was by the area being operated on. His words were 'things have moved on in the technology & can't make it any worse' so I agreed. Had the op with a few hiccups with recovery so spent 9 days in hospital. But all I can say it was all worthwhile.

Now it was all about healing & rebuilding my leg, partly coz they really went to work on my leg & couldn't move my toes for a month. Physio was hard work & soon started to get leg stronger, pain from damaged nerve had gone but as I was putting more weight on my leg the knee wasn't coping with having to take the weight again. I did try to go stick free in 2009 but didn't work out, was too soon for the knee & actually made it worse.

So I did more physio again & again, at different hospitals as I had moved to Chelmsford, Essex in 2010. But this proved to be the best bit as it was suggested during physio in 2011 to take up cycling again as a low impact exercise as I had no trouble with the exercise machines. So in June I went & bought a 'to work on' bike to suit me when I built it. 

So I rebuilt it, made it to suit me & get me fitter, stronger & slowly become better with my bike which is now known as The Beast.

But still even with cycling, doing events like 30 Days of Biking & sponsored cycled ride in April 2013, I was still on my stick. Knee still gave me agro, so I just kept on pushing the limit just a lil bit at a time. Knowing I will get there...

Well after I moved to Colchester in May, that limit went up! Colchester is definitely a hilly place compared to Chelmsford. And on a heavy Beast with shopping, that sure was a workout which proved to be worthwhile. I didn't go to nearest supermarket to buy my shopping, no I went to the furthest away. This meant pulling a 20+kg weight of shopping on a 25kg bike over the hills, this was hard work but it got easier as my leg & knee improved even more. 

So I decided it was time to go & try working part time, finding a job though was proving unsuccessful. So from August I started doing a couple hours a day working at Re-Cycle, getting bikes ready to be sent to Africa. Also meant I was standing on my feet doing the work & also was cycling 7 miles each way to this place too. This proved to help a lot. I also found myself another bike to ride, a Trek 7300. A lighter bike & definitely up'ed the game for me in cycling. So this is where I decided 2 weeks ago to ditch the stick, I felt ready too & made it public. 

 

Knee felt ready too, though it does grumble a bit when I push the boundaries. But as long as it is holding out & getting stronger, I will stay stick free. I do still use the stick for when carrying heavy shopping, eventually I will do it stick free but til then I ain't gonna be silly about it.

So there you go, a brief run down on me being on sticks. Sorry if it's a bit long to read, but if I included everything it would be a lot longer & I do mean a lot longer. But I hope you now have a better understanding, why each small improvement (trivial to some) I do when cycling means so much to me. Each step forwards is like baby steps, eventually it will be bigger steps. Every time I go out now, I feel strange & recently found out going into a busy shopping centre is stressful due to blinkered shoppers not looking where they are going & me freaking I could be knocked over & set back onto sticks. But so far it has never happened (hopefully never will), I will get used to walking stick free & hopefully before Christmas as if I don't I'll be a nervous wreck. lol

Well thank you for reading, those who follow me on Social Network sites I'll keep boring you with my update. ;-) 

Kidding, I know you're with me on this, for me to succeed. I still get a lump in my throat when I think of where I was & where I am now. Its hard to believe almost 20yrs ago I was told I'd never walk stick free again & definitely never cycle. It shows now how you never know what is around the corner. It's been an interesting journey, not one I would want anyone to take but I know this journey I took has made me a better person for it.

I could keep on, but I will end the story here & thank you for taking the time to read it. TTFN.

2010 Time for changes.....

It is now coming to the end of the 1st month of 2010 and I am thinking this year is going to be another year of change. It’s almost hard to believe that 2 yrs ago today I went in for what felt like a week in Hell when I had my leg op.

In those 2 years, its been a heavy slow slog in rehabilitation to get my leg moving again, getting to walk on the leg & finally walk stick free, which I have achieved 99% of the time. Still have to rely on the stick when carrying what my leg can’t handle & in the past few weeks of snow, definitely not got my balance back just yet. lol

So what’s in store for me in 2010, well cycling is now my next goal to improve my health & fitness, yes I have tried it a few times last year. But my leg & mainly my knee have been giving me grief, more from lack of use in 16 yrs & now aren’t happy they have too. But now I have modified the bicycle for more comfort & better handling, I didn’t like those narrow handlebars. I am ready to go at it again when the weather finally clears those roads.

Next 2 are to move closer to Jules & this year I want it done! I am selling what I can, charity & freecycle stuff too. Decluttering, tidying up loose ends on the DIY & hoping I get a swap or else I have to go private renting. And then get a job, which is going to be the hard one I think! Been off work near on 5 yrs now & qualifications/experience is getting dated & getting closer to 40 this year which I know isn’t much of a big deal, but it seems to be when looking for work.

The other thing that’s going to change is those friendships that have been one sided for far too long time now. I have come to notice that a few so called friends locally haven’t bothered to keep in touch properly or even popped round in the past few yrs & not even seen some of them visit my place since before the op’ even though I have tried to visit them. Yet only hear from them when they need help & advice etc, to me that is far to one sided. I have seen more of my friends across the country more than I have seen any of the ones that live down the road to me and as I am going to move this year, its time to clean up loose ends all round.

So roll on 2010! Another year of change for me & another tattoo too!!!

My new reading glasses, what ya think? Haven't had to wear glasses in 10 yrs

Walking stick free (well almost)

If any of you might have noticed from the status, I'm now starting to walk w/o any use of sticks. Its been 16 months since my operation & a long slow but steady slog to get there. And my partner Jules took a sneak video clip of me during our walk in Highwoods in Colchester. I was taking some pics at the time & enjoying walking w/o a stick even tho I have a folding one hanging on my side in case I need one.



So far so good I havent used it, tho I know there be times where I will as its tiring work!
As for cycling, well gotta work on that one still. I rode my bike once & knee was in pain for weeks. So think I'm gonna be working on the that for a bit before I go to far. But just like my walking, I'm getting there!